72

Just received my LP tea order. I went for a darker mix (FT Dianhong, Dark Kitchen Sink, Jin Xuan and Coffee, Rummy Pu, Laoshan Chocolate Genmaicha, Swanns Way) because.. well.. I love dark tea. I sense that Andrew picked up on that and so he added this tea into my order. While I absolutely love the process (I love anything and everything birch), the CTC tea kind of makes me nervous.

So, I picked this one first. I followed directions and used 4g (1g over but just barely) and brewed it for 45 seconds. I set the temp for 200F just because I wasn’t sure and again, I didn’t want to get the tannic astringency and bitterness I normally associate with CTC black tea.

I have to say that this is WAY smoother than I thought. It has a fairly classic black tea flavor but I detect no tannic bitterness. As an added bonus, there is a faint birch flavor at the end of the swallow on the back of the tongue. Having had birch beer/pop and birch flavored candy, I am pretty familiar with the flavor. I’ll be interested to see if I push the steep time and temperature if I can coax out more birch flavor or if that just makes the tea go into bitter territory.

Second steep of 1.5 minutes yields less birch but still a good smooth black tea. Color me surprised. My rating for this is absolutely taking into consideration the fact that it is a CTC tea. I suspect if I had this experience with a whole leaf tea I might be a little more underwhelmed but this certainly outdid my expectations.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 45 sec 4 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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Bio

Michigander, Husband, father of three, lover of tea, books, nature, gardening, and passion. Stay at home dad currently. Previously a preschool teacher.

I have now completed some tea swaps and I am so totally up for swapping! What a cool way to connect with fellow tea lovers and try some new teas. My tea cupboard on here is woefully out of date though.

Black tea has been my go to tea for some time. Oolongs are good too but mainly roasty oolongs. I’m finding that there are some green and white teas (mostly Moonlight Whites) that impress me lately which they never used to do. I am getting into and developing a taste for Pu-erh. I have tried raw and my Ulcerative Colitis just can’t handle the roughness of it. So I stick to ripe Puerh. I am recently drinking more herbal tea or Rooibos especially STRONG ginger blends. I’m not too picky.

Some of my favorite places from which to purchase tea are Whispering Pines Tea Co, Verdant, A Quarter to Tea, Beautiful Taiwan Tea Co, Bitterleaf Tea, and Yunnan Sourcing.

Rating system:
90-100: Some of the best I’ve ever had. I’d be a fool not to keep it stocked as often as possible
80-89: A damn good tea. Not to be missed
70-79: A good tea but lacks the wow factor. More than likely a simple tea that could be an every day option
60-69: Eh. This is okay. Not swill by any means but fairly underwhelming.
50-59: Not really doing it for me. I’ll finish it but please don’t bring me any more.
Below 50: Life is too short to waste on things such as this

Location

Lansing, Michigan

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