Nonpareil Yunnan Dian Hong Black Tea

Thanks to Angel at Teavivire for another round of samples!
This tea is delicious, I wasn’t sure what to expect as a red tea, but I quite enjoyed it.
I found floral, sweet, and tiny cocoa notes to be present.
I will try resteeping next time and see how it stands up to that.

Yesss, another Teavivre yunnan. I absolutely love their complexity and brilliant flavors. Teavivre’s selection has really changed my taste in black teas. While I used to prefer bitter, strong blends, my eyes have now been opened up to Fujians. It’s been like going from a black and white world to a life in vivid color.

As I always do, I took a moment to look the leaves over and smell them. They’re very dark brown, in mostly uniform pieces. Simple and fragrant. Once steeped, you can see that they’re all new growth. The leaves are pointed at the end and narrow, having been harvested before they had time to become more rounded. It brews up to a bright orange amber, perfectly clear. I smell notes of honey, dates, raisins, and maybe baked goods.

The flavor is a satisfying treat. Perfectly smooth, without any astringency. The fruity notes are especially noticeable on the exhale. I can taste honey also. And yet, there’s a touch of floralness, too. Basically, there is a lot going on in this tea, but it’s a harmony.

I’m having a laid back day at home, with the agenda of getting a lot of desk things done, but to be honest, I haven’t really accomplished a thing, LOL. Except breakfast & students.
And tea!
I don’t remember if Angel sent me this sample, or if I requested it.
The dry fragrance seemed familiar in that, “I know this scent, but can’t quite place it” way.
I preheated my tiny teapots, then pre warmed the leaf, & the aroma bloomed to a sweet fruity floral that immediately said, “Lychee” in my sinuses & mind.
I went with the gongfu suggestions: rinse/15/25/35/45/60/75/90
Yup, lychee!
What makes this tea particularly special is the fragrance & after aroma of lychee & honey.
What’s an after-aroma, you ask?
That’s when you breath out after the sip & you can feel & smell the aroma up in your soft palate & sinuses. I love it. I love teas that have it, especially roast oolongs.
This feature was especially prominent in the first couple of steeps. The 2nd cup featured a bitterness & the tea energy went right to my head, like I could feel the tea energy moving around in my head, opening sinuses so that my ears started popping. By the end of the cup I also had that tongue buzz going on too.
This tea transformed into rye bread, with lychee still in the background, & continuing on, a hint of spice, cloves perhaps? The texture was a little powdery, kind of odd.
The later steeps had a creamy quality, a sweet agave liquor, with a hint of lychee still in the background.
An interesting tea!

This is a sample sent by Teavivre for tasting. Many, many thanks!

I made this to share with my youngest daughter during our homeschooling this morning. We have already had a very light breakfast so it isn’t our breakfast tea, more of an early elevenses tea.

I used their recommended steeping time and temp even though I know that usually the instructions are for a lighter cup than westerners typically drink. I enjoy having these teas several ways to see which I prefer, and sometimes I change it up based on time of day and pairings.

At 194F for three minutes this tea was fairly light in color for a black tea. It reminded me of the first time I made Ruby #18! But even though the color is light, the flavor is not weak.

I was surprised by the malty cocoa flavor. It is not as deep as it is in their Fengqing Black Dragon Pearls. There is a nice honey aroma and then the tea, though light, has that scrape-y tongue feel I get from dry cocoa powder. Again, it is gentle.

I am eager to try it with western steeping – 212F and four or five minutes, and see how it changes!

This is an odd tea. The dry leaf looked nothing like what I was expecting when I opened the sample packet. I was expecting long, straight, furry golden buds. Instead, this tea was dark and wiry. The brewed cup was not the sweet and mild earthy cup I was expecting either. While it was sweet, it was chocolatey and strongly reminded me of horse manure (oddly enough, this doesn’t bother me, it’s one of my favorite smells). Honestly, I’d probably order this one again. A unique tea!

Round Two with TeaVivre offerings today. What? I had the day off, I can do what I want. Still haven’t left my pajamas, yet, either.

This was unlike any Dian Hong I’d ever come across. The earthen, sweet-like lean wasn’t there at all. If anything, this was more in line with a Ruby 18 or a Korean semi-oxidized tea than a Chinese one. Yunnan black characteristics didn’t show up until the aftertaste.

