Dobrá Tea Korean Nok Cha

Portland Maine is quite well known around town to be full of fine coffee with a roaster right in town and many coffee shops making Starbucks look mediocre. Dobrá Tea is one of only a few places in and around Portland specializing in tea, and thankfully because they're covering that base well. This is my first review of their products.

Dobrá Tea doesn't have any in-house blends of tea because they try hard to keep things to their origins. So for this post, I'll be reviewing their Korean Nok Cha. The first impression it gave me was green in an earthy way. After some further interpretation a round nutty taste is what I found to make the earthy hue. The body of this ties in with these tastes quite well, and can be described as whole, round and buttery. It's so noticeable it almost seems to be a taste, not just a texture.

Dobrá Tea's menu uses the adjective 'oceanic' to tie all these things together. This may not seem what a green-earthy-nutty tea may be, but this is an appropriate word for the taste given. Somehow it has a tone of the ocean if you were a mile or two from it. It could be because these leaves are grown on the coast. It is a solid B (good) in my book and I will certainly have it again.

Teavana Himalayan Majestic

This is a rather expensive tea compared to Teavana's other options, but this is due to it's exotic origins as labeled in it's title. I've often wondered what factors to the producing plants of many drinks in different locations define a region's trends? There will always be too many to bother trying to figure out, so let's just find out what Nepal's black tea is like.

What I thought of first once this tea passed my lips is Darjeeling because this is a full flavored and thin bodied tea, but not like a breakfast tea. (Oolong tea characteristics are usually similar as well). It's flavor is a light floralness but also a musky smoke. It doesn't taste roasted at all though, and makes me think of a an evening tea instead of a brisk morning choice. There is a slight bitterness to it that I enjoy, but this is an incredibly smooth tea too.

An interesting combination of flavors made me grade this a B (good) with little contemplation. I recommend this tea to anyone who enjoys green gunpowder teas because it has a similar relaxing frequency, and if you enjoy the gunpowder's effect, you'll enjoy this as well.