Premium Keemun Hao Ya Black Tea

I tend to forget that I like Keemun. I recently finished off a tin of a low grade Keemun from a local tea store, and turned to this one today to try something I hadn’t tasted before. Teavivre graciously sent me this in my first batch of samples months and months ago – and though I thought I tried it, apparently not. Actually, I owe Teavivre half a dozen reviews. I feel miserable about it, but a lot of times I just want to drink a tea and enjoy it, rather than thinking about the review I owe. Anyway, on to the tea.

We did a steep with boiling water for around 3 minutes, the liquor was rich and surprisingly brown in our new glass bubble tea cups. If you want smallish double walled cups, the Bubble ones at Davids Tea are super cute. I love them. Anyway, the tea was rich in flavour, I remember lots of strong notes, reminiscent of chocolate. Why do so many of my favourite black teas remind me of chocolate?! I REALLY enjoyed this one and would consider adding it to the Teavivre order I am trying to make (for some reason their site is refusing our credit card as payment. I’m a little bummed). The flavour was bold but not harsh and it was very smooth with no bitterness. (all good points in my book!) See my note on Persian Apple for how the second steep went, heheh.

This is a keemun win, for sure. Now to get my order to process…

Thank you again to Teavivre for this sample! :)

At first smell and sip, it almost had the same flavour profile as the fujian black I had sampled the day before – but that thought was immediately swept away when the smokiness crept in. mm it is by far my favourite part of this tea.

It’s a gentle smoke, not too harsh, however I did find the base a bit sharper than I expected. The leaves are quite small, so I may have brewed a bit too long. I do taste a maltiness – that is what I associate with the fujian – but other than that they are very different teas.

I did get some floral notes from the tea – I’m enjoying this very much! There is a lot of depth in this tea that I wasn’t expecting – although it may be a bit too astringent for my tastes, the smokiness is definitely seducing me. I look forward to my next cup – when I’m in the mood. ;)

Please, disregard the terribly unsophisticated slurping and glugging sounds coming from my direction. This tea is so damn good, I can’t help but drink it as fast as the temperature allows.

Oh. My. Goodness. I’m in love. This sample was courteously provided to me by Angel Chen. It is my first time drinking this tea, and it won’t be my last. Oh, no, it will not be. To start with, I’m really impressed with the packaging. Details on the label! Harvest date! How long it is good for! Source! It makes the tiny little part of me that is detail oriented swoon (granted, it is a small part, but swoon it does). Also the double bagging is definitely nice, though it does conflict with my more eco-friendly side, as others have noted.

The flavor of this keemun is wonderful. Granted, it is only my second keemun, but I like it more than the Teavana one I had previously. This one is robust but mild—does that make sense? It strikes me as a gentle flavor, but very much there. I don’t get an overly smoky flavor from it (I’m still adjusting to smoky teas), and I imagine that I get hints of chocolate and wine. I think I might find it woody if I could only shake my association of “woody” with “piney”. Earthy. A bit, not like a pu-erh (maybe what I think of as earthy is actually woody. I don’t know).

Anyway, the upshot? I’m going to be ordering more. Once I drink down some of my stash. I can’t wait till that day. Also, I can’t wait to try the next Teavivre sample. Thanks Angel!

The first thing I noticed when I was steeping the tea was a bold, smoky scent. I was reminded of lapsang souchong, as the tiny black leaves also brewed up very dark, very quickly.

The flavor, however, was less smoky than I expected. Which is good, because smokiness is something I’m still adjusting to. Anyway, it’s a strong, hearty tea that would go great with breakfast. There is no harsh aftertaste at all, just a sort of rounded maltiness and woodsmoke taste.

This would be a good segue tea between plain blacks and lapsang, I believe. And I also think a slightly longer steep time is in order. I’d like to taste what this tea is like when it’s stronger. So, next time…

Tea of the morning. I enjoy the malt and cocoa notes in this tea. They’re not super heavy, but they definitely contribute to the rich feel of the tea overall. There is also a bit of spiciness at the back of the sip. It reminds me of all spice I think. It’s not something I’ve tasted before in this tea, but it’s really nice. There’s just a touch of smokiness which is pairing nicely with the all spice note today. Very nice.

Thank you Angel and Teavivre for letting me sample this lovely tea.

This is smooth and rich with malt and chocolate notes. I find it falls a little shorter on the fruit notes than the grade 1. I also thought it had less smoke. ohmygurd where is the smoke!? The smoke I was looking for is pretty tame with this one. A great tea but I really want more in the smoke department, so grade 2 is still top dawg!

