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I feel so lucky that Angel at Teavivre still thinks of me for sending out samples. I’ve benefitted greatly from their free samples, and am happy to review their teas. This time the sample offering was of their new spring harvest green teas, but she also asked if there were any other teas I’d like to try. I have been wanting to try this one since they released it, so of course I asked for it! Thanks so much for sending it along Angel!

The dry leaf is gorgeous, all curly with lots of golden tips. I am actually now on my second cup of this tea. The first time I used half of one of my little sample pouches for my 12oz mug and brewed it at the steeping parameters I’ve used for similar Fujian blacks (and what they recommend for this tea), namely 185°F for 2 minutes. The resulting cup smelled and tasted nice but was also pretty weak. I was craving more so I used the second half of the pouch to steep it at 195°F for 3 minutes.

This smells lovely, like molasses and grains, which is what I look for in a tan yang. The sweet, caramelly, malty, grainy flavors are all there, but still not quite right in the second cup. The second cup is more robust but the flavors are still somehow muted. I think I need to use more leaf… good thing Angel was generous enough to send two more sample pouches of this tea. Also I now have a full pouch’s worth of once-steeped leaves to resteep and play around with. I won’t rate this one until I’ve played around with it more, but even as it is now it would be in the 80s (which remember on my new rating system is very good). I just have a feeling from what I’m getting now that this is actually spectacular, it’s just my brewing of it that is off.