The Roaster's Red

by Song Tea & Ceramics

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Tea type: Black Tea
Ingredients: Not available
Flavors: Black Currant, Brown Sugar, Floral, Fruity, Peach, Roasty, Smooth, Sweet, Dry, Malt, Red Fruits, Thin, Wood
Sold in: Loose Leaf
Caffeine: Not available
Certification: Not available
: Edit tea info Last updated by derk

Average preparation

205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 15 sec 4 g 7 oz / 207 ml

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4 Tasting Notes View all

“As a sweetened, iced tea: Oh dear, no! I was wrong in my forecast about this a few months back. After thoroughly enjoying a hot cuppa this morning, I undertook to make an iced tea version this...” Read full tasting note

98

TeaEarleGreyHot 184 tasting notes
“Freebie with my latest order — thank you! I don’t remember much about this either. I followed Song Tea’s brewing parameters for this tea and it flattened all the high notes. It was smooth, sweet...” Read full tasting note

derk 1668 tasting notes

From Song Tea & Ceramics

Notes of grenadine, peony, and golden raspberry
炭焙金萱紅

Type: Red
Region: Taiwan
Elevation: 1200m
Cultivar: Jin Xuan
Harvest: June 2023
Organic Status: Unsprayed
Roast: Charcoal

Crafting The Roaster’s Red began long before these leaves were ever harvested.

We knew early on that we wanted a red tea with a rich aromatic base on which we could layer on a longan charcoal-roasted finish. We were inspired by Red Lily, a spring red tea in our 2020 core collection. Red Lily balanced heady aromatics with sweetness. Crafted from Jin Xuan, a hybrid developed by the Taiwanese Tea Research and Extension Station as a hardy, high-yielding plant, Red Lily was both aromatic and sweet. But what if we could also give it depth and richness with charcoal roasting?

For the Roaster’s Red, we collaborated with the charcoal roaster to develop a base tea that was optimized for roasting. We delayed harvest by nearly two months to early June, taking advantage of leaf hoppers that bite the leaves, adding sweetness and depth to the base tea. Extended withering and oxidation time also gave the tea a foundation of fall fruit notes: from pomegranates to quince. We imagined the tea’s fruit notes intensifying with charcoal’s deep sweetness. And we weren’t disappointed.

Layers of light roasting compound and coax the subtle fruit and floral notes to the top of the nose, and simultaneously round and intensify their flavor. Former notes of pomegranate give way to rich grenadine, softened with hints of golden raspberry and blooming peony.

Brewing
Tea: 5 g
Water: 150 ml
Temp: 205º F
Time: 2 min

About Song Tea & Ceramics View company

Company description not available.

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4 Tasting Notes

Recommended

TeaEarleGreyHot

184 tasting notes

As a sweetened, iced tea:
Oh dear, no! I was wrong in my forecast about this a few months back. After thoroughly enjoying a hot cuppa this morning, I undertook to make an iced tea version this afternoon. Same nice aroma, but all the deep flavors vanished, and the floral flavor became artificial and plastic-y. Absolutely terrible. Don’t do it. Enjoy this expensive and premium tea HOT. Since the tea is inflexible in this regard, I’m dropping my rating to 98. Not recommended as an iced tea! Highly recommended as a hot tea.

I Like This

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derk

1668 tasting notes

Freebie with my latest order — thank you!

I don’t remember much about this either. I followed Song Tea’s brewing parameters for this tea and it flattened all the high notes. It was smooth, sweet and a little dry-roasty. Overbrewed yet pleasant. I would need more and prepared with my own parameters to see how I feel.

Flavors: Dry, Fruity, Malt, Red Fruits, Roasty, Smooth, Sweet, Thin, Wood

Preparation

205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 0 sec 5 g 5 OZ / 150 ML

I Like This

13 likes

9 comments

Leafhopper
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I’d be interested to hear what you got from Song. Did you buy more of that Ruby Eighteen? I was also very intrigued by their White Dragonwell, which is a blend of Longjing and Anji Bai Cha.

Sakura Sushi
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FWIW, Song’s Eighteen is my absolute favorite unflavored black – there is nothing you can’t do with that tea: hot, iced, milk, straight, gongfu, western, it always comes through. I just went out to San Fran last month and visited the storefront. They didn’t have Eighteen, but I picked up “A Different Eighteen” and “Ruby” which they had brewed up in the shop and was delicious. Neither of these are Eighteen, and the names can be confusing, but I would vouch for getting your hands on some Eighteen once it comes out.

Leafhopper
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Oops, I was actually talking about A Different Eighteen. I didn’t know they had multiple versions of Ruby Eighteen.

Sakura Sushi
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Yep! They have Eighteen, Ruby, and A Different Eighteen. The Eighteen hasn’t been available in awhile, but I always try to keep an eye out for it. A little expensive as teas go, but so good it’s well worth the money. I haven’t opened A Different Eighteen yet, but once I do, I’ll review it on Steepster to give my thoughts on it.

Leafhopper
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Wow, a Ruby trifecta! :) I’d love to get my hands on some of these teas!

Leafhopper
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It’s interesting that you compared the White Dragonwell to chicken soup. I was hoping for the floral/citrus notes of an Anji Bai Cha combined with the nuttiness of a Longjing.

I couldn’t close my tea cupboard door the other day, so I understand about sipdown goals. In hindsight, buying over 300 g of green tea for my big comparison project has created some inventory issues. :P

TeaEarleGreyHot
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@Sakura Sushi, you wrote “Yep! They have Eighteen, Ruby, and A Different Eighteen”. From what I’ve read on Song’s website, the tea they’re (unfortunately) calling “Ruby” isn’t the “TTES #18 Hong Yu (Ruby), cross between Taiwanese wild tea tree (B-607) and a Burmese assamica (B-729)”.

Instead, Song writes “Ruby’s base cultivar is unique to this tea maker. It is a variant of the qing xin cultivar, grown from seed rather than cloned.”. Teapedia.org notes that Qing Xin is AKA “green heart”. To further confuse matters, Song has other offerings based on the Qing Xin cultivar, such as the oolongs “Green Heart” and “April 30 Gold”. It is unclear to me whether or not the variant used for “Ruby” is TTES #6, “a wilde hybride of Qing Xin.”

In any event, @Leafhopper, your trifecta seems to be a duo, plus something else.

Leafhopper
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You’re right, my ruby trifecta was wishful thinking. Ruby seems to be an Alishan Hong Shui with some oxidation and roasting. The name was kind of confusing.

TeaEarleGreyHot
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I would like to think that nobody intends to confuse. It is possibly an issue of translation or vocabulary. But in any language there are homonyms and synonyms and multiple meanings of a word that are only clear in particular usage contexts. Even in my native Americanized English there are concepts that we simply have no word for, and we’re stuck using a borrowed word: “The Germans have a word for this….” And then there are always simple mistakes and forgetfulness, not to mention typos that go uncorrected!