As you can see it is a beautiful orange color that is not too far off from the color of the table we have in the living room. Warm and inviting, the Ti Kuan Yin is somewhere between a green tea and and a black tea.
It smells brisk and strong with musky undertones. After the tea has been poured out of the aroma cup the cup still smells kind of bitter. I’m a little worried I may let it brew a little too long. As the bitter smell quickly fades away, a fruit smell replaces it. If I close my eyes I can see myself in the middle of a fruit orchard. There are green apples, pears, red grapes and it smells like there might also be lychee. Coming back to it one more time, the smells have once more dissipated and changed and the aroma cup now smells like fresh baked apple pie, with lots of butter and no cinnamon or other spices to muss up the taste of the pie. I could probably keep this up all night on the one brew, so I am going to stop here and move on to the actual tea, but remember when drinking this to regularly check in on the smell of the tea as the smells in the cup will change.
The tea is rather brisk and sharp, but not necessarily in an unpleasant way. Next time I will let it brew for a little less time. This tea has a distinct taste of baked red apples. If anyone has ever done this before, some of the apple caramelizes as it bakes and makes it a little sweeter than normal, there are definitely caramel undertones to this tea. Taking a large mouthful gives a slightly different taste. It has a rich, nutty taste.
For the full review go to my blog: http://teasnobbery.com/2010/07/23/tea-review-foojoy-monkey-picked-ti-kuan-yin/
