ZhengHe GongFu Black Tea - Jin Ping Village

Don’t like this harvest. I’ve tried to drink this version in multiple ways and all I get is dirt. I’m channeling my inner “omgsrsly” i think. Not the end of the world, but i have ZERO desire to drink the rest of this. So i’m not going to. A waste of tea but i am really not a fan of this harvest and i refuse to drink things that i don’t enjoy.

Original version of this was a 91 for me; this year is closer to a 54.

This is a really nice Fujian tea that had a great mix of bright fruit and sweet cocoa notes. It is very similar in flavour to a tea I love and may not be able to replace, so I am grateful to Dexter3657 for this sample as I’ve been curious about it for some time.

Below are my observations. I steeped it 5 times.

This tea brewed into a medium amber brown.

Scent longan, cocoa, honey, malt. Both bright and rich smelling.

1.5 TSP/200 ml/95°C/1 min

Nice balance of bright citrusy longan, honey,with cocoa in the finish. Slight hint of dark bread crust, cherry and spice.
1 min scent similar to above but stronger sweet cocoa note.
Long an, stronger cocoa with honey underrneath

1:30. Longan honey, cocoa in back again but still quite present.
2:10 longan dominant other flavours present underneath. Becomes sweeter as it cools

4 min slightly tart sweet potato with cocoa honey note

Altogether this is really a nice tea that I will purchase in the future. Thanks!

first off, i believe i updated the tea info correctly for this excellent blend… it took some digging on tao tea leaf’s site, but if it’s wrong feel free to lecture, lol.

the description for this tea is bang on… it’s a sweet souchong, for which i am hugely grateful. a number of us have been discussing allergies on here tonight and one of my many is smoke. incense, cigarettes, the oven being cleaned. i think as a result i dislike/can’t tolerate smoke in tea. to my delight this one was just the right mix of sweet and smoke.

thank you so much scribbles for this great little baggie of surprise. i am enjoying it as we speak! lovely with cream and sugar (i do smoke creamed, lol)… i will try it all by it’s lonesome another day. today i crave my standard comforts. it has been another looooong medical day.

scribbles, is tao tea leaf giving you an extra discount or a stipend at all? because i will buy this one in future. xoxo

steep 2: less sweet but no increase in smoke. takes on a marine tone, but not unpleasantly so… like a sweet mild version of seaweed. there is also an echo of puerh in it… again, very gently. just a hint.

A lovely sample from Dexter3657.

I didn’t read anything about this tea before I steeped it, I just went with the directions included on the sample packet. :) Sil apparently says it tastes like LB, and I’ll agree. The flavours are not to my taste at all. Not really smoky, more roasty and dark with a tiny bit of smoke. Plain it was better once it cooled, but it was generally much nicer with maple syrup. I guess I’m really not into teas with this flavour profile (yet).

The rest of the sample will go to my brother… maybe he’ll like it better!

This was good but doesn’t give me the immediate pleasure-pang satisfaction it seems to for most. Part of it is that inescapable sweet potato thing so many popular Chinese black teas have that I’m just bored to tears by personally. And I don’t know, for some reason that note always signals a wateriness to my brain even when I don’t think it’s actually there, hard to explain and I don’t know why. It was certainly not bad but all the wonderful notes others are mentioning I don’t get at all, just sweet starch and a little smoke. It seems I can only appreciate/detect longan when it’s waaaay overpoweringly flavored like in Lupicia’s Earl Grey Grand Classic. I’m such a subtaster. I did this gongfu but I think next time I will try it Western style and overleaf a bit.

This is not very smoky which is good because I am not a Lapsang fan. When it cools down the smoke becomes more present. But when hot, this is sweet and thick and hay-ey. Reminds me a bit of the Black Pearl from Mountain Tea Co. Also a bit of Laoshan Black but the main difference is that I don’t like Laoshan Black and I really, really like this.

Thanks so much, Sil!

I often say that this is my favorite black tea. But is it really? This is the first black that really blew me away, but since then I’ve tried lots more great black teas. Is this really the best black that I’ve tried or am I just emotionally attached to it?
I have been drinking it at work for the last couple of days. HHHhhhhmmmm – yep I love it. Awesome, fantastic, perfect. This is everything that I LOVE about black tea. Emotional or not – I’m still calling this my favorite and need to get more of it in my cupboard.

I feel bad.. I had this one sitting under my monitor and forgot to pack it up when I sent the box off, sorry to anyone looking forward to trying it :(

On to the tea though, it’s a really nice black that I could see myself drinking again for sure. I’m on my second steeping and the flavour is really nice. It leaves a lingering sweetness on my palate that leaves me wanting to drink more and more.

Looking forward to seeing how this tea holds up to a few more steeps :)

Edit: Not really sure how to explain this but the tea leaves such a nice smokey bittersweet taste, I’ve never really experienced anything quite like it from a tea I’m really loving this

Sipdown (168 because I forgot to add it)

It might be human error but this tastes rather watery. Plus, there is a weird raisin flavor and that’s it. Not sure what happened but if this is how this tea is supposed to taste than it is not for me.

So, I’ve had this one twice now. It’s very bread-y with a nice thickness, and there’s a cocoa element as well, but I’m not getting as much sweetness as I would like. I think if it had a nice honey note, that would make it a great tea. As it is, it lingers on the edge of cocoa bitterness. Maybe it’s delicious with some added sugar, but I’m not doing that with my Chinese black teas anymore. The other black tea I have from them, I believe it’s the ying de black tea, has a lot of honey sweetness…hmmm, I see an experiment mixing the two in my future!