MyTeaPal

The dry aroma is a mix of white and black tea. The woody earthiness of a black mixed with the farm and barn qualities of a white. Hay and bits of alfalfa. The wet leaf smells of squash. Perhaps closer to an acorn squash? The liquor color is golden orange. Almost a dark amber. The flavor is a bit nutty but the woody overtones prevail the strongest. Decaying woods. I love how the leaves change from dark chocolate when dry to light brown when wet. Do you play with your tea? If not you should. This Jin Jun Mei is especially fun because you can unroll the leaves to find each separate leaf. Two leaves and a bud. And those glories trichomes on the bud. There are trichomes on the instead of the bag as well. Lively body and the finish remain with a slight mineral sweetness like rocks and twigs. Burnt my finger while writing this. Now to grab the cake with proper cake grabbing gloves.

It’s not very often that a tea makes me reminiscence to the point of almost tears. A flavor and aroma that transcends past senses. When you open the packet you are immediately thwacked with floral notes. In a good way. Like walking off the plane (I live in MN) in a hot, tropical climate being enveloped by tropical floral aromas and airplane gas. (I love that scent.) A bit spilled in my cup brewed in less than 10 seconds and it blew my mind. The floral flavors were already well developed. At 2-3 mins it is still quite floral but they share the road equally with wet woody notes. Also present is a high amount of lychee and a bit of passion fruit. The aroma is a mix of gardenia, plumeria, jasmine, and a bit of honeysuckle. I have not tasted and smelled enough of osmanthus to be able to pick it out but I could definitely tell there was something I was missing. My reminiscence took me to Hawai’i.

Highly reminiscent of a Laoshan black. Same woody undertones and slightly chocolatey weaving throughout. But it has a bit of a deeper earthy base with mineralistic tones. Yes, I just made that word up. Ah… which apparently is also a mom-pop shop near me. Go figure. AS you steep longer squash skin notes take over. The mouthfeel is soft with just a slight touch of abrasion. Like you were almost going to lick a rock and you caught someone staring at you. This is not a milk/sugar black, it is a gongfu black. Though doing it western style is fine too, it benefits more from gong fu. The dry leaf smells faintly of rich dark chocolate mixed with dry white wine and earthy tones. Tightly twisted. Hairs on the packages. Yay for trichomes!

Thank you for joining me on this third and final infusion. This tea comes from the exclusive tea club hosted by the MyTeaPal app. To be more specific this is Chuan Hong B. The dry leaf is dark brown with medium leaf size, twisted, with few golden tippy points. The first steep produced a beautiful clear, umber liquor which changed to more of a golden amber color over the 2nd and 3rd steeping. The wet leaf has a smell of compost
The first steeping was in your face flavors. Barely any astringency, burnet squash, filled with deep earthy notes. Char. It has since mellowed off. A bit smoother but still interesting flavor notes I can’t quite pin down.