Moychay tisane bars: Caucasus blend and Da Hong Pao with Willow Herb

 

the Caucasus herbs blend version

I've reviewed a few of Moychay's tisane bars in the past, including two from a recent set.  They were all really interesting and pleasant.  I wrote notes for one version two months ago and one a few weeks back but I've not collected them into a post, which I will here.  There is more on what is in these (although the one is fully defined here, the ingredients), and a vendor description, links, and pricing, all in this post, or their website tisane section is here.  These cost about $4 for 50 gram bars; not very much, especially for how good they are, and how unique.

It makes you wonder why the tisane / "herb tea" theme isn't something more common in "the West."  I was drinking mixes of tisanes back in the 90s, that just never evolved to be standard commercial products, or at least popular versions of them.  I remember drinking one called "Immuni-tea" blend from a local shop back then; they had health issues on their mind, and were already doing tea puns.  Chrysanthemum and a few others are around in Bangkok, but not so much back in the US.

I've also been using some of a pandan leaf and lemongrass tisane tea bag someone passed on for blending recently, mixing that with inexpensive Jing Mai sheng pu'er and adding a little chrysanthemum.  It works really well for something to brew "grandpa style" and drink while driving, since the tisanes can handle being brewed quite strong, and caffeine level drops out as a concern.  I'm still drinking plenty of caffeine doing that since the quantity I use is crazy; that should be scaled way back when you don't limit brewing time, and I just don't.  I'll often add room temperature or cool water to completely stop brewing, and to dilute it, so in a sense I am limiting brewing time, part of the time.

Back to the one Moychay real tea (oolong) and herb blend, this stood out because I really like their past pressed Da Hong Pao bar (this, but of course it's sold out now), and if I'm remembering right some earlier willow herb was also pleasant.  Any tisane can seem a little odd when you expect it to be like tea, or can give up complexity in relation to "real tea" character, but what I've tried of willow herb was complex and pleasant.  

I'm not sure how this half tea and half tisane blend works out to make sense for people, but then I guess I just did explain how I've been making a variation of that myself, and why results were positive.  Maybe it's as simple as that, that results are pleasant and limiting caffeine drops out as a concern, since the starting point is on the order of half that of tea (but I don't know the actual proportion).

The other Caucasus blend might have been my favorite of the set of a half dozen or so bars they sent.  It tasted like I remember Sleepy Time tasting, but I bet it was slightly better, given how complex and balanced it seemed.  Or maybe not; I'd have to re-try Sleepy Time, since it's been ages since I tried it (that Celestial Seasoning product).

Da Hong Pao and Willow Herb / Ivan Chay Review:

It's nice.  Again if you expect it to be just "real tea" it might seem off, or atypical.  There is a fairly limited astringency edge; not much of that at all.  There's an interesting warm and fruit flavor range, like dried cherry and cocoa.  Typical dark roasted oolong flavor doesn't stand out a lot in relation to those flavors, neither the higher end slight char edge or the warm mineral base.  To be clear DHP tend to not typically taste burned; the roast input usually settles at a lower level, but that does vary.

This is very nice if someone can appreciate that extra flavor complexity and range as a positive experience.  There's a lot going on, what I take to be cherry, cocoa, a mineral layer, and some non-distinct earthiness.  Intensity is fine.  It doesn't have much astringency edge, just a bit of fullness of feel, which is a little thin as regular teas tend to go.  There aren't flaws, beyond interpreting more that could be present as missing.  Tea expresses a broad range of sharp edge feel and taste effects that this lacks.  Even oolongs, which tend to be smooth and round, have a certain type of intensity of some flavor range, typically, an intense floral range, or creaminess, or other scope for more oxidized or roasted versions.  This is closer to how tisanes come across, but in the middle.

Using really hot water might bump intensity and edge a little; I used just off boiling point water, but skipped a step of prewarming a for purpose ceramic mug that comes with an infuser basket, my favorite device for Western style brewing.  Even then it seems like it's suited for a simple and easy to approach tea experience, like that blend of pandan, lemongrass, chrysanthemum, and Jing Mai sheng pu'er I mentioned brewing grandpa style out running errands.  Brewed light or really strong both would be nice, at the cost of this probably not supporting close scrutiny of Gongfu brewing transitions as well as a well above average quality Wuyi Yancha version would.  Not so different than most random Chinatown shop DHP or Shui Xian, in that regard.

