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Review of Chicago-based The Simple Leaf's Amor: a black tea from Assam
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The smokey-brown leaves of Amor tea.
Name: Amor
Brand: The Simple Leaf
Type: Black tea, Assam
Form: Loose Leaf
Cost: $3.95 for a one-ounce sampler, quantity discounts available
Review: The Simple Leaf, a Chicago-based tea company, specializes in teas from South Asia. While some of their green and white South Asian teas are indeed unusual, even their more familiar offerings of Assam and Darjeeling are special in some way.
Take Amor, for instance. On one hand, it appears to be a typical Assam, with medium smoky/dark brown leaves and a dry nose of sweet malt. It infuses to a gorgeous deep copper-red, with a wet nose of maple syrup on buckwheat pancakes.
It is in the sipping that one first notices how unique this Assam is. I first noticed that Amor has no rough edges or harsh astringency. It is robust, but remarkably smooth, with its flavor matching the sweet, slightly malty notes of its nose. I normally need milk (and sometimes even sugar) when I drink an Assam, but this tea required neither: I did try it with milk, which accentuated its malty quality, but found that sugar was both unnecessary and determental to Amor's tasty, but quite simple, flavor.
A caveat for Assam-lovers: This is an exceptionally smooth tea. So smooth, you might find yourself missing some of the more "rugged" qualities of bog-standard Assams, particularly if you want a tea that is going to "stand up" to the addition of milk. (You could also try using more leaf.)
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