TeaSpring

Apparently the last time I had this I wrote that it had, and I quote; sort of a proto-caramel. A caramel stem cell flavour, sort of. end quote.

WTF??? O.O

I mean, I get the caramel-y flavour, but ‘caramel stem cell’??? What was going on in my head that day?

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to say. All I wanted to say was that I’m sipping a large mug of this while reading Stone Soup comic strips, and sometimes a good tea is just ten times better when it isn’t analysed to bits.

sip…slurp…ahh!

I knew if I started making tea noises in the kitchen, the boyfriend would get up. :D Kitties self-fed today by knocking the food bucket on the floor, so we’ve been allowed to sleep in without having our toes cut to ribbons.

This one I bought solely because of the alternative name ‘honey orchid dan cong’. It’s an attempt to zero in on that lovely oolong from Shang Tea, the one that smells like creme brulee and which, presently, I can’t remember the name of. Jade orchid something or other. Honey orchid sounded rather promising, I thought.

Secondarily, in my mind Dan Cong is indeed a classic oolong. If you ask me spontaneously to think of oolong, there are three that pops into my head immediately. TGY, Dan Cong and Da Hong Pao. Apart from TGY, I’m not too familiar with either of the two others, although I would like to be. I’ve just never explored them. I’ve had them a few times, but I haven’t explored them to the point where I can tell you what they’re like. This was to my own disadvantaged the other day when I was asked about the differences and similarities between a Rou Gui and a Da Hong Pao and was forced to tell the asker I had no clue. Loss of a chance to look smart, there. So yes, the secondary purpose to this particular purchase is also an attempt at an initial step down the road of discovery.

If this is to be a similar alternative to the Orchid Jade Something Something from Shang, then it has already failed on the aroma. It doesn’t smell like creme brulee at all. How disappointing, when one has readied one’s nose for that particular aroma. This does not really bode well for purpose number one, here.

For purpose number two, however, I get to properly familiarise myself with the aroma that it actually has. I feel it’s layered. Very initially when sniffing, it’s very floral. Not the dusty sort of floral that comes with flower scenting, but properly alive still attached to roots in the soil flowers. Along with that there is a distinct sweetness which is not really honey-y, but more sort of nectar-y. Very faintly underneath these notes, there is a woodsy, slightly earthy oolong-y aroma, and if I keep smelling the tea, it builds up and pushes the other two aromas to the background until all I can smell is the woodsy oolong.

Purpose number one, having tasted the tea, is more or less abandoned. Yeah, it’s very sweet and honey-y and all that, but it’s not… It’s just not quite there. It’s not what I was looking for. Purpose number one, we’re still searching. I had small hopes for this one, because the Shang Jade Orchid Something Something was a Fujian and this is from Guandong, which, consulting available literature, is just to the south and southwest of Fujian, so I thought conditions might be sufficiently similar. I think they are, I’m just not looking at the right kind of oolong. I will keep searching.

Purpose number two, familiarising myself, I have to say it tastes exactly like it smells. First there is floral and honey-nectar-y sweetness, and then oolong swoops in and hijacks the flavour. When it cools a bit, that honey-nectar-y business is not to be trifled with however, and it puts up a damn good fight in the background. This makes the entire flavour profile seem very thick textured and creamy, in spite of a small amount of astringency. It’s not quite caramel-y but maybe more sort of a proto-caramel. A caramel stem cell flavour, sort of.

And this brings us back to purpose number one, because hey! Now that it’s cooled a bit and I get all that floral sweetness I just mentioned? We’re suddenly a LOT closer to that Orchid Something Something Jade business, and I don’t think I will rule this out as a more easily acquired replacement after all. It’s not exactly the same, but given a little cooling time, I find it’s suddenly got a lot of the same sort of qualities that I liked in the other one. The Shang oolong has this one beat for awesomeness, certainly, but this one (purpose number two) is also very very good all in its own right.

And that post looks a bit confusing even to me. I hope some sense can be wrestled out of it.

So I had this one before in my usual western style brewing. This time I am gong-fu-ing to the best of my abilities. I do own a gaiwan, which is standing behind me on a shelf looking nice, but I can’t for the life of me use it. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work. Using it hurts. Because I spill. I have looked up techniques, and I have practised with cold water, but I can’t not spill, and I can’t not burn myself. If I have to injure myself in order to drink tea, it’s not worth it. Not even my Tan Yang is worth that.

So I’m using my regular pot and using a cup to measure out how much water to pour on the leaves so as not to accidentally western-ify it out of sheer habit. It works okay. At least I haven’t had to MacGyver any additional equipment for it.