In a word: Gaaaaaaaaaaa….!

Okay, that wasn’t quite a word.

The dry leaf is amazing – twisted wirey ribbons on tea with the odd brown tip with strong scent of fruit! A very photogenic tea!

Taste wise very clean, fresh, smooth, fruity plums, honey, lots of dark woodsy, bit of earth and char notes. I enjoyed the sweet notes and the excellent quality freshness, but I wasn’t into the woodsyness in nonpareil dian hong as it had a similar vibe to me as a rooibos, but more of a dark wood, but I can see many others enjoying this tea!

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/nonpareil-yunnan-dian-hong-teavivre-oolong-owl-tea-review/

Backlog from yesterday. Ok back to trying some non-flavored teas. I’ve been holding off on this particular sample for a while now and this afternoon is the perfect one to give it a shot. Since I only have one sample package, and I was hoping to have enough leaves left to brew this up a second time, I used only 4g and modified the gong fu method that was listed on Teavivre’s site. It worked out pretty well!

The dry tea is very light and wiry, while the scent has many floral notes, along with some deeper sweet tones. After a quick rinse I steeped my first cup for 25 sec; the aroma of this first cup was filled with honey notes and floral undertones, both of which were also present in the flavor profile. The mouthfeel was warm and rich with a slight astringency at end of the sip.

My second cup was steeped for 50seconds and while similar to the first I found the floral notes to be much higher in tone while the honey flavors became almost creamy. The third cup (70 sec) was deeper in both scent and flavor, with fewer floral notes while still being rich and smooth.

I had 3 more cups after this (85 sec, 1:40min and 2 min) and the scent and flavor profiles continued to get softer. After the fourth cup the soft floral notes made a bit of a comeback where as the honey notes, while mild, stayed somewhat consistent throughout. I did also notice a few darker, almost spicy notes staring to come out in the later cups.

In all it’s a really lovely tea, lighter than I was expecting for a chineese black, but not my all time favorite. Though it is one that I would be happy to have again in the future.

I’m baaaaack. My son and I built a new desktop computer. I used parts off my old system – power supply, cooling fan, DVD/CD player, the case from an old system my son gave me, along with his old graphics card. Then I ordered a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. I now have a monster system. Because I didn’t think it through, I bought Win7 64 bit. This meant all kinds of headaches with my older programs. To make it worse my old system had melted down making transferring data a real challenge. The last hurdle was moving my mail and address book without being able to launch Vista to do it. What a bear – and what fun. I’m weird that way.

Anyway, yesterday I had one cup of tea. Teavivre Keemun grade 1. I didn’t log it as I was still too preoccupied to notice much about it.

Today is my first day be able to pay attention so I grabbed this Yunnan. First off the price looks a lot higher than my general teas. Reading on, the recommended leaf works out to 2.5 g per 8 oz cup. That means this is roughly $0.75/cup. That is less than McDonalds charges for their corn syrup water or whatever it is. Resteeping twice brings this down to a quarter a cup. Who wouldn’t pay that?

OK, the next thing I noticed was this higher end Yunnan is made from a tree variety normally used for oolong. That is why the bud and leaf is so dark. I found this information on Teavivre’s website.

Opening the sample (provided by Angel), my sophisticated palate immediately noticed malted milk balls (with the chocolate) and Cheerios. Kind of makes me want to put both in a snack bowl for munching. Once steeped the aroma is brownies and honey. I’m gonna need a bigger bowl.

Tasting this really reminds me of honey without the sickening sweetness. The orange brew tastes like dark browned sugar or molasses. It kind of reminds me of a Fujian tea. There is malt and cocoa I think or maybe my mind just expects those notes. Very smooth. Easily drinkable. Some astringency but no bitterness.

I love the smell of freshly brewed tea. I love the smell of the dry leaves. The warm heavy mug in your hands on a chilly morning. So lovely.

This particular tea is so comforting. Honey and autumn in the smell. Warm syrupy texture. So smooth! Reminds me of sugar in the raw.

Barely any taste lingers after the swallow, but I feel warm throughout now. If only I were home cuddled up with a pup instead of in this sterile office with all the useless politicking. I hate politics. I do really enjoy this tea though.