Premium Grade Tan Yang Gong Fu Black Tea

A swap from Togo, thank you.

Split the 5g between a 3g/60mL gaiwan session and a 2g western brew. There’s a reason this is Gong Fu tea.

Delicious and aromatic. Smooth medium body with oiliness, very fragrant in the mouth. Long creamy finish followed by awesome throatfeel and camphor cooling deep in the chest. Salivation and both top and sides of tongue tingle. Happy-dopey energy.

Dry leaf aroma is dark and red, like cherrywood tobacco, dark chocolate, petrichor. Warmed leaf has strong notes of chocolate syrup, wood, cherry, osmanthus and baked bread.

In the nose — bright and creamy, cocoa, vanilla, baby powder scent later turns to raspberry and tobacco.

In the mouth — mineral sweetness on sip, followed by tobacco base note with citrus, cream, cherry, pomegranate, baked bread, camphor. Mineral cleansing. Aftertaste of osmanthus-apricot, orange-like citrus and cream. Tobacco becomes stronger in later infusions and ends with a complement of light smoke.

No bitterness and light astringency only toward the end of the 9-steep session. If it had greater longevity, no doubt I’d rate this 95+. Such a nice autumn weather tea. Bright and uplifting but not heavy despite darker notes in the flavor profile.

This is a very nice, balanced tea with extremely soft mouthfeel. There are a lot of subtleties to it.

The smell of dry leaves reminds me of nuts, hot chocolate, fruits and smoke. Interesting notes like grilled aubergine emerge in the wet leaves, complementing the expected ones of tobacco and sweet leather.

Taste is somewhat medicinal, tangy and crisp. It has a very good balance of sweet, sour, nutty and earthy. I can taste lemon zest, almond skins, pomegranade and leather. On top of that, the somewhat drying aftertaste displays a strong pinewood note.