77 Tasting Notes
I’ve yet to sample any Yancha or Taiwanese black teas, so I can’t honestly say I taste their influence, even if there are similarities in production between these styles and the tea presently under consideration.
Steeped 8 times without a wash, starting from 10 seconds, increasing the steep time by 10 seconds as needed to preserve the character/color.
There is a distinctive aroma to the dried leaves, floral with hints of honey and something akin to leather or wood – difficult to place.
Gamboge liquor, with the same distinctive floral aroma as the dried leaf, joined now by some delicate but bright stone-fruit notes (nectarine), and a somewhat earthy finish with hints of nettle. Not quite sweet, though rounded and mellow throughout. Fairly rich mouth-feel, though I wouldn’t say “thick.” Very low astringency, this would probably work if prepared western-style as well.
Caffeine sneaks up on you – a fairly speedy cup.
Unique, well crafted, reasonably priced, though I doubt I would re-buy.
Preparation
Just realized I’ve nearly finished my supply of this without posting any impressions.
Prepared in my Jian Shui gaiwan. Filtered Santa Monica municipal water just off the boil throughout – from gaiwan to glass cha hai to bone porcelain cup:
Twisted, wilted, very dark individual leaves with some rust/gold tips remind me of talons.
No wash, steeped around 10 times, slowly moving up from 10 seconds to a full minute by the final pour.
Marigold liquor that grows more auburn as you extend the steep time – almost like the tea is blushing, embarrassed for me for steeping it too long. The aroma of the dry and wet leaves is consistent, singular, and difficult to find a direct analogy for. Hints of cream, straw, and low earthy and floral aromatics round out the profile.
The flavor adds a mild biscuit malt character to the nose, along with chocolate, toasted pecans, and some (wine like?) minerality (wet stones) in the finish.
Smooth, pleasant mouth-feel with no perceptible astringency unless you let it steep for several minutes.
As described, this is a mellow but characterful black tea with some qualities of an oolong. A very good value, and quite pleasurable on a rainy/Winter day.
Preparation
Prepared in my Jian Shui gaiwan. Filtered Santa Monica municipal water just off the boil then poured into a glass cha hai prior to going into the gaiwan. With Autumn approaching, I wanted to add a daily-drinking Dian Hong to my roster – I’m very happy with this selection.
The dry tea is redolent of sweet potato and hay with a hint of milk chocolate. The buds appear just a little dingy or bruised compared to the bright pure gold appearance they have in photos on YS’s website, though this may be a result of transport.
After a 10 second wash the wet leaves take on a “brisk” and faintly vegetal aroma in addition to the aforementioned sweetness. Their striking uniformity grows apparent as they become fully hydrated/saturated.
Eight steeps at 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120sec: Tawny liquor; musky with clay-baked yam aroma; complex malt, grassy sugarcane, a touch of sorghum; finishes faintly woodsy with a hint of chocolate or even burdock emerging at times. Medium-thick mouth-feel; no impression of tannins. The first steep had a special brilliance of flavor that proves fleeting and difficult to capture in words. Color shifts to more of a satin sheen gold,while the aroma, flavor, and body all dull somewhat by the sixth steep. The tea continues to be nourishing throughout the session. Caffeine is evident, but more energizing than speedy (sweating, racing pulse, etc.).
Refined yet rustic – making for a pleasurable experience; good value to boot.
Preparation
Brewed in my porcelain Jingdezhen gaiwan. Los Angeles municipal water is just off the boil throughout.
The tea sample seems somewhat brittle so I don’t make any real attempt to chip away at the nearly 10 gram chunk for fear of it disintegrating.
A brief rest follows a 15 second wash.
1st – 10th steeps (15 seconds): Coffee brown to chocolate colored liquid; earthy and vaguely spicy aroma; hints of cocoa and oats on the palate; medium-dry finish – smooth, clean, with hints of loam.
Here followed a nearly 24 hour rest…
11th – 12th steeps (20 seconds): Identical to the first 10…
…and after another 24 hour rest…
13th – 18th steeps (20 seconds, then increasing by 10 seconds/steep): slightly lighter in color and flavor than the previous cups, but only just.
