Formosa Kangaroo Lapsang China Black Tea

Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea. I chose it because when I opened the box she sent, this was the tea I could smell. Mostly I grabbed it because I didn’t want to take the chance that keeping it around would influence the flavors of any of my other teas. I don’t generally keep a lot of Lapsang Souchong Teas here… with the exception now of my unsmoked Lapsang Souchong which doesn’t pose the same smokiness issue.

This is SMOKY. A few years ago, something this smoky in my cup would have elicited moans of displeasure as well as me dumping the cup out before really taking a sip… I might take a teeny sip and then out with the rest of it. But, I somehow have learned to like Lapsang. I do wish though, that I had rinsed this before the infusion. I think it would have given it a not-so-smoky and almost musty kind of flavor.

Under the strong smoky flavor, the sweet caramel notes are tasted. It is a pleasant enough tea, I think it would have been better if I was not quite so sleepy when it came to infusing it this morning so that I could have thought to do a quick rinse. As it is, it is just a wee bit too much.

This one is from the Purrfect Cup! Thanks so much!

This has a little bit of smoke flavor but it also tastes like sprouts to me…like alfalfa or pea sprouts even. There is a bit of sweet and subtle malty notes trying to come thru too.

At first I wasn’t sure if I liked these flavors together but they are growing on me. I think temperature has a lot to do with it too! I seem to like this one the cooler it got.

When sipping cold – I noticed there is a subtle floral aftertaste, too. Very different. Very unique. Because of this…I am enjoying it.

This is one of four teas I ordered from Tweed & Hickory. Their online store carries a lot of stuff including a wide range of Metropolitan Tea Company teas.

Anyway, this tea caught my attention because I love Lapang Souchong and omg I love Taiwanese teas! So to figure out how good this tea is or really how much I like it, I’ll be preparing it twice (long steeps and then short steeps).

(1): 200ml glass teapot, 1 tsp, 2 steeps (4min, 5min)

These two steeps brought out a lot of familiar LS flavours. It has the “burnt rubber” flavour that I often find with other cheap LS. The main Taiwanese character I can taste is the menthol sensation, which I am attributing to them using Taiwanese camellia sinensis. The tea body itself was fairly strong in the first and second steeps, I only used 1 tsp and it did not taste too weak. Otherwise it’s nothing extraordinary, I’ve had much better LS before but I still like this tea.

(2): 100ml gaiwan, 2 tsp, 3 steeps (45s, 1min, 1min 15s)

The first steep tastes pretty good, it has nice malty, smoky, menthol flavours. The tea is very strong given that I only steeped it 45s.

Unfortunately with the second and third steeps, it just tastes like weak tea with smoke and rubber.

I am only slightly disappointed with this purchase. It’s very similar to their regular LS (Lapang Souchong Butterfly #1) and had a lot in common with other cheap LS (like David’s Tea). So for what it is, you could do worse. That being said I would not recommend it to anyone seriously in love with LS. There are so many better LS teas out there sold under the “traditional” name Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong.

Okay, so yes I’m a tea snob. And when I first started drinking tea I would probably consider this one pretty good. But once you’ve tasted how excellent a tea can be (in this case Lapang Souchong) it’s hard to go back.

Tea from this morning. This one is pretty bold (I picked it up at The Whistling Kettle – who I know gets there tea from MTC)! Very smokey and all around oaky flavor to it, really nice. I really like it as one of my morning kickstarters once I get to work. Thankfully I learned my lesson that one cup is enough…when I had it at WK yesterday I had a small stump pot which was WAY too much! I’m going to try it in the potato soup recipe I’m making tonight…I got the recipe from the lovely Bigelow (aisling of tea) any Lapsang adds a nice smoke/bacon flavor so we’ll see what this one brings.

Purchased from Zombie Runner in Palo Alto, CA. I love the robust smokiness. Tea steeps to a strong caramel color and smells like a tumbler of Laphroaig. Lapsang is the peat-heavy Scotch of teas. Tastes smoky with a slick, syrupy mouthfeel. Spicy aftertaste. Mild astringency.