15 Tasting Notes
I tried a sample of this the other day (thanks Bonnie!). I was skeptical at first because it was called genmaicha but looked like it was made with gunpowder green tea. I read the label though, and started to get excited when I saw that it was tea grown in Thailand. I’d never had a Thai-grown tea before! It looked to be about half tea and about half toasted purple sticky rice. I LOVE purple sticky rice. The fragrance is amazing.
Flavor-wise, this is NOT genmaicha, or at least not recognizably so. It’s a fairly full-bodied tea with a wonderful jasmine rice fragrance. I steeped it twice and it held up to re-steeping well. A win for creativity for sure! I don’t think I’d drink this on a daily basis, but it was fun for my tastebuds!
Preparation
Thanks Bonnie for the sample! I brewed this tea in a yixing pot. I used approximately 2 tsp of leaf for a roughly 6 oz pot.
Dry leaf appearance: almost like bits of charcoal. Very dark, crisp looking leaves. This shou is loose-leaf, not compressed into a cake.
Dry leaf aroma: Very little aroma from the dry leaves, likely because the leaves are very old!
After a short rinse, I brewed the first infusion for around 20 sec with boiling water. The liquor is surprisingly light considering the darkness of the leaves. Aromas are musty, but not in a bad way. The flavor is very sweet and toasty (but not roasty) up front with some very interesting notes that I couldn’t really name. Subsequent infusions reveal a peppery spice and increase the sweetness.
Oh, and this tea does indeed have strong chi! After four infusions, I can definitely feel the theanine kicking in.
Preparation
Just absolutely incredible. So so good. It has all the rich chocolatey flavors of a new jin cha, but all these flavors are much deeper and smoother with age. The taste just lingers and lingers in your mouth. This is hands down my favorite black tea. Every time I drink it I can’t help but shout “YUM” repeatedly.
I usually brew this gongfu style in a gaiwan as it’s delicious for at least 4 infusions.
Preparation
Did you really drink this tonight in hot weather? Just wait till Thursday, it’s supposed to dip to the 60’s…no kidding.
30 degree dip should make this tea really outstanding!!!
I love a good black tea too!
No, tonight I’m drinking Be Well to fend of this sore throat I’ve got. I had just been meaning to write about this one for a long time sine I love it so much. It helped that the first time I had it was in Portland, OR, the land of perpetual tea weather.
Too True. No fussing with iced tea in Portland. Perfect black tea climate!!! Pu-erh rains…(reigns!)…har har!
you should add mrmopar…the puerh vault!
I still can’t figure out how to find people on steepster. Just tea.
Look under my followers!
(Oh, also if you know what they’ve reviewed like your tea’s that’s easy to find people too…)
Aroma and flavor of dried plum. This aged wenshan baozhong has never been roasted and has been stored well for it’s 20+ year lifespan. No roasted notes as in many aged oolongs.
I passed along some of the comments from Joe and Andy to Janet too about the saltiness. Interesting tea!
This was still in the testing stage, so to be fair, the recipe has changed twice since this review thanks to the crew at Happy Lucky’s with me and others giving input back to Janet.