It seems suitable to serve as a comfort tea, something to brew when you don't feel like messing around in the morning, or maybe more suited for afternoon break since caffeine level must be low.  For people not touchy about when they ingest lower doses of caffeine it could be an evening tea.  I would expect this to have similar stomach calming property as shu pu'er, since it's also earthy, smooth, and mild.  I never have stomach problems so in a sense I can't really tell for sure.

a second infusion I brewed a little less inky

I don't know about using it for blending; it's already a blend.  I bring that up because it's been interesting experimenting with the other two bars I've already tried that way, which work out to be better without mixing other things with them, but it's still interesting to try.  Someone could mess around adjusting balance by adding a little black tea or shu, but it's fine as it is.  I retried an inexpensive compressed Dian Hong version recently that might be perfect for that, a Yunnan Sourcing "drunk on red" version.  That tea was not a perfect match for my preference for being a bit tart (I hoped it would fade but it didn't drop out later), but that tartness wouldn't show up much mixed with this.

Caucasus Blend Review:

This is what this is:

Ingredients: Oregano, St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), alpine thyme, mint, Epilobium willow-herb, sage, raspberry leaf, rose blossom, hawthorn fruit, rowan berries, rose-hip (Fructus Rosae).

Really nicely balanced!  I think the intended health effect is the thing with this, but it's nice that it holds up to a flavor review as well.  Mint stands out for being mint, but it's well-balanced beyond that.  Warm floral tones and a neutral base joins it.  I'm not going to have a lot more to add to that; it's a complex effect, a lot like chrysanthemum with another 4 or 5 things mixed with it. It's a lot like the Sleepytime mix of herbs, maybe leaning a little to the "Zen" blend from there, or maybe I'm remembering wrong and it was Zen.

And that's it; layers of subtle but complex flavor experience combine nicely. But I'm not going to describe it; it just tastes like mild herbs I'm mostly not familiar with, except the mint, and the way chrysanthemum is similar to one part of it.  Sage is my overall favorite plain tisane, and that's in this, but I can't notice it mixed together like that.  

Something in this gives it a feel not unlike that of shou mei, a bit on the full side.  Related to the overall experiential effect I could drink this every other day forever.  Anyone ordering any kind of teas from Moychay should probably add one of these to their cart, or two, since it's about $4.

As to health effects, that's anyone's guess, but it's probably healthy.  I would love to look into that part, and I will try to [which I didn't, a month later].  

I have retried the tea since and my impression is about the same.  It seems relatively complex and balanced as tisanes go; even for mixing them they often come across as one-dimensional, giving up feel and aftertaste range that add a lot to real tea experience.  I couldn't place it but somehow this comes across as complex.  Maybe it's just that a warm and mellow base, other herbs, some light floral and fruit range tones, and a high note touch of mint all balance.  Or feel could be helping.  I don't think it's just that I want and expect to like it, because that's true of all these bars I tried, and I did like all of them but not as much as this one.  It just works.

Compressed teas and tisanes beyond pu'er

First published in parts by TChing, with the last post of three in sequential order here


This subject is familiar to most related to sheng and shu pu'er; both have long since been pressed into cakes (bings), tuochas (dented ball shapes, kind of), bricks, "dragonballs," coins, and other shapes.  This will focus on scope outside of pu'er, since those are more commonly encountered.

The common understanding is that this form related to ease of transport from condensing the size.  Teas from Yunnan could be shipped across the Tea Horse Road to all sorts of regional destinations, processed to be easier to ship, distribute, and later store (with further reading about the modern forms of that history here).  Same for Hunan brick teas, and at some point the same compression process was also applied to shou mei white tea.

