Review: Africa I

My first review is a bit of a favourite. African teas get a little overlooked in my opinion, even though they are a staple in most Western blends, providing them with much of their strength. For a long time, most Kenyan loose tea that found its way to us here was the product of CTC production (Crush Tear Curl) which which has a granular appearance. This was good but of late we have been seeing many more large leaf teas along with some very unexpected products such as white tea.

This is a Kenyan tea from the Kosabei estate and has become widely available. I’ve been buying it from High Teas for quite a while now, which I’ve long found to be a reliable and very competitively priced store – to be honest, if the tea I want is there, I tend not to look elsewhere as I’m fairly sure it will be the best price. There is a delivery charge but I usually spend between £30 to £40 at a time, so I don’t really feel an impact from that.

As usual for teas like this, I brew it in a little Tea-For-One teapot, using a steel ball infuser for two or three minutes.

This is a very tasty tea, with a lot of flavour, good strength (though being large leaf, not so strong as to need milk), and is full bodied - somewhere between the Assam malty and the Ceylon tippy. It doesn’t seem like a lot to say about a good tea but sometimes you just want to say: delicious! And that is what it is and one of my favourite breakfast teas, in fact, I can’t think of a better tea to start your day with.

At less that £5 for 100g at High Teas, its a great buy – and if you’re worried about postage, at the moment it is £3.45 flat rate. You will easily spend enough at this store to make that worthwhile.

In short: Highly recommended!