1113 Tasting Notes
Another lovely tea from the slew of samples from TeaUrchin I got for my birthday. This is a different flavor profile than I am used to from sheng. It is quite bold and full of “darker” notes. It is kinda smokey and earthy as well as somewhat mushroomy and woody. Not exactly delicious tasting but not offputting either. Perhaps it’ll be one of those “feel good” shengs…we’ll see :)
UGH bummer! I took a chance and bought an Asian tea I knew nothing about…so now I have several ounces of Vietnamese Lotus green tea and it is GROSS. Like, I’ll probably throw it away. At least it wasn’t too expensive.
Someone else was just talking about throwing away their Vietnamese lotus green tea! That stuff must be truly terrible
Finally drank my sample of this today- it is not as sugary sweet as Stacy’s other Taiwanese blacks, though it is plenty sweet! I feel this one has an even more sophisticated complexity about it, too. It feel fancy and delicious :)
Marzipan gave me a sample of this tea last night at dinner, and I decided to drink it this morning while I baked a buttermilk lemon pie with saffron. Seemed apropos!
The first steep I drank straight, and was slightly underwhelmed. Mild black tea and faint lemon with some buttermilk tang. 2nd steep I added just a TINY bit of sugar and it really made this tea come alive! Everything seems more vibrant and delicious! Very tasty when sweetened.
This was also my first tea from this company, which I know very little about.
Thanks again Marzipan! :D
Still haven’t tasted the actual pie yet but it smells great!
I’ve got more of this tea now thanks to inranger YAY! Thanks!!!
So, I’m not sure I’ve ever had the 1st picking before. Also I haven’t had any LB in a while…someone educate me please, is the first picking supposed to taste different? I feel like there is a flavor note missing here! It is still quite tasty, don’t get me wrong. Just different! It could be my palate as I just ate a bunch of berries before drinking this cup, but still. Weird!
With the exception of shinchas and dragonwell, I’m generally a fall harvest kind of girl with most of my teas, so maybe it is just me.
I’ve never had it myself, but is that what you are referring to Stephanie? There’s a nice description about it, explaining…
http://steepster.com/teas/verdant-tea-special/34874-mr-hes-1st-picking-laoshan-black
Thank you for the sample boychik
This is not my favorite Damn Fine tea, but I’ve loved SO MANY of them so far that this is still a very good tea in my book. Just not knocking my socks off the way the others did. It is smooth and somewhat complex, but lacks any malty or fruity notes to draw me in ;)
I am considering ordering a tin of the Spring Keemun before it is gone. I finished my sample of that one from boychik on my vacation and I miss it already!
The Yunnan gold tips were tasty, but I’ve had other Yunnan blacks I enjoyed just as much or even more and were available in smaller quantities :)
I actually just ordered the free samples for reviewers from TeaVivre and that was one of my selections. :)
Definitely dark and “Earthy”. It tastes much older my guess would be it remained in loose maocha as they said before pressing.