Good god, I’m so far behind on teaclub drinking – they generally just get tossed in to my big box/bag o’ samples, forgotten until I’m randomly digging through for something to drink. Another pretty nice black tea from W2T, though it was definitely nicer the second time, after I remembered I’ve been using 200F water instead of boiling for these ones. With boiling water the tea died quite quickly and was never particularly good. With slightly cooler water, the tea lasted about 8 steeps – pretty good for a black tea that seemed to be composed of pretty small leaf.
The leaf, both wet and dry, gave off a nice cocoa aroma.
The first two steeps were soft with notes of cocoa and malt, along with a bit of creaminess. Very friendly on the palate. On my third steep, I think I upped the time a tad too quickly and the tea got a slight musty note along with those sweeter flavors. From the fourth steep, the tea started to take on a bit of a woody note. By this time, the cocoa flavor had gone out of the tea, so the remaining few cups from this session had a woody start which became bolder and more forward as the flavor steeped out, with a sweeter malty finish that diminished over a period of multiple steeps.
This was a very drinkable tea once I used the right temperature – a decently quick session and not a tea that made me think too much. I have read other reviews indicating that this tea took a long time to steep out, but I didn’t really find that to be the case (though maybe I’m just comparing it to sheng puerh that can go 12+ steeps, I don’t know).
Flavors: Cocoa, Creamy, Malt, Musty, Wood
