Lishan Hongcha

I bought this tea in my big spring 2022 haul from Bok, and drank it throughout most of the winter and spring. It’s wonderful, but the flavours are too well mixed and the tea too smooth to write a decent review. I wrote this when I was just finishing the bag, then lost it on my hard drive for a couple months, so here goes. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml pot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of honey, brown sugar, stewed cherries, cocoa, and wood. The first steep has notes of honey, stewed cherries, plums, cocoa, faint citrus, brown sugar, narcissus and other flowers, grass, and wood. This tea isn’t punchy like most other Taiwanese hongcha, but is soft and unassuming. A touch of astringency and some pleasant sourness pop up in steep two, along with more cherry, citrus, florals, spices (nutmeg?), and honey. The next couple steeps emphasize cocoa and rye bread notes, with the tea remaining smooth and hard to pin down. Steeps five and six are more woody, malty, drying, and grassy, though they still have a lot of fruit, honey, and florals. The next few steeps have notes of honey, malt, rye bread, wood, minerals, prunes, and grass. The tea stays sweet, smooth, and pleasant until it fades into honey water in the final long steeps.

I was told that this tea was made by someone who kept winning black tea competitions in Taiwan until he eventually retired, and this seems plausible. It doesn’t hit you in the face with bold flavours like some other Taiwanese hongcha (I miss you, Assam and Ruby 18 from What-Cha!), but all the elements are mixed harmoniously and the tea is a pleasure to drink. It doesn’t get bitter, even if it’s forgotten in the pot, and it’s both comfortable and elegant. It didn’t wow me as much as the spring 2022 Baozhong, but it also never disappointed. I missed it when it was gone and I’m ordering another bag this year.