Tea Swap Sample Sipdown of the Day! (1)
I was inspired by Mastress Alita‘s efforts to sipdown her traveling teabox samples, so I’m going to try to do something similar with my pile of swap samples. I’m going to start out trying to sip one swap sample down each day, but that’s obviously quite optimistic so I’m not going to kill myself trying to adhere to it.
This swap sample is courtesy of Arby! It comes from the Autumn 2016 harvest.
I couldn’t remember how Laoshan black teas taste, but to me it’s a similar flavor profile to Fujian blacks. It has the distinctive caraway note that I find to be characteristic of Fujian black teas. There is also a lovely light chocolaty flavor and a lot of natural sweetness to this tea. This combined with the smooth malt and bread notes makes me think of rye toast with chocolate spread. An aromatic, oaky wood flavor rounds out the bottom nicely. I can also detect a bit of dry mustiness that makes me think of white tea.
Verdant describes this one as tasty of toasted marshmallow and chocolate s’mores. I guess I can kind of see the s’mores angle, with the strong chocolate notes combined with the malty breadiness. And there is quite a lot of natural sweetness. But I don’t think I personally taste marshmallow at all. Then again, I’ve prepared this Western style, so I’m likely missing some of the subtleties. Still yummy though!
Flavors: Bread, Chocolate, Cocoa, Grain, Malt, Musty, Oak, Rye, Smooth, Sweet, Toast, Wood
Slow and steady wins the race, that’s why I’m doing one a week rather than one a day. But progress is progress! Go for the s-s-s-sipdoooown!