The first time I had this, I thought it was okay. Functional for a cup of oolong and quite pleasant to taste, but nothing particularly special or memorable. There was talk from TeaSpring about notes of the bark of cassia trees, also known as Chinese cinnamon, and I could so not find any cinnamon-y notes in it whatsoever then.

This time, first cup, the aroma is full of cinnamon! Lots of cinnamon and also something that reminds me vaguely of black currant. It’s a bit like… a mulled cordial. Yeah, that’s the closest thing that springs to mind.

The flavour is also loads of cinnamon. If I didn’t know any better, I would think this actually had actual real cinnamon in it. This is a very primary note and it occurs constantly. At first when you sip, during the middle of the sip and on the swallow, and it’s strongest towards the end there. Along with this, there is a toasted, almost charcoal-y note which rather suprised me because my nose had already made the mulled cordial conclusion. And then I was surprised that I was surprised because I should have known that it would be there. I still think it has a black currant note as well. It comes out as the cup cools and towards the bottom of the cup. Sort of thick and slightly syrup-y sweet, but not tasting as if there’s any actual sweetener in here. It’s fruit-y sweet, not sugar sweet.

Second cup, the aroma is still mulled black currant cordial, but it’s sort of darker now, and deeper. The cinnamon is not quite as out there in front and the black currant-y notes feel more sure of themselves. Like they’re really the ones revealed to be running the show, where the cinnamon notes in the first steep were led to believe they were. I think this experience is caused by the fact that the toasty note from the flavour is now also coming through in the aroma. I didn’t notice that before.

The flavour is still very heavy on the cinnamon and the charcoal, and I’m not really tasting any difference from the first go. Perhaps it is a tiny bit smoother, but not by very much. It seems to have lost the black currant-y notes, mostly, which is a bit of a shame because I was rather enjoying that one. There’s a bit left in the very last few sips, but that’s it. At least it was still strong in the aroma.

Third cup, the aroma is exactly the same as the second. Maybe a little brighter, but the same elements are there and in the same balance, so I shan’t bother too much with it. The boyfriend, by the way, when asked to take a smell, didn’t identify it as cinnamon as much as he did geraniums, but he could see where I was coming from with the cinnamon.

Geraniums. Not a good thing. Geraniums are banned in this household on account of how utterly stinky we both think they are.

Oh well, he’s not the one drinking this. And hello Luna! It’s a little hard to gong-fu stuff when there’s a cat insisting on sitting on me. She doesn’t really seem to get the whole going into the kitchen all the time concept.

Oh yeah, and the flavour is the same as the second cup too, only thinner. I think the increase in time for the fourth cup should be larger than it was between the second and third.

Fourth cup, BORED NOW! I made the increase in steeping time larger this time, but the result is the same as before. The same aroma and flavour profile only a wee bit thinner.

At this point I don’t expect it will change much going forward except gradually getting thinner, so I’ll stop writing here.

I will let my points from the first time around stand where they are, because although I had a different experience with it this time, I feel I would land on the same score anyway. It was more interesting this way, but still not really something I thought was really mind-blowing. My mind was decidedly not blown by the heavy cinnamon notes which is not something I’m super-fond of in tea, but I did like the funny black currant association I got at the beginning of the session. At least I’ve found something about it that is memorable and identifiable, namely the cinnamon note.

Not surprisingly, given the fact that the tea is named after that, really.

This was from my recent TeaSpring order, the one that was famously held hostage by Tax & Customs for days and days on end. I’ve been a bit distracted while drinking this cup, so you’re getting a short version of it. I was also distracted when brewing it, so the short version is probably also wildly inaccurate because I forgot to set a timer while steeping so it steeped for… a good long while. About twice, I think, of how long I would have given it otherwise.

The aroma of the leaves wasn’t super strong. It was there but very mild and gentle. I thought it had a rather toasted note to it with some sweetness and something kind of floral mixed in.

The flavour is really very similar to this. This bark of cassia that TeaSpring refer to in the description is something that is used in cooking as a spice and is also called ‘Chinese Cinnamon’. I don’t think it tastes especially cinnamon-y though, but I can sort of see where they are getting that from. I can only imagine that the actual bark would be much more cinnamon-like in nature.

It also has that burnt toast note that I mentioned when I had the woodfired TGY from Verdant a little while a go. It prickles coal-y-ly ( cringe yes I know…) on the tongue and in the after taste, but is surprisingly pleasant when it doesn’t actually have anything to do with real burnt toast.

Under the current circumstances I can’t say that I’m finding it immensely interesting though. It’s a perfectly wonderful oolong, but it’s more functional than it’s interesting, if you get what I mean. Maybe when I do this properly, I’ll change my mind though.

(I suppose it would be unfair of me to hold the fact that it felt very unpleasant in my windpipe against the tea. But it did. cough )

I should totally start writing it down when people recommend me stuff that they think I would like. Because once again we have here a tea which was specifically recommended to me by a Steepsterite and I don’t have a clue as to who it was.

