Sun Moon Lake Assam Black Tea, Lot 147

My other morning tea! I have a bunch of TTC teas that i need to start working my way through before i end up placing another order. I have a sneaking suspicion that i should stick to sample orders with them, though i love their teas. It just takes me so long to get through 50g that the lot is either finished by the time i try them or another 4 have come out haha. So yeah. Love their teas…just want all of them!

First Tea of the day!
This morning Tony flew to Kalamazoo, Michigan. His company is hosting a trade show there, or participating in one, something like that. Either way, he is gone until Tuesday night. I’m not used to being at MY house on sundays, & I don’t have any students or gigs, so it’s a total free day!!
I plan to spend at least part of this day drinking samples of all of the teas Sil & I shared from Taiwan Tea Crafts, in part because I haven’t drank any of them for awhile, & also because TTC is having a SALE! So I need to decide if I want MOAR of any (or all) of these!

This one wins the prize for the most beautiful packaging, lol. The packaging of all of these samples is absolutely beautiful, very colorful, but this one especially. Flavor-wise, this is also one of my favorites. This one & #154 are very similar, with a sweet fruity taste, & I have enough to drink them each one more time after today.

My steeping parameter today is to use my little blue lotus porcelain teapot (roughly 4oz, same size as my yixings, & they all look so nice together on the shelf). This allows me to run 3 full length steepings, but only drink about 12 oz total. As for quantity, I’m treating these teas like I treat Butiki’s Premium Taiwanese Assam, simply because they similar (though the taste is different), with similar leaf size. So I added a slightly heaping tsp to the pot, steeped 3 min at boiling, & then ran 2 more steepings at 4 & then 5min, each into a different cup.

I’m pleased to say that all 3 cups were delicious! This is a refined tea, a lady of Assams if you will. There are no bold bass or high notes here, more like a sweet woodwinds trio: bassoon, oboe, & clarinet. The flavor is rich, gentle, & fruity. Thanks again, Sil, for including me on this order!

I’m no «math-magician», but here’s some full proof equation:

Assam + Taiwan
_________________
Sil (swap) = Love

Thank you so much Sil for this one, whoa! Fruity, raisiny, bready, almost boozy assam, perfection in a cup! It does resemble Taiwanese Assam from Butiki a lot, though I find Butiki’s a bit fruitier.

It’s a homerun, thank you Sil for giving me the chance to try this amazing tea:-)

Thanks to Sil I can finally try a Sun Moon Lake Assam. I have been dying to try one for ages and could never find anywhere with shipping and tea prices and enough other things to justify an order.

This is mighty tasty. Smooth, thick, fruity and slightly yeasty. If the other samples Sil was kind enough to share with me are as good, I can definitely see an order in my future!

Oh and I steeped this for-absolutely-ever and it wasn’t even a tiny bit bitter or harsh. I mean, we are talking like 10 minutes while I made the husband pancakes for dinner and completely forgot about my cup!

Steepster ate my note…first time for me ! I am shocked lol, naughty steepster !

Thank you so much Sil for sending me this tea as a surprise.
This is really a very kind attention and a very good tea.
I am very fond of Taiwanese teas and especially those from the Sun Moon Lake.LaFleurBleue sent me one in the past and I really felt in love with it.
I tried to find one at Mariage Frères but it’s very expensive (30 € for 100 g) so I forgot about it.
And yesterday night this lovely envelope was waiting for me in my mailbox!

This is a very lovely assam, deep, dark but fruity as well.I get candied apricot for sure and fresh bread notes.

I love it ! for sure I’ll have a look at this company. Thank you so much Sil

I’ve had this tea and the premium one a few times now and decided to have them side by side today. What I’ve decided…. This one is definitely more bold and more “Assam” like. Still fruity and super delicious, but bolder and deeper in flavor than the premium one. That being said, I think I actually prefer the premium. I think. I’m not sure. The premium one is a bit sweeter and is really buttery. Tastes so similar to the Caramel Vanilla Assam. It’s also a bit fruitier. I love them both. The #147 is a good first morning tea. I think the other is a great second morning tea :-)

Sipdown, 149 (new samples acquired last night). Thanks, Sil, for this sample!

This tea is totally blowing my mind. I’ve had a sample of Sun Moon Lake Black tea before, but this tea completely blows it out of the water. I guess this is also equivalent to Butiki’s PTA, and I can see some of the similarities, but this is definitely unique in my mind.

It didn’t seem that exceptional at first, and I kind of started drinking it without thinking about it too much. Then holy caramel! So sweet and soooooo much like caramel! I get it in the scent too now. Fruity, yes, and I agree with cooked fruit, like a jam. But this time the fruit isn’t accompanied by whatever notes usually are in a fruity black tea that I dislike (I have a hard time describing them, but I know them when I taste them). To me, this is almost like a caramel apple with the fruit and caramel together. Caramel apricot? Whatever, it is delicious. It is so smooth and silky. I know I will definitely be ordering from this company in November!

Thank you Sil for sharing this with me. I am actually quite surprised as I anticipated a straight black but this is smooth and fruity. It is very good so I am glad you sent it to me and forced me to try something new.

Tea & Cards TTB

This was such a nice bold black tea. Full bodied and a bit yeasty. It was exactly what I needed after a pretty restless night, to get started on what promises to be a very busy week.

A lovely tea, whose dry leaves smell of sweet tobacco, aged wood, and crushed chestnut leaves in the fall. The taste is mild (for an Assam), sweet, and smooth. Although this is a fine tea (even after 2 years from harvest), I enjoyed the smell of the dry leaves more than the taste of the liquor!

First infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz water, 90 deg., 1:30 min.

Second infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 90 deg., 5:00 min.

Third infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 90 deg., 10:00+ min.