G'day sophocleese,

Many years back I worked in cost accounting at the Sydney factory of British Leyland. An elderly Pom (Englishman to any Yanks out there) at the next desk always made his own tea - despite the fact that this was the era when British businesses still had tea ladies - and it would be one of Twinings' "Varieties" tea bags. Thes had six different teas so he could chooose that most to his taste that day.
However, the one he could never enjoy was Lapsang Souchong and he gave me a half dozen tea bags of this. I tried it and decided it had a decided aura of road scrapings ... and threw the others into my emergency billy can in the car (a bag of rice, small jar of sugar, ditto salt ... and 5 Lapsang Souchong teabags).
Later that year I was in Queensland and stayed at a very remote Youth Hostel: Lost World (below the Lamington Plateau. The last time I stopped there it was unattended (and I had to cross a flooded creek to get there). Now it had a resident Warden, an English artist called Tony Wedd. In chatting with him, tea came up and he despaired of ever again seing his favorite ... LAPSANG SOUCHONG! I told him I had 5 tea bags of same and he was more than welcome to it.
The last I saw of the Lapsang was Tony carefully 'cutting' it back with domestic 'Bushells' to eke out the tiny supply ... so I guess it is chacun a sa gout.
(I must admit that I can become enthusiastic about Twinings' Russian Caravan - black and unsweetened as tea should be!

Regards,

Bob Bolton