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When I first tried this tea, the smell reminded me of roasting marshmallows over an open fire. The char is like cedar wood with a slightly menthol tingle to it. Because of the smell and the 60 hours of roasting, you might think you’d be overwhelmed by the roast. I fully expected those bitter, acidic, and harsh flavors you get from charcoalified tea leaves, but it is everything but that. The taste is so smooth, you don’t beleive it. It is soft, mellow, and relaxing. You can pick out the nuttiness of the roast and separate it from the vanilla and toffee sweetness of the tea. Every time I drink this, I want more of that flavor, but that’s not how this tea works. No matter how much you drink, it will not give you that punch of flavor. Instead, you need to put down the cup and let your tongue dry out. The smoothness lingers for a moment and then wanes to an intense tingling. Its almost like a slight electric current running through your tongue. The roasted nuttiness and tangy flavor is there when you inhale and the echos of the tea’s sweet vanilla come out when you exhale. All those flavors stick to your tongue and are a constant reminder of the tea long after you’ve finished your cup.

I’m not usually a fan of green tea, but this one has been my favorite and I’m glad it has defied my preferences in tea. Yunomi lets you preorder their teas and this was one that I preordered last year. It is unbelievably smooth with plenty of nuttiness from its roasting. It has some nice acidity that lingers, but it is not too overbearing. Reminds me of the taste when you’ve added a splash of lemon to some spinach that you are sauteing.

I originally got this tea thinking I would gift it to my friends and family who like tea, but aren’t really tea nerds. Instead, I ended up drinking almost all of it on my own. This tea has such a nice story and the packaging is amazing, so it really is a nice gift to give someone. This is a smooth tea that tastes of caramel, apricots, and malt. It has a similar flavor profile to jin jun mei, but it has much more complexity. Smooth, Cocoa, Caramel. Tart, Bitter, Malty. All those flavors each take their turn lingering on your tongue.

Every sip of this is a sea of pepper, citrus, and smokey tang. I’m rarely a fan of flavored teas, but this is one of my exceptions. It is an amazing tea because of the galangal flavoring that is added. You get so much of the galangal’s peppery flavors and pine smoke flavors that I’m guessing is from the way they dry the tea on the galangal. I love how complex and punchy this tea is and it leaves your mouth salivating.

While I really love this tea and it’s been one of my favorites, I’m not going to recommend it. I don’t like how Ketlee will change their prices and uses sales to trick folks into paying more. While I haven’t seen the price of this tea change, one of the others I really liked recently went up 575% and was then listed with a 50% off sale. I don’t feel comfortable recommending this if there’s a chance it comes back with an insane price tag.

This tea is quite the experience. A camphor tasting shou that is pine smoked in the style of lapsang souchong. I was a bit worried about how these flavors would mix, but they are absolutely stellar. The smokiness isn’t overdone. You can still pick out the pine wood and the tingly potpourri flavors in between the sour, smokey flavor. It has a great spiciness that lingers after each sip.

Taiwanese Alishan that was charcoal roasted to hell and back again. This is the tea that doesn’t give up. I’ve spent days trying to take a few grams of this tea to its limits and I haven’t found an end. You can go session after session with it and it will still give you a wonderful cup of tea. I haven’t managed to pull any bitterness out of it and its flavor is full on roasted. The taste is like sweet, roasted chestnuts, burned cigarette paper, and rose water. On the nose, I get cherries, charcoal, something earthy, and an almost fermented sourness. Despite all those strong flavors and smells, the tea is almost soft. This quickly became one of my staples that I always try to keep on hand.

Velvety smooth and sweet. In 2021, I tried a handful of matcha powders from a few sellers and this one stood out far above the rest. It has absolutely no grittiness and is perfect for both hot or iced drinks. It has those earthy, grassy, and umami flavors that linger after each sip, but there is plenty of sweetness that hits when it first touches your tongue.

This is my fourth year of trying a Black tea from Farmerleaf. Most of these fall under the medium oxidation and some are more oolong like than others. This tea is probably closer to 90% oxidized. Some of the leaves are a little bit un-oxidized while most are fully.

This tea is a little bit sweet, sour, metallic, and earthy. It has a good complexity to it, but less sweetness than the other black teas Farmerleaf has sold. This a great tea, but I recommend trying the Yingpan Shan tea over it. I compared the this tea with the 2023 Yingpan and I found the Yingpan much more rich and floral than this.

This tea smells a bit like a chrysanthemum to me. It has that slightly menthol-like astringency mixed with some floral and sweetness. It is a really good Hong Yu and I recommend starting with this one if you haven’t tried one. The taste is a bit deeper you might expect. I would call it warm and rich. All those metallic and cocoa adjacent flavors that you get from black tea and some tannin that dries out your mouth. Plenty of complexity and flavor to made a great cup of tea.

This is one of my favorite black teas from Yunnan Sourcing. This isn’t a category of tea that I drink a lot of, but this one was really nice. It has a slight nuttiness and metallic scent. It has enough sweetness to balance the tangy cocoa and cherry flavors. Both the Golden Monkey and Purple Needles of Jingmai from YS were pretty close in character to this tea, but this was my favorite of the three. It is very clean and smooth and will give you a really consistent cup of tea.