Kenya Kaproret GFOP

I made a pot of this to go with my decadent breakfast:
Homemade Turkey Apple Maple sausage meatballs
almond flour pancakes
fried apples

The tea was bold & bright, with an edge to it that made me think of a shiny shard of obsidian, so smooth, but razor sharp. Just what I needed!

So, did you know if you accidentally hit the escape button while typing a review, it all goes away? Apparently so!

Let’s see if I can remember what I wrote and pick up from there….

Upon first impression, the dry leaves smelled like Assam but then as I continued to sniff, they remind me more of a Darjeeling – there is a bit of sharpness that makes me think of the muscatel taste in Darjeelings.

As I’m waiting for the water to boil (oh how I miss my Zojirushi – would it be overkill to bring that on my next road trip?) I Google a bit to see if I can find anything about this estate or tea. Other than the fact that Lupicia sells tea from this estate and that this estate’s tea seems to be in some Kenyan tea blends, I’m not really finding much. If anyone has any good links to share about the variety of tea plant they grow in Kenya and what they do to the leaves, I’d appreciate it! (Or where to buy more of them!)

Brewed up, the tea is a somewhat murky brown. Smells like a stout Yunnan, though. Mmm, tastes like a stout Yunnan, too. It’s very Yunnan like but makes me think of Yunnan Gold with a hint of Irish breakfast. It’s not from brewing it too heavy, though. Now that I have my teacups, I know I’m doing 2.3g/6oz. So this is just a stout tea.

I’m starting to get a bit of that sharpness I smelled that reminded me of a Darjeeling. As it cools, the front taste becomes Darjeeling-esque and the tail has the warm fuzzy tones of a Yunnan almost with a little cocoa taste after the swallow. Very faint though so it is more of a dry cocoa feel. If that makes sense. For all its stoutness it is a smooth tea with zero bitterness. I imagine it would hold up well to milk and sugar if that’s how you roll, but it has enough of the Yunnan-ish taste for me to find that unnecessary.

And now my cup is empty and I am sad. This is a good tea. I imagine that anyone that finds Yunnans somewhat boring or too smooth/mild tasting would enjoy this one. Or someone that finds Darjeelings too sharp, though this is definitely thicker than a Darjeeling. Or maybe this is the tea for the Irish Breakfast set that finds Chinese teas too weak/thin. Or maybe it is a tea for someone that likes all of those and wants to squish them all together into one nummy tea.

One last comment – I can feel the caffeine hitting my blood stream. This definitely fits on the Irish Breakfast side of the caffeine equation as I’ve never felt that Yunnans were particularly caffeinated. WHEE!!!

ETA: 2nd steep at 5 mins. It’s not an overly impressive second steep which is somewhat sad. Still had a Yunnan-esque flavor to it and still stout, but I couldn’t pick up any of the Darjeeling tartness/sharpness anymore which turned the tea into just sort of normal. Maybe like a second steep of an Irish Breakfast made with Chinese blacks.

Hello Steepsterites! Remember I did Project Ceylon earlier this year, in which I tried a bunch of different Ceylon teas and tried to work out if there was a pattern to which ones I liked and which ones I liked less? That was fun. Let’s do it again!

I spent some time pondering whether to do Project Africa or Project Assam. Both sounded interesting to me. African teas have interested me for a while, but I’ve never done much about learning the area, and I’ve been in a bit of an Assam-y mood recently. In the end I decided Project Africa sounded more interesting. We are seeing more and more single estate loose leaf out there, and from more and more different countries it seems. Kenya still heavily in the lead, but others are definitely getting out there as well. It’s a shame I didn’t decide to do this yesterday, since I just discovered Jenier Teas yesterday and accidentally AHEM WELL, moving right along! At any rate, they had a LOT of different Kenyan teas and a few from other African countries as well, so samples shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

I already had this one that Sil very generously shared with me. And it was generous because it was actually a sample that had been shared with her by Terri HarpLady, so I had told her to only send me some if there really was enough to share. Lucky for me, there was.