More recently compressed black teas and others have become somewhat fashionable.  Why press these, though?  We're at the stage now where modern packaging solutions can cover a lot of the same functional concerns with the tea still in loose form.  Pu'er needs air contact to ferment (to change over time), and to some extent that could apply to other tea types as well, even though the same storage approach and concerns are most typically only extended to white teas.  Compression isn't essential for aging but it does work well to store teas in that form and it helps moderate level of air contact at a suitable level.

Cakes of other tea types seem cool; that's a good reason.  To a limited extent the reshaping could also change tea character slightly, it seems, so there's a functional aspect.  For other teas "designed" for storage and aging it still makes sense on that first level.  Most recently I've tried two versions of this approach applied to tisanes (herbs and fruit), which I'll cover at the end.


shou mei (white tea), or other white teas pressed in different shapes:  really this form is common enough too, but it can be hard for one person to explore even the considerable list of most standard types.  Those teas can be mild but rich-flavored, including caramel or toffee tones with aging transition, evolving to include dried fruit or spice tones.  This post reviews two versions that seemed relatively standard, one from 2008 and 2012, along with a gong mei (same thing, different leaf grade), and candy-bar style pressed white.  Comparison reviewing four white teas together in that account turned out to be a bad idea; not so many rounds in I was blasted on all that caffeine.

Gong Mei cake, a Dayi / Tae Tea version

candy-bar style compressed white tea

a unconventional white tea cake described as pressed Moonlight White (details here)

Hunan region / Fu brick teas:  these seem kind of standard too, potentially very pleasant, flavorful, and typically relatively inexpensive compressed teas that are distinct in character from sheng and shu pu'er.  I've not experienced enough versions to generalize, but of that limited set I have tried pre-fermentation was either not used or not nearly as evident as in shu, and the teas didn't have the same intensity that younger sheng possess.

Then again I've not really tried new / young enough versions of compressed hei cha to really place starting points, related to typical use of a pre-fermentation step.  This Yi Qing Yuan factory version I reviewed with "yellow flowers" was produced in 2009, and this 2007 Xiang Yi "Hei Cha Zhuan" didn't have that version of mold present in it.  That general fungus category and specific "yellow flowers" input is identified in this reference passage:


...The genus Aspergillus is a group of filamentous fungi consist of more than 250 species, which is the most economically important of the fungal genera.  Many species of Aspergillus are used in biotechnology for the production of various metabolites, such as antibiotics, organic acids, medicines or enzymes, or as agents in many food fermentations. The fungal genus Eurotium, which is the teleomorph of Aspergillus, has been proved to be a rich source of novel bioactive metabolites. 

...species formerly included in the genus Eurotium  [a yellow-flowers related reference] are displayed with their Aspergillus name.. it is considered to be safe under low- and high-osmolarity conditions...


The typical hearsay account is that the various types of fungus are generally good for you rather than potentially harmful, not exactly confirmed in that research article passage but to a limited extent supported by it.

Hunan Fu brick tea with "golden flowers"

shai hong / Yunnan black teas:  now we're talking.  I first ran across a version of those and tasted it without reviewing what it was first two years ago, back in 2017, covered here.  Yunnan black teas / dian hong (or shai hong, a reference to versions of that being sun-dried) can vary quite a bit but the range is nice.

That version reminded me a little of those Hunan brick teas for character, beyond being compressed, for being so mild, and for including pleasant dried fruit, rich sweetness, and other earthy complexity.  I've tried a couple of other compressed Yunnan black teas since and they just vary.  This other version was pleasant, and included a bit of tartness, which can be nice in the right balance.  The two main US pu'er vendors are now producing versions, Yunnan Sourcing and White2Tea, with one of the latter's versions boasting the catchy name of Natural Redhead, and the former's branded "Drunk on Red."  The marketing factor being an input seems to show up in the product names.

