Mystery of 2008 Rose House Tea

 My mother received two canisters of loose black tea for Christmas last year which she dutifully handed over to me. To my very surprise, the expiration date was 2011, the tea being from May of 2008.

What's the chance that this kind of inadvertent black tea aging experiment would land on my very lap. The fact that someone hoarded(?) and re-gifted this tea 14 years later boggles my mind. The gift came from a kindly professor in his eighties who had recently moved.  Despite my burning curiosity, my mother declined to get more information about how long this tea had been in his possession or if it was part of a long chain of regifting. It could be that if you have that many decades under your belt, a single decade feels like a year.

The tea is not spit out disgusting but fairly drinkable. I've had much much worse at museum shops and on airplanes. The underlying blended black tea is still bright. Unfortunately, it's the rancid botanicals(orange blossom, rose petals) that ruin the flavor. Otherwise, I could have happily drunk this decade expired tea without trouble.

What to do? Order another boatload of Assam from teabox.