Hua Xiang Xiao Zhong Black Tea

The notes in this were extremely subtle, barely there, nothing that blew me away. A near standard black tea for me, save the hints of stone fruits you get if you swish it around in your mouth. It’s not a bad tea, in fact it’s pretty good, but nothing that impressed me too much.

I’m always up for trying another unsmoked lapsang, so I was excited to see this Hua Xiang Xiao Zhong in Teavivre’s catalogue. I steeped the entire 5 g sample in 120 ml of 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of peaches, citrus, sweet potato, florals, honey, and malt. The first steep has notes of peach, orange, raspberry, other red berries, sweet potato, honey, orchid, and malt. The tea has a nice, syrupy quality but is a bit drying in the mouth. The next steep is even more peachy, with a lovely peachy aftertaste. Steeps three and four are more malty and woody, but with plenty of peach, honey, berries, orange, and sweet potato. By steeps five and six, the jammy berries are taking over the peach, and the tea has more of those lapsang notes of malt, honey, wood, minerals, and light tannins. The final few steeps have faint hints of fruit, along with malt, wood, honey, tannins, and minerals.

For the price, this is a pretty good lapsang, though I don’t think it compares to the offerings from Wuyi Origin. I’m a fan of the peach and berries, and the tea’s longevity is good. The flavours are lighter than they could be, perhaps because I was using 5 g instead of my usual 6. If you like unsmoked lapsang and are ordering from Teavivre, I’d say this would be a good tea to add to your cart.

Another Teavivre tea sample that I looked forward to trying was their Hua Xiang Xiao Zhong black tea. Even though I couldn’t pronounce it, I figured I would have no problem drinking it. Thank you Teavivre for this sample.

The long black leaves in the sample packet were probably the darkest tea leaves I’ve ever encountered. Their aroma was like a hodgepodge of sweet, fruity, and flowery elements.

I steeped the leaves for five minutes at 195 degrees. The brewed result was a surprisingly light color for black tea. It reminded me of melted butter.

At first sip, I thought I detected a sweet potato flavor accent. However, as I got deeper into my cup, I realized the flavor was actually sweet like caramel, surrounded by fruity and flowery soft tones. I don’t normally gravitate toward flowery teas, but this one expertly uses the flower attributes as a flavor enhancer, versus the star of the show.

This tea was also buttery smooth down the gullet. It was another one that I had to use constraint to savor rather than gulp.

Even though the light brewed color made me wonder if the flavor would be light too, that was not the case. It had a gentle, yet full, extremely satisfying taste, with no astringency or overbearing aftertaste.

Teavivre has come up with yet another exquisite tea that I could drink all day. In fact, I like it so much that I will work on trying to pronounce it!