This video interview with a Yunnan black tea specialist (conducted by William Osmont of Farmerleaf, a Jing Mai based producer and vendor) sheds light on the processing differences in various types of black teas, it just doesn't get into the factor of pressing those.  One take-away from that matching conventional understanding:  Dian Hong, the conventional Yunnan style black teas, are oven dried, and Shai Hong are sun-dried versions, which are milder in fragrance and said to possess the potential to improve with age.  I've tried the same versions across a broad span of time before (a year or more), and they did seem to gain depth and intensity.

chunk of compressed Shai Hong (sun-dried) Yunnan black tea

compressed oolongs:  I had heard of these long before ever trying one, and did get a chance to in the form of a Moychay (Russian vendor) Da Hong Pao roasted oolong bar.  You could tell it wasn't the refined and subtle style of Wuyi Yancha that leans towards an aromatic liqueur or perfume-like aspect range, more flavor-forward and roasted to include sweet, rich caramel flavors instead, positive in character but limited due to being comprised of relatively broken material.  It worked well for me.

I have no idea if the unusual character in that product is somehow common to other compressed oolongs, if others are as flavor-intense and distinctive as that version was.  Some are probably great and others terrible, and all probably vary in taste and other aspect range; that's how that usually goes.  This looks like an interesting version of one (that I haven't tried), a 2006 pressed Da Hong Pao brick from Wuyi Origin, a well regarded producer who sells directly.

one chunk (square) of the Moychay DHP oolong bar

tangerine or orange peel stuffed shu pu'er or black teas (chen pi):  I don't want to add too much about these versions because they really deserve more background discussion and description than I have space for here.  I've tried shu pu'er and black tea versions (and have a white tea stuffed citrus peel at home yet to try), and the were nice, unique and pleasant.  And supposedly very good for health, bordering on a form of Chinese medical practice input.  I'll leave off at citing a reference to claimed health effects, framed in Traditional Chinese medicine terms.  The tea could have positive effects without that description framework being the most accurate model, or some of the benefits could be valid and accurate even if some others aren't:

Actions: Regulates Qi; adjusts the middle Jiao (acrid lifts the spleen Qi, bitter descends the stomach Qi); dries dampness; resolves phlegm; helps the spleen to transport; relieves the diaphragm; directs Qi downward.

shu pu'er stuffed tangerine (I think; could be a mandarin orange)

compressed tisanes:  a final frontier not everyone even wants to venture into, or would have heard of.  Again I tried two completely different tisane bars from Moychay (they sent me quite a few samples to review last year, and I've even started contributing some review-article content to a their website).  One was compressed fruit that seemed to contain a bit of spice, really far from standard tea in character, but pleasant.

One was a pressed version of willow herb, which also goes by fireweed, and is also called Ivan chay.  This herb is really unique for being able to oxidize, in a way similar to tea (Camellia Sinensis), although the couple of versions I've tried wouldn't get mistaken for tea.  The other was a pressed version of dried fruits, definitely different.  A version I didn't try is made of rose petals and cherry leaves.

If the way it works out similar to "real tea" versions pressing the herbs would only change loose material character a little.  They're not the same as Camellia Sinensis but the wider range of materials input enables a different range of potential.  Any herb, flower, or fruit blend could be combined and pressed that way, in theory.  Or mixes of teas and other inputs, which is a popular theme in Western markets now.  One potential down-side is that there's no current market demand for such a thing (pressed tisanes and blends), since it seems to have just started existing, but in a different sense that only increases the potential.

compressed willow herb bar (aka fireweed or Ivan chay)

compressed fruit bar

I think the compressed tisane theme was more appealing to me because trying the one local shop white tea bar and Moychay Da Hong Pao (roasted oolong) were such positive experiences.  Both of those could be brewed Gongfu style, prepared in a gaiwan using lots of short infusions, or they worked well made Western style, and probably just as well prepared "grandpa style."  That's a reference from a well-known tea blogger to a very common Chinese brewing approach, adding tea into a tea bottle with hot water and drinking it together, unstrained, re-adding water after finishing each round.  I most often use it on road trips, and wrote a post about trying out results on different tea types awhile back.

The fruit tea version would even work well simmered with black tea, perhaps with a bit more spice added, to make a fruit-oriented version of masala chai.  Or these could be added to a thermos and left to brew that way, over any length of time.  That would seem to involve committing a thermos to the practice since cleaning after something that aromatic might be problematic, maybe even if the liner was made of glass or steel.  Tisanes have the potential to be even more flexible than teas to brew, with the exception of tea types that aren't astringent and work well at any infusion strength, versions like shu pu'er or shou mei.


