Keemun Xiang Luo

Now that i’ve got teas galore, i need to get them in to my cupboard…however i really need to focus on work today so that will have to come later. Started my early morning off with this one. Still not a favourite tea, but it works in a pinch if i keep it to cooler temps. Not a rebuy for me since it’s sort of “whatever” but i still enjoy drinking it.

The leaves of this one are small, curly, dark, and shiny. They remind me a little of Laoshan Black. The scent of the dry leaves is mild and hay-like. The liquor is malty and a sweet, but also has a juicy quality that is quite distinct from the yunnan black I had earlier. I get notes of cocoa, caramel, and burnt sugar. This is quite tasty.

This was a sipdown! I have been having it for breakfast to whittle down my older stock of Keemun teas. This is good, lighter than Zen Tea’s Keemun Finest, and I have enjoyed, but I do prefer the Zen Tea one.

Keemun teas are funny. There is such an incredible variety of flavor and strength, and you can change it so much just by how you steep and how much leaf you add – true of any tea but really can be a saving grace or complete damnation with Keemun, IMO.

They can be refined or hefty, smokey or cocoa-y, light or strong, wine-y or chocolate-y, brash or smooth. I like mine somewhere in the middle. Afternoons are great for the super refined, smooth, wine-y, lighter fellas, but for mornings I like that scrape of dark cocoa!

This was one of the free 20 gram samples that Joel included with my Capital Tea Limited order. Thanks, Joel! The leaves are adorable. They’re jet black and thin, but curled up in a way that reminds me of bi luo chun. Baby snails! Dry scent is hay and honey.

OMG. This tea is so delicious! In fact, it’s reminding me strongly of Butiki’s Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black (aka Waffle Tea), which is wonderful since that one’s not available anymore. There are super strong honey and bread notes in the beginning with perhaps a touch of cinnamon, but near the end of the sip you get a huge punch of waffles-with-maple-syrup flavor. So creamy and rich the entire time. Delish! :)

Xiang Luo roughly translates into fragrant snail and is a tea that combines the processing methods of traditional keemun and biluochun. It is produced from whole bud first flush tea and yields a rich and fragrant tea deserving of its name.

This tea has fairly long tightly wound glossy black leaves that are loosely coiled into corkscrews. Occasional golden brown tips are seen among the dark coils.
The dry leaf smells of chocolate, caramel and grainy notes.

The tea smells complex and spicy with chocolate and caramel rising first from the cup, and with light longan mixed with plum and other stone fruits underneath mixed with bright spicy notes of cinnamon mixed with a tone resembling bay leaves and some upper tones of malt.

I used a TSP (@ 1.5g of tea)/225 ml in just off boiling water steeped for 3.5 minutes.
The resulting tea has light longan mixed with honey and spice flavour notes up front that are blended with buttery caramel. The spice is lightly floral and is pleasant and bright. Cocoa is underneath mixed with a tone that is a slightly bitter sweet but mixed with cooked barley mash. The overall effect is a creamy, sweet and bright tea, that is well balanced with deeper lightly bitter notes. There is a light astringency but this is countered by the the body and creaminess of the tea. The tea produces a cooling effect in the mouth. There is no determineable smokiness.

The Resteep at 4.5min is similar in flavour in colour, but is slightly more tart, with more apparent malt and grain tones. The tea remains spicy and sweet though with chocolate, spicy floral and fruit tones. It is peppery and cool on the tongue, yet remains very smooth. The tea is still very flavourful suggesting it may yield another resteep. Altogether it is a really tasty cup, with a nice dose of caffeine and is suitable for all day drinking.

http://instagram.com/p/tIeqQFGK-3/

Thanks Capital Tea Ltd for the sample. I would definitely consider repurchasing this tea in the future!

This was my last tea of the night last night, but I forgot to write down any notes on it so I’m having it again tonight. The leaves are spindly and wavy/curly, and smell malty and bread like.

The aroma is also malty and bread like. The taste is malty, cocoa, bread, and a little browned caramel (and maybe a wisp of smoke in the end of the sip). This, like all of the other teas I’ve tried from Capital Tea Ltd., is delicious. I think if I had to chose, I’d go with Etambagahawila Estate Ceylon, but they’re both great teas that I will restock.