According to their website, Harney & Sons' Lunar New Year 2005 tea (Year of the Snake) is based on Nian Gao, a delicacy made of caramel, sesame, and coconut that is eaten during the Lunar New Year festival.
Ingredients: Black tea, toasted rice, coconut pieces, sesame seeds, coconut flavor, caramel flavor. Contains natural flavors.
The aroma is fascinating -- a slight hint of burned popcorn (in a good way) and a little bit of brown sugar. As someone who likes the half-popped/not completely popped kernels left at the bottom of the popcorn bowl, it's a smell very like how those kernels taste.
The first thing I taste is caramel, which is always a good combo with black tea (assuming one likes caramel). The coconut flavor comes out ever so slightly as an aftertaste, along with a grain-like flavor that could be the toasted rice or the sesame seeds or both. It's a complex blend of flavors that isn't too much of anything -- not too sweet (which is always a risk with caramel), not too nutty, not too coconut. I quite like it.
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