Nepal Autumnal Jun Chiyabari Organic

[Autumn 2020 harvest]

Another great tea from Jun Chiyabari. It is very elegant, aromatic, and smooth with no astringency.

The aroma reminds me of apricot, cookies, cherry, wood, star anise, and honey. The taste is sweet, woody and also a bit more savoury than the typical Autumn black tea from Himalayas. There are flavours of brown sugar, cocoa, honeysuckle and apricot. I has just the right amount of bitterness to create a balanced profile. In the finish, some sour notes also come to the fore and make for an unusual aftertaste.

Montreal Tea Festival – Tea #21

Last tea to write about from the festival! Pretty impressed with myself for getting all the festival notes done in under a week, actually…

I was excited when I saw CS brewing this up – it’s from the same estate that DT’s Nepal Black comes from, though it’s not the same thing. Still, I couldn’t help but mentally compare the two while I tried this one out. Now, mind you that the brewing technique could play a lot into how the flavours came out in the infusion – but I thought this one seemed a bit lighter in body, but more nuanced in flavour. DT’s Nepal Black is very full bodied and brisk/sweet, with mostly honey and malt notes. This was more medium bodied, and the range of notes I got was a mix of clover honey, malt, milk chocolate, and prune. I liked it a lot, but just based on this one sample I think I surprisingly prefer DT’s Nepal Black for its richer honey notes and sweetness, even if it’s not as complex…