It was somewhat pricy so I only bought a small amount. Even if it’s the end of all awesome, at this price I think it would probably still only be a treat rather than a standard. $23 for 50 grams, I can’t afford that as a standard.

Anyway, that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to try, though. It’s not impossible that this actually makes it all the more fun to try.

When first I poured this tea and I stood there in the tea corner, getting a column of steam right in the face, the primary, and very strong, association I had was that of pipe tobacco. Smelling cup now, I don’t really get that at all.

It has something, this tea, something very familiar. Something that I feel I ought to recognise and associate with something specific. This is not an individual note in the aroma, this is the aroma as a whole. I just can’t work out what it is, but I’m getting the clear impression that it’s something that ought to be very familiar to me and also something I haven’t experienced in a long time. This aroma takes me back, I just don’t know to where or when.

When I was a child, my grandfather smoked a pipe. Maybe it is actually a pipe tobacco thing after all.

If we try to break down the aroma a little more, there is a strong grain-y malty note in it, along with something woodsy and slightly spicy. These two notes, I sort of get the impression that they approach me simultaneously. They’re good friends, so they come up to greet me together. I can’t find any floral or pseudo-smoky notes in the aroma though, which I find slightly odd. I have to say I rather miss that note. It’s like there’s something missing.

The flavour isn’t as grain-y either as most Keemuns tend to be. The grain is there, but it’s more subdued, laying down the bottom of the flavour. On the swallow, I get a very clear caramel-y stickyness.

Then there’s a prickly, woodsy sort of flavour on top of that, and at the very top there is a very floral note. Still no pseudo-smoke. It’s 100% floral in this one.

I find this a rather flimsy tea. All the flavour notes are there and strong, but they seem to be only very loosely connected with one another, as if the entire flavour profile could fly apart at a moments notice.

It was an excellent recommendation for me to try. I certainly found it very interesting and fun and I will enjoy the rest of these leaves. I just don’t think it’s one that I’ll drink when I’m in a specific Keemun mood, because it doesn’t really embody how I prefer my Keemuns. For me, a wonderful Keemun must be smoky rather than floral and lot more grain-y than this. This is too soft-spoken, really, to be a good morning tea, and I want my Keemuns to be rather more forceful.

(In other news, I shall be taking the first of my 52teas advent calender today. I know it’s too early, but this way I’ll have the last one before we go to England. Don’t worry about spoilers, I shan’t post anything yet. Although, I did see that some people were speculating on how to minimise spoiler-risk for others, and if anybody is interested in my opinion, it can’t be done. It’s all fine to make sure to post later in the day, but for those of us in earlier time zones, our ‘later in the day’s are still your mornings and the effort is rather lost. I believe that as long as everybody just posts on the correct day or later, then it must be up to others to not visit Steepster until AFTER they’ve opened their calendars. So I will be starting early and writing my posts privately, so I can put them on Steepster later.)

The most exquisite thing about this tea is the appearance of the dry leaf. The leaves look like little furry spirals and have a pleasant faintly sweet smell. I want very much to like it, but I am not really sure I do. The tea just is not something I think that I will crave the taste of—not horrible tasting—but not something I love. I infused a fair amount of leaf in a glass gaiwan at 170° for a minute. I think this tea is a little too unforgiving and vague. Maybe I am having a bad tea day?

Definitely has the sweet corn notes that many yellow teas have, but has extra grassiness. Overall, mellow with a pleasant aftertaste. Prepared per instructions in a porcelain gaiwan using two heaping teaspoons of tea, 185’F water for 1 minute for the first two infusions, increasing time and temperature for subsequent infusions.

I feel slightly bad about stealing a lot of this tea from my boyfriend! Normally we don’t drink the same tea (he’s into Chinese greens), but I’ll try at least a cup for curiosity. Well, this one caught me by surprise.

This is the second yellow tea I’ve tried, so I can’t accurately make associations with other teas. It’s very nutty- a quality which I really, really love. It also has a corn-like taste to it. It almost reminds me of eating corn slathered with some butter (which I never add to corn interestingly enough). Otherwise, it’s pretty light and delicate, which I would expect from a Chinese tea, but it’s unique enough to hold my attention and warrant further exploration into Chinese territory. So far this tea beats all the Chinese greens I’ve had, though!

The scent of this tea is greatly inviting. It’s very sweet and airy, so I can understand the poetic expressions of the “sweet dew” that comes to mind. I’m not one, however, for that kind of sweetness in tea, but I have to appreciate its subtle, light, and delicately sweet taste. It holds up well to multiple infusions (the second one was quite nice actually). It’s just not a tea I would order myself or drink very often.