ineeka

Tea: Himalayan Black
Origin: North East India
Year: ?
Vendor: ineeka
Price: $9.99/14 "Brew-Taches" (35g.)

We started carrying ineeka about three months ago. Its gimmick is their new take on the tea bag, what they are calling a Brew-Tache--a name they've bothered to trade mark, or as Mary put it so well, "an awful lot of money just to reinvent the wheel." Their snazzy tin also helps them get noticed, as I have seen many customers stop to pick it up...then put it back.

My first impressions were skeptical but hopeful. The leaves looked good, and while I don't like tea bags, their uber-bags do appear to leave more room. I boiled about 8 oz of spring water and steeped it for 4 minutes. The liquor was great, a rich burgundy. So far so good.

Then I tasted it. First the good, it wasn't overly bitter or astringent, almost but not quite. If you prefer milk and sugar in your tea, you could make a great cuppa with it. But you can do that with PG Tips and save yourself some cash. Overall nothing in the flavor stood out. It tasted like a generic, Indian black tea; more similar to a Nilgiri than something from the Himalayas, which in the past I have always found comparable to a late harvest Darjeeling.

The main problem for me is the price. The tea isn't that bad, but at $10 for 35g., it needs to be more than not bad. Which is why I rate this tea with a 2 instead of a 3. Tea aficionados wont want to mess with it, and beginners can spend less money on higher quality tea.