Tea Writings

A blog about tea from the desk of Cecilia Tan
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Today’s Tea: Big Red Robe

May 13, 2009 By: ctan Category: Tea Reviews

Today I brewed some Big Red Robe for myself. I had already had some bottled tea with my lunch, at a Middle Eastern shop near my house called Wrap-Pro. Very delicious shwarma, baba ghanooj, and falafel at this place which is on Mass. Ave. between Porter Square and Harvard Square. (In Cambridge, Massachusetts, for those of you for whom those landmarks mean nothing.)

I deigned to drink a Lipton bottled tea product which had the word “natural” repeated all over it on the label, which told me it was supposed to be Green Tea with Honey flavor, “Natural Flavoring with Other Natural Flavorings.” (No, I have no idea what exactly that last was referring to, only that it was printed on the bottle.) The overwhelming flavor, natural or not, wasn’t of tea, but of honey. That was actually all right, since it was a very pleasant honey flavor, and honey goes very nicely with middle eastern food.

But as a result I didn’t deem myself to have had TEA yet. On returning home to sit down to write for the afternoon, I brewed up a nice hot pot of Big Red Robe or Da Hung Pao. (more…)