Ohhh, all I can say is this is a nice, nice tea—so nice I’m too busy enjoying it to think. My gosh. I like how the brassy elements one might wish to have smoothed out in a typical Indian Assam are indeed gentled or just plain not there thanks to the (what’s often for me too subtle, mind) Taiwanese style, which in turn gets amplified when given the backbone of a substantial general tea type like Assam. Wow I didn’t write that well. Hrm. The second steep yields more chocolate, delicious.
I’ve been impressed with Taiwan Tea Crafts (and grateful as always to Steepster—ain’t no way I’d have learned of them otherwise)—I love that they offer fancier teas in reasonably small amounts that make them a possibility for me, and that they have promotions and fair shipping policies if you want to try before you commit. And even when one of their teas proves generally not something I’d reach for often given my own proclivities, I have yet to encounter any where the care and quality (indeed, the craft) in producing the leaves wasn’t readily apparent from dry leaf aroma to finished cup and unfurled leaves. And some have knocked me completely off my socks (that one Red Jade!) with qualities I’ve never tasted together in a single tea before. We’re so lucky to live in this age when incredible tea is being crafted so many places AND thanks to modern transport and the internet etc. someone in a place as un-hot-tea-focused as the US has ready access to some of said tea. AND can learn and trade notes with fellow fans to boot. Awesome.
Speaking of, the dry leaf aroma on this one is a splurge. It’s rich and grapey, deep without being cloying like so many sweet grape-smelling teas. And the appearance of the wet leaves! Big and gorgeous, with these ripples of brilliant brighter red streaks here and there. I am surprised sometimes how often big, beautiful leaves can sway me. Admiring them makes tea even more of a pleasure.
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Really happy that you are enjoying this tea. I agree with your thoughts on how wonderful it is that we live in a time that we can experience and learn about all these wonderful teas.
Just when I thought I was beginning to understand, I see a name like this one. Sun Moon Lake is in Taiwan. Assam teas are from the Assam region of India. How can a tea from Sun Moon Lake be an Assam? It hurts my poor head. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as you enjoy it. :))
my (admittedly patched together, mostly from the harney book and the internet, might be wrong/off) understanding is that in the last 10 to 30 years (partly thanks embargos with china lifting which forced them to switch from simply palely imitating the chinese tea not available from china at the time to using what they had already invested in re: tea making to create new teas not meant to compete directly with chinese styles but rather offer novelty and their own branding) taiwan has really become a game changer in terms of sharing innovative new tea styles and whatnot, and one of those new things has been taking varieties of tea leaf and seeing how they do in taiwan when “mated” with native tea plants (i could be getting the specs wrong there though; it’s been a while since i looked into it). so yes, it’s weird that assam is named after where it’s grown and yet they’re growing that in taiwan now too. be kinda like taking a darjeeling plant and discovering it grows well in, i dunno, florida once you melded it with something native to florida. ha. i know TTC mentioned how leaf and what exactly it is in more detail somewhere on the site, at least they did when i bought this but it’s been a while…
not the same type (i do feel excited the mint thing is recognized in the jade teas though! i thought i was crazy!) exactly, but a quick explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_tea#Black_tea
Wow, ok – thanks so much for this. I feel that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I really know. I keep trying to take a tea class, and it keeps getting cancelled from lack of interest. I must be the only tea drinker here. I think I really need to find some time to do some research on my own. Thank you so much for posting this and nudging me towards learning more.
Really happy that you are enjoying this tea. I agree with your thoughts on how wonderful it is that we live in a time that we can experience and learn about all these wonderful teas.
Just when I thought I was beginning to understand, I see a name like this one. Sun Moon Lake is in Taiwan. Assam teas are from the Assam region of India. How can a tea from Sun Moon Lake be an Assam? It hurts my poor head. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as you enjoy it. :))
my (admittedly patched together, mostly from the harney book and the internet, might be wrong/off) understanding is that in the last 10 to 30 years (partly thanks embargos with china lifting which forced them to switch from simply palely imitating the chinese tea not available from china at the time to using what they had already invested in re: tea making to create new teas not meant to compete directly with chinese styles but rather offer novelty and their own branding) taiwan has really become a game changer in terms of sharing innovative new tea styles and whatnot, and one of those new things has been taking varieties of tea leaf and seeing how they do in taiwan when “mated” with native tea plants (i could be getting the specs wrong there though; it’s been a while since i looked into it). so yes, it’s weird that assam is named after where it’s grown and yet they’re growing that in taiwan now too. be kinda like taking a darjeeling plant and discovering it grows well in, i dunno, florida once you melded it with something native to florida. ha. i know TTC mentioned how leaf and what exactly it is in more detail somewhere on the site, at least they did when i bought this but it’s been a while…
not the same type (i do feel excited the mint thing is recognized in the jade teas though! i thought i was crazy!) exactly, but a quick explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_tea#Black_tea
Wow, ok – thanks so much for this. I feel that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I really know. I keep trying to take a tea class, and it keeps getting cancelled from lack of interest. I must be the only tea drinker here. I think I really need to find some time to do some research on my own. Thank you so much for posting this and nudging me towards learning more.