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Queued post, written November 3rd 2014

I woke up this morning and knew exactly what I wanted. That doesn’t happen all that often. It’s usually rather a thought requiring process, which is why, when sharing a pot with Husband, I frequently find myself asking what he wants. Eh, that’s not entirely true, actually. It’s more a question of “are you interested in a cup of tea if it’s [type]?” and he usually is, so… Don’t know why I feel the need to ask him really. It’s a bit like at bedtime when the following exchange is common-place.

“Are you amenable to a hot bev?” says he.
“Are you having one?” says I.
“Yes.”
“I’ll have one too, then.”

Note, in this house ‘hot bev’ = the cup of herbal we usually drink in bed while reading. Again, I don’t know why I need to ask him. If he wasn’t having one, he wouldn’t be asking me in the first place! Why can’t I just say yes? It’s ridiculous to the point where sometimes I just say, “standard question” instead.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. The point is, this morning I knew precisely which tea to make. I received my parcel from Nannoushan a couple of days ago, but haven’t really touched it due to being poorly. I feel a lot better now. I was quite pathetic on Saturday, but felt more or less back to normal yesterday apart from a great deal of coughing and I see no reason why this should not continue. Time for a most favouritest ever type of tea, and I bought a whole great big pouch of it.

It was lucky, actually, that I hadn’t opened it yet, because as I was walking to the kitchen there was something tickling on my hand. Turned out to be a little spider, so me being me, I had a bit of a squeal, my hand got a bit of a shake and the tea pouch had a bit of a flight across the room… I do not like spiders, especially not when they are sitting on me. shudders

Tea seems no worse for wear though, so I have made myself a cup. I had a look at the brewing recommendations, because even though I usually ignore such things (I know how I like my tea, and it’s not necessarily the same strength they like theirs) it doesn’t mean I don’t look. Can report that the good folks at Nannoushan seem to have a preference similar to mine strengthwise.

Oh! I should point out here that they provide recommendations for two ways of brewing, Western as well as gongfu. That’s pretty nifty.

This smells lovely. There’s a bit of cocoa and a great deal of stone-fruit-y sweetness. Some grain underneath as well, but I’m not finding much in the way of that pseudo-smoke note that I love.

Ah yes, that’s the stuff. And there’s my smidge of smoke too. It’s quite slight in this one, actually. It’s been so long since I’ve had a Tanyang of just about nearly any sort, but I’ve had plenty of Keemun lately, so the funny thing is that only now am I realising how much of a smoother tea Keemun actually is than this one. And I find both to be fairly strong teas. I think it’s because Tanyang doesn’t have that caramel-y touch that Keemuns often have. This tea is more about fruity-sweet than caramel-sweet, but there isn’t too much of it. It’s not something that makes you think ‘ooh peach!’ at the first sip, but if you know what to look for, it’s there.

So the body of the flavour here is stone fruity sweetness, a good deal of cocoa (but not chocolate. Never chocolate) a modest helping of grain and a wee bit of oakyness. It’s lovely. kisses tin