…and finally on day 4 of this session:
19th – 21st steeps (2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes): milder, slightly nutty, possibly a little sweeter.
A very unassuming tea, but remarkably consistent – like the other shous I’ve sampled thus far, it enhances and is enhanced by a meal (in tonight’s case, “fish fragrant” eggplant and chrysanthemum greens with ginger and oyster sauce served with good quality Japanese brown rice).
Preparation
Recently retrieved this from the back of my tea cupboard where it has resided tranquilly for 11 years. Brewed in a Pyrex measuring cup and strained into a glass tumbler.
The few leaves that escaped my straining efforts stand at attention at the bottom of the glass like sea-horses. The white-smoke liquor is very slightly cloudy.
Vaguely grassy and floral aroma.
The flavor profile is surprisingly sweet, with wildflower honey, elderflower, possibly lavender among other botanicals. Finish is longer than I remember when this tea was young with lingering hints of cream, chestnut, and hay.
Preparation
Brewed in my new porcelain Jingdezhen gaiwan. Water is just off the boil throughout. 7th steeps onward shared with my wife.
After a wash, the wet leaves have a distinctive banana-leaf aroma.
1st – 7th steeps (flash, slowly ramping up to 10 seconds): Seal brown liquid with burnt umber and auburn highlights. Aroma suggests shiitake, ginseng, and banana leaf. Earth, chalk, and hints of chocolate on the palate with the latter hanging on into the finish where it is joined by a hint of stale tobacco and wet stones. The fermentation lends the cup a gentle vegetal/herbaceous quality, suggesting Chinese medicine. No bitterness…nice, medium-full body.
8th – 14th steeps (10 sec, slowly ramping up to 30 sec): Color gradually lightens from chocolate to burnt umber to chestnut – aromatics and flavor remain consistent throughout. Body is lighter.
15th – 20th steeps (30 sec, ramping up to 2+ min): Tea slowly grows paler and loses potency in both aromatics and flavor, although the character of both remain coherent. Some hints of Hawaiian dinner rolls in the finish. Body is lighter yet.
This tea is decent on its own, but works better as a foil to food – in this morning’s case, deftly framing the sweetness of a Pink’s Crisp apple and some quality farmer’s cheese.
Preparation
Brewing this in my Taiwanese pear-shaped unglazed purple-clay teapot (paired with a glass cha hai and a bone-china teacup). No scale or thermometer. In-line-filtered municipal (Santa Monica) water, a few moments off the boil from my electric kettle. Roughly a 2.5 hour workday session (my second with this tea).
60 second 1st steep: Pale arylide yellow liquid; gentle floral nose; slightly malty palate with hints of hay.
45 second 2nd steep: Color shifts to marigold; sweet nose with hints of peach and orange blossom; the roast suggests hazelnuts and adds a lingering dryness in the finish with some very low touches of cocoa or coffee (as indicated by Mountain Tea Co) and faded mint at the extreme edges of discernment – perhaps a touch of honey and milk as well, though these perceptions could be artifacts of the creamy mouth-feel.
45 second 3rd steep: Slightly paler – shifting to a Mikado yellow now; the leaves are faintly vegetal and also smell something like ink; the honey/milk flavor resolves to caramel-topped custard. I’ve started seasoning this teapot with dark roast/high fire oolong – if a bit more of that quality had been absorbed, one wonders if the resulting liquor would resemble crème brûlée? It’s not far off now…
60 second 4th steep: Mikado yellow again; aroma/flavor much the same as before; vague hints of cinnamon deep into the aftertaste; osmanthus is subtle but pervasive – I can see how using too much would lead quickly to perfume/soap qualities – but here I think it harmonizes with (while not really accentuating) the floral notes of the tea itself.
75 second 5th steep: Much the same as before – perhaps a little less creamy now with slightly less contribution from the roast; hints of river stones at the back of the finish.
90 second 6th steep: Significantly paler – more of a Stil de grain yellow; leaves have fully unfurled at this point; need to push the leaf more aggressively.
2 minute 7th steep (using near-boiling water now): Stil de grain yellow again; aroma suggests marshmallow; vague citrus note appears – the osmanthus is fading more slowly than the tea ; lighter flavors and mouth-feel overall.