Really there are too many types of tea to get to among standard types as it is, but all of these make for interesting tangents and additional range to explore.

An East Berlin early Cold War tea mystery

Someone contacted me about a tea mystery, about tracking down a childhood tea for an acquaintance of theirs, with the details as follows:


He is seeking a tea he remembers from his childhood in Berlin after the war. It is likely to be Russian, or perhaps, Georgian. He does not know the name or type. It is very, very strong, sort of ‘oily’ but not exactly oily, smokey but not Lapsang. The family housekeeper would bring it from the Russian-held part of Berlin.


So the time frame is late 1940's, with that tea from East Berlin. A Russian tea vendor contact told me what is now being sold as "Russian caravan blend" is a made-up designation, just modern marketing spin, but if it had existed 70 years ago that would be a possibility. A blend including some Lapsang Souchong would account for the limited smokiness. Or tea processing style or preparation methods could be other critical factors.

The "oily" designation may be a clue; not many teas come across in that way, and black teas in general tend not to. Maybe it's a black tea but mixed with an herb, which is not unheard of in Russia. I have willow herb at home, also called "Ivan chay," and it has been described that way, and per recently trying it I could see the connection.

I posted this as a request for more input in a few related online groups.  I'll include a combined review of the best input here.  I'd asked in the International Tea Talk Facebook group that I'm an admin for, in the Gong Fu Cha group, in a St. Petersburg FB expat group, on Quora, and in the Trip Advisor travel forum section, and in a couple of other similar groups.

me with a mural in the St. Petersburg metro system

That last group mentioned might seem a little out of place; tea history isn't travel.  Back when I was asking around about tea in Russia before I went there over the last New Years people active in that group / discussion area were most helpful.  They were a little touchy about people not reading the entire FAQ section too (who does that?), but beyond that very nice and informative.  I'm a fan of Russian culture now, after that trip, and that kind sums up how Russians seem in general:  a little gruff, and plain-spoken, but nice and helpful as could be once you get past all that.



I'm a member of that St. Petersburg expat group for the same reason.  St. Petersburg is fantastic, by the way, almost worth it to visit just to see the metro system and the buildings.

Let's go right to what turned up.

Groups and forums input

One person in the St. Petersburg forum mentioned this great article on the old "elephant" brand Russian commercial tea.  It seems pretty unlikely that's what it was but maybe it could've been.  Per that article it seems more likely that product was developed in the 1960's, with the question about a tea experienced in the late 1940's.

Russian "elephant" tea (credit that reference article page)

I'll cite some of that article, since it's fascinating, if not a likely lead:


Initially, there was only Russian Georgian tea in the USSR . This was a real breakthrough in the industrial industry, and the drink was even exported to other countries, where it became popular... In the seventies the tea industry in the USSR fell, the state suffered losses and began to decide what to do about it. 


Many people, who came to the USSR, sadly remember those times when both "the grass was greener and the sky was cleaner", and the products were of the highest quality, in comparison with them, even the imported ones were useless. But many did not even suspect at the time that they drank tea, collected not in the territory of their beloved homeland, but far beyond its borders. It so happened that the Georgian tea had become unusable, so the USSR concluded a contract for the supply of tea with countries such as Sri Lanka, Kenya, Tanzania, India and Vietnam. With our previous importer, China, which could also supply tea, our state quarreled and therefore did not use its services... Initially, this scam went well, but still "domestic" tea replaced the same Indian tea "with an elephant". 

This tea was distinguished not only by its bright and strong taste, but also by packaging, which was specially developed in 1967, and Indian tea "with an elephant" was sold in 1972... Tea "with an elephant" was divided into higher and first grade... The first grade packaging contained only 15% of tea from India, 5% from Ceylon, 25% from Madagascar, and as many as 55% of sheets from Georgia. 


It's a little rough (automatic translation) but all that seems clear enough.  The earliest time-line isn't really stated but if the earliest date mentioned is the initial origin the products were made since the 1960s.

