Sea Dyke Brand

So, my best friend Allie bought me this tea for my birthday one year ago. It is a very large tin full of small paper packets of individual 5g servings. I’ve decided to drink some of this every year on my birthday, so we had this with my birthday dinner (vegan ribs cooked by Casey and shared with Allie and Andy). I like very much and is a very versatile tea. It reminds me of roasted Dong Ding.

Finally, I am back on Steepster! I had a week there where work was really hectic, and then I got sick. I couldn’t taste anything! I wound up drinking my “swill” tea which is a tin of mixed loose black tea comprised of all of the black teas I’ve tried and didn’t like.

Anyhow, my best friend sent me a giant tin of this tea for my birthday (which is today, happy birthday, me!). Inside the tin are so many individual servings of loose tea in little paper bags.

This is a heavy roasted Tieguanyin. I really like this tea. The scent is awesome, but the flavor is a little weak. Maybe it’s not as complex as one could hope, but it’s really easy to drink. Since I have over a pound of this, and it was a gift from one of my favorite people in the world, I think I am going to age this and continue to drink a cup of it on each birthday I have!

This tea was quite a good grocery store bargain with a sweet spicy taste lasting through at least 5 infusions.

-Mid roast leaves green and greyish brown.
-Smells like a like a mixture of sweet floral and grape like the purple heritage iris’s of my grandmothers garden.

1st steep 30s colour pale gold. creamy spicy sweet brew, smell reminds me of brown sugar and oatmeal and apricots, tastes of warm heated peaches and banana, mixed with ginger chai without the heat. slightly buttery.
2nd steep 35 not as creamy,spice, stone, similar notes to first steep moving into more floral notes,freshning sensation at back and top of mouth.
3rd 40s smell more spicy fruit, spicy sensation on tongue, more floral
flavour. Taste reminds me of spicy carnation smell over hint of peaches and cream.
4th 45 still tastes slightly creamy with peaches and cream when hot with a little bit of spice, smells of cream and spice, almost nutmeg. slight bitterness from a floral/vegetal base note.
5th steep 55 scent and flavour peach and asparagus, weaker spice, weakening.
6th steep 120 thin broth, weak but pleasant flavour.

-spent leaves olive green edged in rust, with occassional holes and some evidence of being stressed by insects during growth.

i served it over 663times when i worked for part time in resto. it was not a bestseller cause normally people are not familiar with tea oolong in paris, When it comes to its price vs quality, it’s great deal. it’s neither too strong or too mild, smells like wood but i can’t describe it with the words like fantastic or horrible, just like a dried wood.. i’ve only tried in straight way, without sugar or milk.

I was really hoping this one would be good. I got this one and another one in a yellow box from the same brand while I was in Hong Kong. The leaves smell like raisins for some reason. When you steep it, it smells like wood. Or something. The taste is okay, but that smell is so overpowering that I just can’t drink it. My quest for good oolong continues…

earthy, delicate, rich, smooth.
I found this at a local Asian grocery store, and was surprised to find that it was a lovely loose leaf, and not nearly as expensive as most Oolongs.

Drinking this gongfu cha this evening, with a small gaiwan, and water near boiling. The first few infusions need careful timing to avoid bitterness, but later infusions are toasty sweet without any hint of bitter. Mellow, pleasing, tea-as-comfort-food.

This is the tea I ‘grew up’ drinking, starting with Chinese restaurant teas and moving on to this one, which I was taught to revere as special and rare, one my father had learned on from Chinese friends but found hard to get before the 80s. By the time I started to drink it, it was easier to find, but still not something that every chinese market would carry. If I couldn’t find the familiar red tin, I’d go home empty handed rather than buy an unknown tea. A long period when I could not get t from my usual suppliers finally led me to my new local Chinatown, tea shops, and the internet, and this is no longer my favrite tea.

Use teaspoon per mug or 6oz pot, water 185-195, steep 1-2 minutes, and you’ll get another 1-2 steepings from the leaves.

It keeps very well, so it’s a great one To keep around just in case, to introduce newbies gently to the darker side of higher roast teas, and for effortless drinking when you’re to frazzled to break off a piece of puerh or babysit a tempermental green.

I’d rate it about a 65, but can’t Figure out the sliders on the phone.

baked Ti Kuan Yin. Very delicious.