6 Tasting Notes
Got a 5 g sample of this in my mystery grab bag for the Chinese New Year.
It is incredible. The leaves are a vibrant green with the most delicate furry silver buds. Just on appearance alone I knew this would be a superior tea, doesn’t have the dry dead leaf look of some other Bai Mu Dans. It looks fresh and alive like a white tea should and it smelled floral and fragrant.
I brewed gongfu in a 120 ml gaiwan. The liquor was a beautiful bright yellow and had such an incredibly delicate velvety mouthfeel. It just felt so good so I let it linger there for a while. Very floral opener with an aftertaste of pure cane sugar. I felt like a kid sucking on a lollipop and I didn’t even have to get a shot. This is what I always imagined the Big Rock Candy Mountain would taste like.
All I can say is dreams do come true with places like Tea Drunk around.
Preparation
It was 81 degrees in Missouri yesterday. Today it is snowing! After reading so many good reviews I went ahead and placed my first order with Wuyi Origin and broke out this 2017 Rou Gui as the first to try!
The dry leaves smell amazing — a perfectly balanced roast. Very full bodied with strong cacao notes. The flavor is very complex with the typical minerality as its base. Citrusy finish of lemon zest that makes me smile. I brewed at 205 F, but would maybe consider taking it down to 200 next time around. Love the mouthfeel, super thick and oily and leaves a mouth watering menthol flavor all over the palate. After seven infusions the flavor seemed to be keeping steady but I could not go on. Peak flavor at the fourth steep (I will have dreams of that fourth steep!) with intertwining notes of cinnamon, tobacco, and lemon.
Glad I got this one. Am really interested in the Rou Gui “Fruit style” from them as well, but will have to wait till next time. Looking forward to trying the rest and seeing how they compare!
Preparation
Having missed out on the competition Dong Ding from TTC, I grabbed this “flagship” Dong Ding instead. Don’t be fooled by the perfectly piss-yellow of the liquor…this tea is as clear and delicious as any Dong Ding I have tried! I am cha qi blissed…I am Sun Ra on the rings of saturn…
Brewed this one gong fu at 200 F. It tastes sweet, spicy, floral, milky. Everything you might want it has. It also tastes just like cinnamon toast crunch? Like the milk left in the bowl…ooh boy, love it love it love it.
Longer steepings were not bitter at all, more of a bready quality with less of the sweetness. I recommend short steepings 6, 3, 8, 10, 15, so on…I will drink this tea again and again.
Preparation
I want to start off by saying that I enjoyed this tea a lot.
It may not sound like it after the next couple of sentences, but I did. The first two steepings were brutal. Very overwhelming roasted flavor signifying some definite over-roasting at some point in its life. I brewed this tea first using Song’s brewing guide but was very dissapointed with the results so went traditional Gong Fu the second time around. Short steeps of 6/4/6/8/10/15/30/45 in 100 ml Yixing.
Something changed in the third steep though and the tea suddenly became very balanced and clear. A beautiful caramel/toffee base with just a slight hint of smoked wood. This remained consistently for the next 6 steeping and probably could have gone more. Maybe next time I will try a longer rinse? Or maybe I’ll just dump the first two infusions altogether? Seems wasteful, but maybe worth it as the third steeping onward was fantastic.
I am generally a huge fan of aged yancha and this is definitely a good one though, ultimately, perhaps not worth the price of admission. I could see myself getting this tea again but would probably have to think about it first.
Preparation
Received this tea as a sample with my massive December order. Normally don’t drink a lot of black tea with the exception of bud teas like Jin Jun Mei or Dian Hong, so I was excited to give this a try. Happy to say that Taiwan Tea Crafts has impressed once again!
The dry leaves were surprisingly aromatic. Notes of candied apricots, plums, and fruit leather. The wet leaves, however, were much more interesting with a spicy/sweet combination reminiscent of cinnamon rolls beneath a familiar black tea earthiness.
I took this for five steepings at 6/3/6/8/10 seconds accordingly. I was starting to get a little jittery after five, since I was drinking alone, but could very easily have taken this tea for more. The liquor was light amber with a medium body and an immediate hit of stone fruit sweetness on the palate. Plums were the dominant flavor to me but dates, figs, and candied apricots all came through as well. There was a spiciness like cinnamon beneath the surface if you looked for it. Flavor was consistent through the first four infusions with maybe a slight shift toward the teas spicier notes in the fifth.
Overall, a pleasantly sweet black tea with no overwhelming or imbalanced flavors. I could definitely see this tea becoming one of the go-to black teas in my shelf.
