Bailin Gongfu Black Tea

So I have waited and waited to write this review. Mainly because I have been drinking a lot of black teas lately and some were blending together for me. I had to come back to it after I had paired it with food. I paired it with a chocolate croissant the 3rd time and then with a blood orange the next.
I like this..but it did not blow me out of the water. After reading so many reviews I wanted it to, but It did not do it for me. It is still a good cup of tea..

The first cup for me has a chocolate note to it. With a little oat to round off the finish. The second has more oat and a little astringency to it.

Thanks Angel for the sample!

I just love it when a tea is good enough to outsmart the questionable water in my office. We had this hot water spigot which was already shady enough, but lately the water has come out smelling of unknown chemicals….so I have been using my trusty old Zarafina. It’s good but it generally handles black/dark teas better than green or white.

On to the tea itself….this one has a full-bodied bakey goodness that I love in a morning tea. I used the entire little bag (~7g?) for 16 oz of water and it was really good. It really caters to my need to have pastry-ish things in the morning without actually needing to consume a pastry. Also, as I accidentally found out, quite good cool/cold as well. Forgot a bit in my cup and when I came back and took a sip my first thought was “heh…cookie”, although I would have to go with a generic cookie as it didn’t taste like a cookie long enough to make a distinction. :P

Overall, quite tasty. I will probably end up bringing most of the rest to work. Part I will keep at home to test different steeping conditions.

I tried this last night, but ended up going out before I could write a review. So I’m having another cup first thing in the morning afternoon. And laughing a little because out of the corner of my eye, I keep reading it as “Ballin’ Gongfu”. Haha.

I read what other have said about this tea and upon smelling the dark, smaller leaves, I definitely agree with people mentioning cocoa. Cocoa is the strongest flavor I taste, along with a sort of light nuttiness that’s mostly in the scent. My brother said something about it reminded him of coffee, since it’s so strong and bold. I think he was onto something. I definitely feel more alert after drinking it.

Anyway, this is a hearty, delicious tea that I could see myself drinking instead of coffee some mornings. I kinda regret not tasting it before I placed my order last night. When I make my next one, I’m going to get some of this as well. It’s delightful.

I also wanted to mention that I love the little red individual pouches it comes in. That’s a nice touch.

Truly an outstanding tea. The dry leaf has a hint of pine in the nose, but the taste is pure caramel. Not a hint of astringency or bitterness, but this is by no means a “flabby” tea either. Delicious, simply delicious.

Thanks to Angel and Teavivre for this sample!

I have mixed feelings about this one. I really love the flavor spectrum, and this is a lovely desert tea: nice and chocolaty, touches of caramel, a good helping of spices, and hints of honey and malt. Butttt, I’ve tried this tea three separate times gong fu style, using different steeping times, amounts of leaves, and temperatures of water. Every time I get an unpleasant sour and salty texture and taste, especially in the first steeps. After about the fourth, this dies down a great deal, but I can still detect it. It’s not terrible enough for me to discard a steep, but it’s noticeable enough to distract from the yumminess this tea possesses. I will say, however, that my first issues were treating it as a traditional black tea and using near-boiling water. The third time I tasted this one, I treated it more like a dark oolong with much better results. Still, this coppery taste lingered. However, I’ve added milk and sugar to some of the later steeps the last time I brewed it and it came out very chai-like and was quite pleasant. I think I’ll switch over to brewing this one Western style now.

Outside of the flavor world, the dry leaves are a delight to smell. The aroma is like sticking your face into a container of Hershey’s cocoa powder, along with hints of hazelnut and spices. The wet leaves gave off scents of mocha, roasted nuts, honey, and coffee grounds. It was very rich and dark, but didn’t knock your head back—it was smooth and unaggressive.

The mouthfeel felt a bit chalky to me during some steeps. However, for the most part it was soft and smooth, especially when the water used is cooler. The aroma of the liquor doesn’t have much to it. It gets caramely some steeps, others it just smells like average black tea.

