Cries, tears, gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair…yeah, for those of you who follow along in my life journey, you know that Monday’s are Dropzone Commander League! I went against my most ancient of foe, the Shaltari, in a killpoint battle and got stomped, the backside of my Desolator was handed to me. At least I got to break out the Desolator and instill fear in my opponent, too bad I could not roll anything other than ones. My skills were on par, but my dice really love the Shaltari and so, I lost.
Enough about my dice betraying me, today we are looking at Sanne Tea’s Honey Black Tea, Sanne Tea is a work in progress company that sent a bunch of samples out to various steepster members and I was lucky enough to receive a few. They specialize in Taiwanese tea, which you all know I have a serious weakness for. This specific tea, comes from Wuhu Village in Ruishi township and is one of those awesome teas that is created thanks to the leafhopper biting the leaves causing a defense reaction in the leaves, resulting in a delightfully sweet aroma and taste. Before I get into the tea, allow me to leave you with this picture of the packaging the tea sample came in, it is beautiful and I had to show it off.
The aroma of the leaves is true to the name, it is intensely sweet and rich, like warmed honey, baking bread, molasses, cocoa, and a very distinct malty finish. It is a very pleasant aroma that I enjoyed sniffing while waiting for my tea kettle to heat up, like a pig looking for truffles I snuffled the leaves happily.
Brewing the leaves I got a pleasant malty aroma wafting around the room, but the real party is examining the wet leaves. I detected notes of sassafras, I love sassafras, I used to have a sassafras tree in my yard and the branches smelled so good when broken. There is also a bit of cocoa and lots of sweet honey goodness. The liquid is a blend of honey, cocoa and a bit of malt at the finish, rich but not too rich.
Well, this tea has a nice intensity to it, it starts out very sweet and creamy, with a combination of honey and cocoa. This transitions to a slightly sharper, in both taste and texture, note of malt and molasses. The finish is honey and it does not linger overlong.
Second time! This steep has a blend of sweet cocoa, a bit of maltiness, and a finish of molasses in the aroma. For tasting, well, this is one of those teas that just works for me taste-wise, it blends notes of cocoa and honey with molasses and malt. It has just the right amount of sweetness and sharpness that makes me happy. Also a finish of baking bread for extra yum, I could certainly see myself buying more of this tea once they get their shop open. I had several more steeps of this one and found that it did not change much, but it had some great staying power, which made it a good painting companion.
For blog and photos (and a friendly Desolator): http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/sanne-tea-honey-black-tea-tea-review.html
