Yunnan Dian Hong Golden Tip

Monday off since I work this coming Saturday, and I felt in the mood to pull out the adorable tiny pumpkin and do gong fu. One Chinese black sampler from Dazzle Deer left, a sealed April 2017 harvest. Old, but it’ll do.

Dry leaf smells delightfully of orange rind and sweet potato. Filled my 180ml capacity pot just to 120ml to steep the 5g of leaf in the sampler.

120ml (of 180ml) mini pot | 5g | 205F | 3s/5s/10s/20s/30s/45s/60s

Wet leaf has an even stronger sweet potato/yam aroma, as well as something sharp and fruity… nectarine? First steep has a mellow smokiness, orange rind, a strong stonefruit presense at the back of my tongue, a bit of malt/molasses, and sweet potato. Much stronger smoky/malt/sweet potato notes on subsequent steeps, with the fruitiness becoming a little less pronounced, save an orange rind tang at the back of my throat in the aftertaste. In the fifth steep a lemon citrus flavor came forward in the sip. The citrus flavor became stronger in the final steeps, and the stonefruit notes that had emerged in that first steep never did reappear.

Overall, a very satisfying and enjoyable Chinese black, and a tea type I definitely will have to try out further in the future.

Very small leaves for a Yunnan black, covered in golden fur. Almost looks like a Jin Jun Mei or other tippy Fujian black. Tastes of sweet potato and wood with a marshmallow-y sweetness and thickness, almost buttery. Sweet potato casserole tea? This would have been a perfect tea to share on Thanksgiving! This is smooth and mild tea, but can get a little sour if overbrewed.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I completely overdid it on the tea orders over Black Friday Weekend… I ordered from:

-Teavivre: Hong Song Zhen black(haven’t tried before) and Tanyang Gongfu black(super yummy), four little ru yao cups, and some samples. Everything I bought was 20% off, I had a ten dollar off coupon from the “lucky draw” and ten dollars worth of rewards points. Got over $50 worth for under $20 including free shipping.

-Mountain Tea Co.: 10.5 oz of their Amber oolong at 10% off. Most of their teas are decent but the Amber oolong is a killer roasted oolong for the price. Stocked up as a daily drinker. $40 dollars shipped, but it will last me a long time.

-Yunnan Sourcing: This is where I went overboard. I had told myself no more YS orders this year. However, I ended up ordering two aged sheng cakes that I had sampled and liked, three (cheapish) ripe cakes, three blacks at 100g each, three tian jian hei cha 50g each, and eleven 25g puerh samples (mostly 2016 autumn and 2017 spring sheng). Over two kilos of tea!