4 minute 8th steep: Color and mouth-feel only just holding; a last gasp of flavor, but the contribution of the roast is greatly diminished and the finish is increasingly floral.
Soft and delightful with a pleasant roast – my second-favorite “flavored” oolong (after Ten Ren’s King’s 409 dark roast oolong with ginseng) thus far.
Preparation
Received as a free sample from Upton, thought I would give this a whirl.
I initially brewed this up as a breakfast tea in my 6 cup Chatsford teapot – served in a bone china tea cup:
The dry leaf aroma is malty with subtle floral and stone-fruit notes as well.
Tawny-copper liquid while clean is not especially aromatic, though there are some low biscuit notes and hints of putty. The wet leaves are somewhat vegetal, though not unpleasantly so.
Moderate malt character on the palate along with a light (pink?) peppercorn note – faintly floral and spicy with a very smooth finish. Hints of marconi almonds or biscotti as well.
Infusing the tea for an additional 4 minutes leads to a darker more reddish liquor. The tea is increasingly brisk, and while not especially bitter, the tannins make themselves known in the finish. Takes milk fairly well – all in all a decent morning cup, more refined but also less robust than a comparable Assam or Kenyan tea perhaps.
Preparation
UPDATE – 8/5/2016 – Determined that my steep times were WAY too long with this. Subsequent sessions are just as extended, but proceed from a quick wash, to a flash brew, to 10, 15, 20, and 30 second steeps…only gradually increasing the steep times into the minute+ range. The resulting brew is much more consistent, rounded, and pleasurable following this method, while still quite rich and even dark for the first several cups. Upping my rating a couple points as a consequence.
Recently discovered a small quantity of this tea carefully aging (read: abandoned) in the back of my cupboard where it has remained for somewhere between 7 and 10 years I think. As a “Hei Cha,” this is produced in a similar manner to raw pu-erh (fermented, but piled rather than pressed I suppose?) though I’m not familiar enough with either to speak to the similarities or differences in depth.
Placing a large quantity of leaves (which are nearly uniform in size and shape, but accompanied by what appear to be tiny, pale buds or stems?) into the ceramic strainer of my Korean-style strainer-cup I begin a long tasting session with near boiling water, finishing up with water at a full boil:
1st steep (3min): Aromas of damp stone, peat moss, well aged compost, and a dusty note that reminds me I forgot to do a 30 second wash. An abiding bitterness overwhelms the subtleties of flavor, so:
2nd steep (2min): Similar aromas, though a faint floral quality emerges as well. The flavor follows the nose closely, but adds in hints of seeds (watermelon, black sesame), peppercorn, and mowed/dried grasses. Lightly astringent, but smooth with an earthy and decidedly woody finish.
3rd steep (3 min): An additional sweetness emerges. The liquor also takes on a savory clarity, almost akin to a gelatin-filtered consommé.
4th steep (3 min 30sec): A bit lighter in color, the brew is still full flavored, though any rough edges have been smoothed out (though there is a faint herbal/root-like Chinese-medicinal quality that may not be to everyone’s taste) – this is probably the peak of the session.
5th steep (4 min), 6th steep (5min): Still in the sweet spot, these cups are nearly identical to the preceding, though they are perhaps more thirst-quenching in the finish.
7th steep (6min): The tea grows slightly paler and the flavor begins to drop off – this would still serve as a nice accompaniment to dim sum.
8th steep (8min): Continuing to fade, but gradually – if I’d started with shorter steep times, I could probably have extended this session beyond 3 hours if desired.
The appearance of the liquor is robust throughout – a clear, initially dark, rust color with amber highlights. The mouth-feel is appropriately thick while the finish is moderately drying. I can’t speak to the “energy” of the tea, but the effect of the caffeine is sufficiently present that I wouldn’t suggest drinking this in the evening.
While providing hours of evolving, meditative, energizing, hydrating enjoyment, this tea remains one-dimensional in the end. On the other hand, while not presently available from this vendor, I recall this was quite a value – and indeed, nearly a decade after I purchased this, I see Tea Spring stocks a similar Liu An for around $0.10/gram – recommend for the pu-erh drinker on a tight budget looking for a decent workaday cup.