Tea sample provided by Teavivre for review

Finally got a chance to brew this eastern style (short steeps). I wouldn’t have even given it a thought had I not seen Teavivre’s guide to brewing Keemun tea, where they used a clay teapot for short steeps. Unfortunately I don’t have one of those for black tea, but I do have a gaiwan.

Drinking from the first steep, I’m picking up on very strong tea flavour, notes of floral, pungent, malty, and a hint of smokey. Drinking again, there is caramel, spices, baked apple notes. Truly a delightful experience for my senses.

Second up tastes quite the same. Here I enjoyed the heavy tea body more.

Third cup had a change in flavour; a bit less smooth black tea body and more malty astringency. There is also a velvety texture, deep rich flavour with wonderful pungent body in my cup.

Fourth cup had another noticable change in flavour. Still nice flavour, but the tea body is becoming more mellow now. The spices notes are becoming more bolder, especially pepper and cinnamon.

Fifth cup had a much stronger smoky flavour. Tea body is becoming more mild but still flavourful. Not bland at all.

Ending on the sixth cup, the flavour is still good, but becoming less interesting. I think I can taste my original water, which is usually a good indication of where to stop. If I were a Keemun fanatic I could resteep again, but I am satisfied ending here.

This was quite a nice experience given the fact that I am dealing with broken leaf. I prefer this short steep method mostly because I use more leaf and less water than western style. This allows me to brew some very aromatic and bold cups of tea.
Up’d my rating because short steeping this tea has been a more enjoyable experience.

Personally I love the strong pungent flavour that brews from the 2 tsp of leaves I used. But if you do not like such bold tea, I recommend 1 tsp.

100ml gaiwan, 2 tsp, (rinse, 30s, +10s resteeps)
Please note that if you use a gaiwan, I recommend using a tea strainer over your teacup or “fair cup”. And by strainer I don’t mean those big infusers. (If you’re not sure what I mean, check google images)

Unwanted tea advice: I think that if you love drinking unflavoured tea often, it’s worth buying a gaiwan to enjoy the experience of short steeping tea. (I paid like $10 for a gaiwan and 4 cups in Toronto. So your gaiwan purchase does not have to be expensive to be good!)

Second keemun of the day, comparing to the keemun grade 1 I just tried. The leaves of this premium keemun were a bit smaller than the grade 1 but they appeared to all be the same shape and size.

The smell of the brewed tea is slightly smokey but also a lot more of a sweet smell. The tea tastes very smooth and clean, no astringency. There is a slight bitter smoke taste, but it is a good taste. There is a sweet, red fruit taste, maybe a bit of currant. There is not much earthy taste like I had with the grade 1. There is a bit of a metallic aftertaste that lingers, it tingles on my tongue.

I referred to the grade 1 as a gulping tea, and this one is more of the sipping tea.

Bit of a backlog here… I tried this out for the first time on Saturday. My husband was good enough to drop it off to me at work. :) Again I was impressed with the way Teavivre packages their tea. Sure it isn’t eco friendly, but as LiberTEAS pointed out is sure is tea friendly! I’m sure I’ve had a Keemun before, but I don’t recall what I thought of them. But I’ll tell you I loved this. The smokey flavor that seemed to turn sweet as I finished my cup, was just awesome. Also I really liked that as my cup cooled the tea didn’t get bitter at all.

Yesterday I mixed in a little of Teavivre’s Yun Nan Dian Hong and wow! This was one of my better ideas when mixing teas. I think I might try it again today. :) I can see Teavivre is going to be very bad for my wallet!

The last time I had this (which was also the first time) I used the whole 7g sample. I really enjoyed it, and found out that I actually don’t mind a gentle smokiness in my tea! But this time I’ve decided to try it with just 3.5g but everything else the same: 200ml at 90C and steeps of 1, 2 and 3 minutes.
1st steep: I do really like the scent of this tea dry, wet, and in the cup. The malty grains with gentle smoke and some caramel appear in all forms of the tea. It’s a really pretty dark copper even after just one minute. I forgot that this is a smooth tea; I was expecting some astringency, but I think that’s because I remembered rightly that it leaves a powdery feeling on my tongue. I actually really enjoy the smoky caramel flavor in this. It’s causing me to think of making some caramel sometime soon.
2nd steep: I’ve been able to drink most of this cup without concentrating on it. That’s not a bad thing, though the kids are mostly the cause of it. This tea puts me in a good mood I’m finding, and I’ve just been running around playing with my two little ones. In any case once I’ve returned to my cooling cup, I can notice the same flavors as before but they’re weaker and joined by floral notes.