Swann's Way

My first thought on the first sip was “WHOA, complicated.” There are a lot of layers to this tea. This is an introspective tea, something to spend a quiet afternoon on, thinking.

I like to call teas like this traveling teas—the teas whose different flavors light up the regions of the tongue as you swallow. The dark flavors are the ones that hit first, which are sweet potatoes and cocoa. Then the tea hits the middle of the tongue with brighter flavors, like sugary red fruits. I’m going to tell you now that I suck at identifying fruits in teas, so red is as close as you’re going to get. As the brew fades in the back of the mouth, there’s malt, a little bit of astringency, and a honey-like sweetness. I also got some vanilla caramel flavor.

Though I couldn’t find the nuts in the first brew, subsequent steeps yielded a sweet, creamy pecan flavor, while most of the chocolate and fruits fell away.

Finally getting around to trying this one. Such an aesthetically pleasing tea.

Smells strongly of pecan in the dry leaf. Steepings lead first to strong pecan notes, which is really nice. I’ve not had a pecan tea that brought pecans into the flavor without maple. I didn’t get any cocoa until the last 2 steeps of 6 but then it came out and replaced the pecan. An enjoyable transition. The pecan and cocoa melded nicely with the base. This was a nice, pleasant way to spend the evening.

Really well done.

This tea is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also delicious! The tea is very smooth, rich, and slightly sweet and creamy. It tastes a lot like honey. Mmmm. Reminds me of sitting by the fireplace with a nice hot drink. It’s a very comforting tea, but still has that oomph to wake you up in the morning. The 2nd steeping is sweeter and less bold, but continues to have that smoothness that I really enjoy about this tea.

Sipdown :(

I got a turtle chocolate vibe from this. (here in western Canada we have a chocolate shop called Purdy’s that has the world’s best version of a turtle with high quality milk or dark chocolate, salted pecans, and amazing caramel. This is what I think of when I consider chocolate/caramel/pecans, but I suppose Turtles are a well-recognised brand in the US)

-dark chocolate and cocoa
-very nutty pecan flavour
-the second and third steep had more sweetness to them
-a complex base made from a bunch of teas that go very well together

I don’t usually go for flavored or blended teas, but I picked up one of the samplers from Liquid Proust’s website to give his teas a go. I’ve never had Sunmoon Lake Black tea, the base of this blend, before. I used boiling water and ~7g in my 120mL gaiwan. It’s possible this would do better western style. Not that I didn’t enjoy it gongfu.

I don’t think I’ve ever really reviewed a flavored blend before, so it seems weird saying that it tasted like its component parts, but that’s mostly what I got from this one. The first steep was lightly malty with a thick and full caramel flavor and cocoa/caramel aftertaste. If I let the tea cool down a bit, I could taste the pecans as well – this held true throughout the session. A few steeps in, the sweet caramel and cocoa flavors began to fade, but at the same time, the flavors from the tea base picked up, making for an interesting session. I started to get some dark fruit notes, kind of reminding me of cherries or maybe plums from the tea, still accompanied by whispers of the sugary sweet notes and nuttiness.

After trying this tea, I’m excited to get to the rest of LP’s blends. The flavors meshed quite well in this one and produced a very good tea. His passion is quite apparent in the care with which he selects ingredients, especially the base teas. I think the problem with a lot of flavored blends is that they just use shit tea – certainly not the case here. This one’s a winner.

The dry leaves are aesthetically fun and autumn looking with a syrup and toasted nut smell. The liquor is a rich dark liquid that lightens to amber shades in later steeps with a delicious aroma that really screams maple syrup to me.

The taste is a full and rich body that isn’t as heavy as a standard black tea and a lip licking full sweetness that doesn’t taste like the maple syrup it smells like, haha. My first impression, in fact, was the sweet, warm comfort of a blanket next to a fireplace on a rainy autumn day. Which was pretty awesome. But, this was actually a complex enough tea that I’m still noticing new things every time I decide to have a session with it, mainly in the way the flavors play in and out and with each other.

Things that consistently stood out to me as strong pros were the meaty nut fullness, even up through the sixth steep, the depth and richness of the black tea base which manages longer staying power and a lack of bitterness I’ve been seeing in other blacks when resteeped a few times. Resteeps well and good balance of flavors, with the varying highlights per steep making for a pleasant change with each pour.

I’ve been antsy waiting for this tea.

I smelled every single package. I was actually surprised how sweet and thick the Watermelon Baozhong smelled. This one was a lot fainter.

I brew it up, and the first steep is nice. I mostly taste the caramelized sugar and or honey, with a bare bit of vanilla, and maybe pecan. This was Western at about 1 min and 35-40 seconds. Overall like a sugary syrup.

Second steep I think I overbrewed closer to three minutes. I mostly got some pecan, a lot of caramelized sugar, and light Assam.

Basically, this tasted like I imagine Assams should from tasting notes. “Smooth notes of pecan, brown sugar, and malt with hints of cocoa.” More actual tastes than tasting notes. The vanilla is more of the note making this tea all the more syrupy. Only that’s what this actually tastes like. The malt, though, is a light malt. There is a little bit of bitterness, but little. There’s almost no astringency though.

Third steep-no idea how much time I used, had more pecan and fainter sweetness. Lighter, but still thick enough to call malty in my opinion. This is a medium bodied-or maybe a lighter bodied black tea anyway.

This tea is sweet enough without sugar, and really on its own. A dash a cream did bring out the pecan flavor a little bit more in steep three. I’m going to have to try this again because this tea offers more dimensions to try. I prefer the Dianhong French Toast, but this tea is how Assam should be.

But I agree with LP. It tastes exactly like Honeygram Teddybears.

I was asked to give an honest opinion about this tea, good points, bad points etc. I did like this tea. I tried it without sugar, I tried it with sugar. I tried to cover as many parameters in four steeps as possible. My eventual opinion on this tea was there was no real need to add sugar to it. The caramelized sugar already there sweetened it nicely. The strongest note to this tea was probably the caramelized sugar. The pecan, I think it is pecans in this, showed up in the second steep but were not as strong in the other steeps. The tea base itself was good. There was little bitterness or astringency to the tea base. Also I did not notice any notes of chocolate in it. That would have been an interesting tea if the tea base had had notes of chocolate but I didn’t find any. There was also no malt flavor that I noticed. As malt is as often a negative note as a positive one I suppose this is good. The tea base did have a very nice flavor to it but could have been stronger. If I didn’t have a job interview in a couple of hours I would probably keep steeping this tea. I think there were about two more steeps in it with the amount of tea I was using. I am seriously considering buying some of this but want to wait until I try the other sample I have from Liquid Proust first.

I steeped this four times in a 220ml gaiwan with 7.5g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 20 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, and 2 min. I noticed it was a little weak in the second steep so I gave it more time in the third steep and it was better.

I have been working on this tea for awhile and finally figured it all out in time to showcase at my fundraiser today :)

To me this taste like a honey gram cracker and to which others said that it doesn’t but explained the story about how they were created to suppress sexual appetite…

Anyways, this stuff brews a nice dark liquid with complexity. It is a loud tea and many heard it today. I ended up selling it, french toast dianhing, and watermelon baozhong. This was everyone’s favorite and I explained that it was one I worked the hardest on so it made me feel good! Still waiting for pictures from today because ti was a really fun event to answer questions about my journey as an online tea blender.

I had to admit that I have drank this finished version three different times before the event today. It took time figuring out the ration to mix and then roasting nuts as well as caramelizing sugar was a bit challenging. Hopefully I’ll get to share this with many at the Midwest Tea Festival.