Nepal Ilam Estate ~ Crazy Wisdom Tea Room

FBOP.

That is to say, Flowering Broken Orange Pekoe. Ha. I bet you’re getting pretty good at decoding these tea rating codes. ;}

FBOP is what I’d call a lower-refinement tea. Broken leaf is kind of a “chopped up” in-between level between orthodox full loose leaf tea and Cut Tear Curl “minced” tea. Broken OP still maintains a detectable amount of pleasant aroma and flavor and texture but in a way, they’re all of them muted from the full experience of the tea. BOP is good for drinking tea you don’t want to pay too much attention to that’s still quite decent and original. The “F” part, Flowering, just gives it a nearly imperceptible bit more grit and scent. That being said, I don’t myself buy BOP unless I can’t see or smell the tea before i buy it, which was the case here. I probably could have asked the friendly and helpful barista at Ann Arbor’s own Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room and I have little doubt that they’d have been more than happy to accommodate. As it was, I was basically dead on my feet after an exhausting week and running on a major sleep deficit. I doubt very much I would have been able to tell a Keemun from a Rooibos at that point.

What’s nice about Nepal Ilam Estate? I’ve never tried Ilam Estate before. It’s from Nepal. It has terrific russet marigold liquor color. ;) Not the most exciting way to round out Nepal week I know.

1. Aroma – 73
2. Taste – 78
3. Texture – 81
4. Spunk – 80
5. Price – 64
6. Availability – 72
7. Appearance – 86

Mean score – 76% Not bad at all for a BOP.