A link mentioned in the Trip Advisor forum responses shows the modern version of the tea for sale (which had been discontinued at one point), with that person's input that the modern version of the tea didn't seem very good to him.

That Quora question turned up some interesting input, not cited for sourcing, but worth considering:


The three main general kinds of black tea available for the Soviets at that time were: Chinese, Georgian and Azerbaijanian. Of those, the Chinese tea would be the least probable, given the state of matters in China at that time (civil war followed by the Japanese invasion).

The Georgian black tea of lesser quality (it’s highly doubtable that the elite kind would be available to the troops) is described as “smelling like tobacco and having a terrible taste.” The Azerbaijanian tea was quite similar.

As for the herbs, the Russians were often adding all kinds of those to the tea, the main limitations being the fantasy of the cook and the availability of the herbs around. Therefore it would be almost impossible to know what exactly was added back then (if it was). The Ivan Chay, aka Fireweed (US), aka Rosebay Willowherb (UK), was not only used as an additive, but also as a cheap surrogate when the real tea was unavailable.


Another comment (hard to keep track of where) claimed Indian tea was also available in Russia at that time.  Indian and Sri Lankan teas were definitely around then, so it might come down to a matter of what really were "main" imports, per that answer input framing.  That overall import source proportion may not determine if teas from those nationalities really would have been sold in East Berlin then.  It would be impossible to remember a taste from 70 years ago in enough detail to trace that back to a foreign tea style back then, never mind linking it to a blend.  The aim here is to see how far review might be able to get.

dog sledding at 5 PM; it had been night for a couple of hours

I just had black tea mixed with herbs (which ones wasn't described) in a visit to a sled dog camp outside of Murmansk, Russia, back during the last week of 2017.  It was a bit hard to place; it's easier for mixes of different things to be non-distinct.  That was actually made in a samovar too, the only time that came up in the Russia trip.

In kind of a typical theme for me I was taking my daughter to use the restroom when they actually talked about that part, that brewing device, and what teas were typical, and what it was we drank then.  My son just became a Thai novice monk monk recently, and after waiting around for two days of training and build-up my daughter absolutely needed to use the restroom at a few moments before he took the vows (with more on how all that worked out here).  I really don't mind at all; they are the priority, and the rest comes and goes as it will.

samovars brewing tea at the dogsled camp

that tea break, just before they brought out crepes

with tea break company like this the other details don't matter so much

To make a longish story short I reported back to the person posing the question that I thought the tea probably would have been one of three things:


1.  an earlier version of a Russian caravan blend, mixing Lapsang Souchong and other tea versions.

2.  a Georgian or Azerbaijanian black tea.

3.  black tea mixed with willow herb (Ivan Chay) or other tisanes.


It probably never would be possible to narrow down which it was.  It would be possible to try modern Georgian tea, and that tisane, willow herb (with both sold through this Moychay site), and to try out mixing the two.  Maybe something would seem really familiar, a likely match.  I reviewed two Georgian black teas from Moychay here and they just seemed like normal black teas, maybe slightly different in character as teas from different regions or teas processed differently tend to.

Review of willow herb

I bought willow herb in the Perlov shop in Moscow (where I also bought the only Russian tea I found on that trip), and this prompted me to try out that tisane, reviewed as follows.

the exterior of that shop is beautiful

friendly Russian guy who translated tea labels for me there

The "tea" tastes nice rich and malty, just in a different sense than in the two other ways I tend to use malt as a description.  The main way I use that description is for Assam, related to that strong near-mineral flavor range.  A second is for sweeter, richer, smoother teas with a version of malt that reminds me more of Ovaltine.  A mid-roasted rolled oolong can also taste malty (like a Dong Ding), which can be really pronounced in a winter harvest tea version, but it's malt in a different sense, a bit closer to how Ovaltine comes across, or a malted milkshake.

When I first smelled this tea a warm, sweet, complex scent was familiar from long ago:  it smelled like animal feed.  That sounds like an insult, but processed malted grains used as animal feed smell nice.  I won't get too far into details but I raised pigs when I was younger, growing up in rural Western Pennsylvania.  There are more stories about how that went but none that help the context make any more sense than it already does.  It was kind of a normal thing to do there.