Flavor-wise, it is really quite similar to Verdant’s Zhu Rong from August of this year as far as flavors go. This one has a bit more chocolate and the addition of caramel, the Zhu Rong had a lot more spices. During mid-steeps of both teas (around 6 and 7) I would have to depend on mouthfeel (Zhu Rong was smoother) and aroma (Zhu Rong’s liquor’s aroma was more pronounced) to differentiate between the two if drunk side-by-side. I may consider this in the future… Actually, looking back at the raw notes I took while drinking both of these, steeps 6 and 7 look nearly identical, while the rest quite different. Hmmm, something to investigate further…

I think it’s interesting that my tea cravings change as the weather gets cooler. Well, the summer isn’t over just yet and I think we still have some hot days on the way.. but I like to think that things are changing. These days I am craving darker, richer teas – Yes, at all times of the day and night!

The tea itself is pretty thick in the mouth. It’s not creamy, but just heavy. I like this quality.. it’s almost like a comforting, chunky sweater! I am enjoying a lot of the sweetness that lingers on my tongue. The taste is leathery and a bit like wet hay. I taste a tinge of pepper as well. There is also an interesting salty note that certainly doesn’t overwhelm the cup, but makes it more interesting instead. I wish I could detect something that resembled caramel.. but it’s not to be found.

This isn’t my favorite black tea, but it definitely satisfies my craving for the moment. I see this as something that would be perfect to drink this winter when the thick snow is falling from the sky. It’s bold, dark and rich!

“Bai Lin Gong Fu – other than sounding like the name of a cheesy 70s martial arts flick – is a black tea hailing from Fujian province, China. Smelling it an experience, for I found it hard to pinpoint what to call the scent; I settled on “caramel musk” – even though that sounds like a male aftershave. This was different from the other two Bai Lins I’ve tried – which both exhibited more earthy, Yunnan-like tendencies – but I still favored its robust roundhouse kick of a taste.”

Full Review: http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/

This is definitely the tea I wanted this morning! Normally, I get up and have to ponder and sniff and deliberate before I find a tea that I am in the mood for. Today, my palate said “That one” without even having to start that process.

This tea is just so pleasant and chocolatey. It’s a little chilly in my house this morning (outside it’s in the 50s, which is a very nice surprise, considering where I live), and this beautiful black tea warms me from head to toe. I decided to have some bacon to go with it, which may have been a mistake, since it was peppered bacon and the pepper is kind of taking over my mouth right now… but it’ll pass, because bacon doesn’t last long in front of me. I decided to add some honey and cream to the tea(I know, it’s a Chinese tea, I just really like my black teas British style… sue me). It’s very malty and like drinking very high quality semi-dark chocolate… which is making me want to go to World Market and get some. Might have to make a stop there today sometime…

This was delicious! Just a beginning to my review. It actually reminded me of the Da Hong Pao I recently tried from my brother, but this was sweeter and a bit more resonant with maltiness.

The liquor is a gorgeous amber shade with a sweetish, caramel-based aroma. The tea itself isn’t exactly sweet, but evokes sweetness in it. Like cinnamon. It is spicy and fun and a good cup overall!

I think this would be an ideal tea to start my day off before work. Help me wake up and perk up for the hours in the office!

I finally realized how amazing this tea is, after accidentally letting it steep for 15 minutes. Even after all that time, the tea wasn’t astringent, it wasn’t bitter, and the taste still actually held a bit of sweetness! There is no way in Hell I’ll ever go back to bording old tea bags!

Regardless, this tea is also interesting because of how balanced the flavor is. The primary flavor is caramel, but it’s not as sickeningly sweet as caramel is when you eat it alone. The sweetness from the caramel does not overshadow the other flavors, and acts as I nice contrast. I am certainly going to buy more of this when my sample runs out.