Premium Sun Moon Lake Assam Black Tea, Lot # 154

I’m having a really nice leisurely day with my man, Tony. I drank this tea while I was fixing breakfast, & sadly, I’m still having a hypersensitivity to bitterness, so it wasn’t as fruity & tasty as I know it to be.

So I’m indulging a bit…I took his out of the cupboard to try this morning. It’s one of 8 teas that Terri and I shared on my half of the world. This one was picked because it smelled the least like Stacy’s mountain black that is out of stock until August.

Colour me impressed with this one! It’s a little lighter feeling than I expected, but I think that’s because I was a bit light in both my tea and my steeping time. I’m playing these ones by ear so that’s to be expected. This is not your usual malty Assam. Instead there are chocolate notes and jam?? Something fruity like in any case. I can’t quite put my finger on it but it is delicious! I’m now looking forward to trying the rest of these from Taiwan tea crafts even more!

This is the premium version and is sweeter, lighter, fruitier, and more buttery than the other. Can’t go wrong either way. This one seems like a cross between a Taiwanese Assam and Yuchi Wild Mountain Black. Really delicious.

Ok, I NEED more of this tea. It’s amazing, and by far the closest tea I’ve tried to Butiki’s Premium Taiwanese Assam. It doesn’t quiiiite taste right, maybe a bit more on the caramelly side, but the distinct raisin notes? Oh yes. So good. SO SO GOOD. So perhaps Sun Moon Lake should be the tea I investigate to replace PTA? It probably means I’ll be making an order with Taiwan Tea Crafts sooner than I would have thought. I hope they still exist, haha. Thanks so much for sharing, Sil. (I still have enough left for one cup. That is exciting.)

Sipdown (110)!

Lets see how quickly I can write this, my boss just showed up a half hour early, but he’s doing a recycling run right now…

Drinking this currently, in a thermos with some milk: it’s so sweet, definitely honey notes (smelled so strongly of honey when it was steeping) to it. And then there’s this fruity note cropping up and it’s weird because normally I’d describe fruit notes in a straight black as either stonefruit like, raisin-y or citrus-y but this comes off to me as more of a “red fruit”, almost berry like but not berries. Not totally sure how I should be describing it at all, but it’s delicious, anyway.

I got a really cool surprise at work today too; one of the seniors in the mall brought me a Christmas card which was shocking and very thoughful. I mean, it’s heavily religious and I’m not religious, but it’s the thought that counts anyway and that was really thoughtful. Made my morning, really.

Well Sun Moon Lake Assam, we meet again and I am very happy about that. This really is a great black. Fruity and smooth with the faintest touch of malt. Thank you Sil for sending more of this my way. I think I will take one more cup and pass the rest on to Roswell Strange. Hopefully she also enjoys it :)

Thank you Sil! This was a really great assam to start my day with. It was slightly tangy and sharp, but evened out into sweetness and fruit. It’s a very easy cup to drink; I’m really enjoying it, and would consider placing an order some time!
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Thanks to Sil for sending me more samples of TTC black teas! I still have never gotten around to ordering tea from them, so it’s nice to try some more. I’ve tried #147 before (also from Sil), so I decided to try this one and see how it compares.

I am out of practice brewing these long, spindly Taiwanese black teas. At one point I had a decent eye for dishing out leaves but apparently I’ve lost it. I decided to use the entire sample in my mug, but I probably should have split it up a bit. Actually a shorter steep by only a minute might have solved it. The tea was ever so slightly bitter and just overall very strong (I realize this may be how some people like their teas, haha), but I thinned it with a bit more hot water and it smoothed out most of the rough edges incurred by steeping that much leaf.

I found this tea to be overall quite tasty and a pleasant cup to drink. A bit fruity, a bit malty. I didn’t have the same reaction to this one as I did to #147, but to be fair my steeping may have something to do with it. This one has more of that character of most Taiwanese black teas that I don’t particularly care for; that je nais c’est qua, but not in a good way. It’s not enough to make me dislike the tea and I would happily drink another cup, but it’s not something I love. Glad to have tried this, though!

Ohhh, all I can say is this is a nice, nice tea—so nice I’m too busy enjoying it to think. My gosh. I like how the brassy elements one might wish to have smoothed out in a typical Indian Assam are indeed gentled or just plain not there thanks to the (what’s often for me too subtle, mind) Taiwanese style, which in turn gets amplified when given the backbone of a substantial general tea type like Assam. Wow I didn’t write that well. Hrm. The second steep yields more chocolate, delicious.

I’ve been impressed with Taiwan Tea Crafts (and grateful as always to Steepster—ain’t no way I’d have learned of them otherwise)—I love that they offer fancier teas in reasonably small amounts that make them a possibility for me, and that they have promotions and fair shipping policies if you want to try before you commit. And even when one of their teas proves generally not something I’d reach for often given my own proclivities, I have yet to encounter any where the care and quality (indeed, the craft) in producing the leaves wasn’t readily apparent from dry leaf aroma to finished cup and unfurled leaves. And some have knocked me completely off my socks (that one Red Jade!) with qualities I’ve never tasted together in a single tea before. We’re so lucky to live in this age when incredible tea is being crafted so many places AND thanks to modern transport and the internet etc. someone in a place as un-hot-tea-focused as the US has ready access to some of said tea. AND can learn and trade notes with fellow fans to boot. Awesome.

Speaking of, the dry leaf aroma on this one is a splurge. It’s rich and grapey, deep without being cloying like so many sweet grape-smelling teas. And the appearance of the wet leaves! Big and gorgeous, with these ripples of brilliant brighter red streaks here and there. I am surprised sometimes how often big, beautiful leaves can sway me. Admiring them makes tea even more of a pleasure.