I don't know what those feeds were made from, although I must have read the bags back then, around 40 years ago.  I don't know how they were processed in order to smell as sweet and rich as they did, or what was blended with what.  I loved the smells related to that farming activity, and truth be told I loved those animals too, perhaps one main reason I spent nearly 20 years as a vegetarian later in life.

The first taste of the tisane was a little like that, just probably much cleaner, more complex, and more pleasant than it sounds.  Tisanes often come across as really one-dimensional compared to actual tea but this had a good bit of aspect complexity going for it.  The flavor was sweet and rich, mostly related to that malted grain taste.  There was other earthy range that gave it more depth, a strange sort of root-spice complexity, not so far off licorice.  It's almost as much an overlapping interpretation versus being a different aspect but it also tastes like bread dough, that one yeast-like flavor that comes up.  The feel was thick, a bit oily, and the tasting experience ended with more trailing aftertaste than usually occurs with tisanes.


Related to this being drank on its own it's fine, a bit richer and more complex than infused herbs tend to be.  I'd probably rather drink a mid-roasted rolled oolong, which seems closest to this in profile, but those are more complex.  It might work really well combined with black tea, since it is smooth and complex but a bit thin related to that broader aspect range.  It lacks all of the edge that standard black teas typically have, the astringency, and also the flavor range that is more typical of what people call malt when reviewing teas, and the other mineral or fruit range that different black teas can express.

As chance has it someone just gave me what looks like a pretty standard plain Kenyan tea (Williamson Tea "Traditional Afternoon" blend), so I tried it mixed with that.  I tasted that black tea alone first:  it's CTC tea-bag black tea, not great, not awful, not surprising in any way.


The blend of the two was a little unusual.  I'm just not accustomed to drinking black tea mixed with much, although I did buy a floral and Ceylon black tea commercial blend in Russia for the office staff here.  That was ok, those inputs matched.  It didn't help that I don't really love CTC black tea, that malty, mineral-tone, rust-like edge those have.  This mix might've been what he had been drinking as a child but it would take some getting used to.  That's especially if someone had already been on the page of drinking better Chinese black teas, deviating to drink a better orthodox Assam or Ceylon when those come up.


I think I liked the tisane better alone since it didn't run counter to my expectations for black tea in the same way.  That malted grain and licorice range sweetness and flavor depth just seems odd paired up with it.  Towards the end it started to make more sense and I'd bet if I had it a few times I'd like it a lot better.

Back to the search

I drifted just a little further towards tracking down willow herb (Ivan chay) and other Georgian tea options in NYC but didn't get far with that.  I asked about options in a NYC tea group and heard nothing back.  I had tried a reasonable Russian caravan blend from Sun's Organic in the NYC Chinatown but it wasn't really close to that initial flavor description.  It seemed highly unlikely that even a tea based on the same mix of tea type inputs (from the same regions) would be similar when made from modern versions.


I asked around a little about Russian markets in NYC but mail order was probably going to be an easier path to follow, unless the person checking wanted to spend a couple hours on Google search and a half a day walking around that related neighborhood.


Of course Google does turn up options fairly quickly, so it wouldn't take much to try finding that one tisane.  After a few clicks an online option turned up locally (there), associated with a local physical store, and some of the same search options I'd checked in this investigation turned up other promising leads.

As mentioned it really could've just been plain, unusual character Georgian or Azerbaijanian black tea, and it may not be possible to find an identically processed tea version today, 70 years later.  If someone had dried teas indoors using heat from a wood fire back then that could have contributed that smoke aspect, and what might well be seen as updated processing improvements might drop that smoke aspect out.  Ordinary black tea shouldn't seem oily, a plain tea or a blend, so maybe that was from an herb, or it could've just been from a processing flaw, or atypical result.  At one point I considered whether it may have even been a Liu Bao instead (a hei cha, not black tea at all), but I've not been discussing that since I rejected it as unlikely.

If anyone reading this thinks "I know what that probably was" it would be interesting to hear more input, probably best communicated through this blog's related Facebook page.