Superfine Keemun Fragrant Black Tea

I just got this tea as a present from a friend of mine: what a nice surprise! I quite enjoy it! It has a strong, thick, and powerful taste: I detected floral tones, even in later infusions. I drinked also with milk and it fits well.

This is the tea I chose this morning before going to the crêperie for brunch. It’s one of the many teas that boychik sent in our swap. I really loved the Keemun Mao Feng from TeaVivre, so I was excited to try this one as well. The leaves are small and thin and jet black in color. Dry scent is sweet and very bready. I steeped a level teaspoon for 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

Once infused, the tea smells like toast and honey! Yum. And the taste is very similar. It tastes just like a nice crisp toasted baguette with honey and perhaps a touch of butter smeared over the top. There are some raw grain notes here as well, perhaps oats, and just a touch of fruit preserves.

Entertainingly enough, I asked my boyfriend what he thought it tasted like and he said grass or toasted seaweed… Uh… what? :P

I have to admit that I’m a coffee drinker and green tea lover. I don’t usually pick a black tea during the day. Today I’ve decided to try this tea I have received from TeaVivre. I have to say that it will take me couple days to adjust to drinking black tea, especially after I drank 2 cups of strong coffee. I really like the taste but at the moment cannot distinguish all of the nuance and flavours of this tea. Hopefully with tasting more black tea I will become more knowledgeable and be able to talk about how it taste. Any tips for starters of black teas like me?

This is a 2013 sample I got last year, but it’s been stored in its original unopened pouch inside a tightly-lidded tea-tin, so I don’t think it’ll have lost very much flavour and aroma, though both might be more muted than if it were very fresh.

I steeped about 5g of this in 200ml of 95C water or a bit cooler, for 30-45s per steep, and got 4 good steeps from it; I steeped the first time using on-the-boil water (because UK children are taught in primary school that tea is brewed in boiling water and it’s anathema to brew it in anything less) and this made it very astringent, but using cooler water took all the bitterness away.

The scent is like a subdued summer flower-garden, and the taste is mildly sweet with a smoky hint, and lightly oily.

Pleasant and easy-going as a light and uplifting morning drink. I’d rate this in the mid-80s – I like it a lot but it’s not quite as more-ish as my favourite black teas.

Sometimes I get so engrossed in all of the golden fuzzy snaily yummy monkey picked bits of awesome out there that I forget about Keemun.

KEEMUN is good, y’all! This one especially. It was exactly what I needed today after two failed tea experiments. I needed something that I was sure would be a home run, and turned to TeaVivre for that. TeaVivre never lets me down.

This was a hearty black tea, and it had a little extra oomph – almost a Darjeeling type flavor, sort of grapey, but not like candy grapey, more like wine grapey. I am really bad at describing flavors but this tea definitely had more dimensions than I anticipated that it would. Really yummy. Thank you Angel for the sample!

There was an earthquake last night, or shall I say, really early this morning. My husband and I woke up to our bed moving side to side like we were in a rowboat! And it lasted so long! Really freaky, considering I haven’t felt one like that in probably two decades. Turns out the epicenter was between American Canyon and Napa…not very far from us and the magnitude was 6.0! Our house is fine, but our kitties completely disappeared! Poor kitties! There is a bunch of damage in Napa though.

So, after all that, I enjoyed a cup of this tea this morning. Figured I should have something comforting and this hit the spot! The last time I had this one, I made it with microwaved water at work and loved it. Trouble is, I have no idea what the temperature of the water was. Someone on here was remarking that the recommended steeping temperature was too low, and I think I might agree. I steeped this one at 176 degrees for 2 minutes. It still tastes great, but I think the microwaved cup hot more flavor, and I’m assuming that cup was hotter than 176 degrees. So, maybe some trials at 185 and 195 might be in my future to really see which temperature brings out the most flavor. This time, I got more of the smokiness, and less of the cocoa. Still a great cup and it was gone way too fast!

I’m glad I ordered a full ounce of this and probably should have gotten more since my son has decided that he favors it too (here’s hoping he doesn’t swipe it when he heads back to college next week). The dry leaves had malt overtones, which came out even more in the brew. There were also floral notes, some smoke, and, oddly, I thought I detected a certain saltiness in the aftertaste. I’ll have to brew it again to see if I was imagining that. Next time will be in a gaiwan because I think this will reveal very different characteristics over several shorter steeps. Really lovely soft mouth feel and an all-around fine tea.

This remains the best Keemun ever for me cause it’s different from any others I have tried. There’s no smoke at all, yay! It’s all about the tea’s glorious floral and fruity fragrances.

No wonder this makes such a great morning tea, it will awake all your senses in no time.

The floral part is not an “in your face” bouquet, but more like the subtle taste you get when rose petals are added to a blend. It’s just very soft and delicate.

There’s a nice little tang in this cup, tastes a bit like a good quality apple cider.

It’s sweet and malty, slightly earthy, and I notice a certain saltiness at the end of the sip.

It’s not a “heavy” black tea, it feels very clear and clean to me.

This was my last cup, as I just used what I had left but it’s a definite restock!

Oh, and Dexter (my dog) gave it the “sniff of approval”! It’s so funny, cause he couldn’t care less about some of the teas I drink, but some will have his nostrils go berserk! I guess he knows something special when he smells it! A true canine tea sommelier extraordinaire ;-)

This is another old sample from Angel, that I am finishing up. I’m REALLY, REALLY sad to have this one gone. It is one of those moments where you keep checking the empty bag, hoping that more tea will magically appear.

I didn’t read over my last tasting note for this, so don’t know if what I tasted this time is the same as last time, but, I’ll look back over it and see. I think, though, that I wasn’t as used to tea when I first started drinking Teavivire’s teas, so while I enjoyed some, my notes were not always as accurate as they are now. And that’s ok, because maturating happens in every aspect of life!

Anyway, on to the tea—

Malt is the first taste I can easily identify, and it’s a pleasant, thick taste, with this sweet, almost chocolate like taste mixed in. It’s not overpowering, and it has a nice fullness to it—a full mouth-feel, for sure. If you sip it slowly, to me it is almost as if you want to chew it, it’s that good and feels so rich in your mouth. It’s also sweet, without being too sweet, and this is another tea that I kept having cup after cup. I am still in denial that it is gone.

Aside from the malt, I can’t describe any of the other tastes by name, except that there was, as I said, a sweetness to it, and this chocolate taste. I really do love it, and I wish I could provide more details as to why I love it, but I can’t quite put it into words. It’s just a really great tasting tea!

I’m going to be getting more at some point, for sure. And not sharing it next time…

Dry, in the packet, this sample smelled really appealing…..very “tea”-ish and already complex. I steeped this western style, 3 minutes at 190 degrees (using a meat thermometer…i hope that counts!). There is a delicate earthy balance as a bottom note to this tea. It sounds like an oxymoron to have a delicate earth note (they are very overpowering in many keemuns) but the earth note in this tea is like the tail to a kite….it gives support and a touch of weight so that the rest of the notes in this tea can…well…take flight in your mouth, I guess! There is a sweet potato and grain note that marries well with a malty flavor that is hitting the underside of my tongue. I love when teas activate different parts of my palate!! I’m not detecting much astringency in this cup, which works for me on most occasions, as I don’t usually like much of it anyways.

This is a wonderful Keemun that I will be buying again…..and looking forward to it!