This tea comes from the Kaproret estate, which was highly difficult to find on the map. All I got when searching for Kaproret were two different primary schools that weren’t even that close together, and I couldn’t see anything on the sattelite photo that looked like tea fields. That was a great help during Project Ceylon, because tea fields are pretty easy to recognise from the air. Turns out that they aren’t so easily recognisable in Kenya, because they have a layout which is much in straight lines on square fields, making them look like any other kind of green field. Further Google investigation then revealed that it’s part of the Kericho tea districts, where I found a name tag that just said ‘Tea Gardens’, but no further explanations of which gardens were there and what they were called. So I put the marker there. Seemed to be the right area and as good a place as any. And nowhere near those other two primary schools. While searching I did find a different and name-tagged tea estate, so I put a pin in it, just in case I need to find it again later.

The aroma is quite grainy and malty and it has a sort of Assam feel to it somehow. It’s like it just has a something that tells me Assam. Seriously, you could totally fool me with this. If I’d been given this without knowing what it was, Assam would be my first guess. Makes me wonder if I should do Project Assam hot on the heels of Project Africa… The grain is stronger than in most Assams though, so it does stand out. A little bit. Not enough that I’d notice if I didn’t know better, but there is a small difference there. It smells like it can really pack a good punch.

The flavour is surprisingly fruity sweet right at first. Reminds me a little of plums or apricot, although that still feels a bit like a stretch. Then the grain and malt comes into play and it is indeed a quite strong tea. It’s no wonder ctc-ed Kenyan is often used to beef up the blends in certain inferior teabags that we could mention. It’s strong and it lays down a heavy bottom.

Underneath the flavour there is a mild to moderate degree of astringency, which once again reminds me of Assam. That and the strength are really the only things about the flavour that reminds me of Assam, unlike what I noticed in the aroma. It’s not so much, though, that it feels like drinking ashes and it’s fairly well balanced with the strength of the flavour.

As it cools down a little more, it changes character completely. It loses the fruit-y sweet aspect I noticed right at first and instead takes on a strong Yunnan-like note of hay. The very note that makes me less interested in golden Yunnans. Where did that come from?

This is a different beast entirely from my usual Chinese blacks. I’m quite enjoying how strong it is, but I think I could have lived without the Yunnan-y aspect. This is one that I preferred while it was still piping hot.

Reference map: https://www.google.com/maps/ms?msid=211803378882467968316.0004dd9c2591ff5d7d6bf&msa=0&ll=-0.394539,35.252938&spn=0.014741,0.021651 (This is what I get when I check the ‘short URL’ box. Deal with it…)

(Edited to add in a forgotten word, the absense of which totally changed the meaning of the sentence)

Thank you Terri Harp Lady for this sample tea!

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. this morning, not my usual time but early enough for a leisurely sit down and cup of tea before heading off to drop my ‘Grandma Van’ at Hawkers Garage for a fix of my windshield wiper fluid delivery system.
I know snow is coming!

When I looked outside, I could see a smattering of snow already on the top of some of parked cars but not on the street. “It’s only October 5th!”, I told myself, then turned away to more important thoughts and decided to make this tea from Terri.

Black Tea, Black Tea, oh how I love Black Tea on a cold, cold day!
The anxiety of not knowing if this was going to be an EH’ tea or an
AMEN’ almost drove me to pull the steep short of the 3 minutes I
set my timer for.

I knew I would add splenda and cream but I tried the tea straight first. Um, the brew was very dark, strong, sweet and rich without being malty or bitter.
When the additions were stirred in, the tea was very smooth and delicious.
I loved the almost blackberry flavor with the roasty honey taste.

I could easily drink this often.

When I finished my tea, off I went to Hawkers where my daughter met me and whisked me off to breakfast at ‘The Breakfast Club’ (real name) for cornbread with sausage gravy. I know…it’s not good for you…blah, blah, blah…!
(I haven’t had this in over a year!)

After much running around, picking up the car and coming home,
I steeped another cup of tea from the morning leaves and enjoyed
more rich, smooth goodness.

I’m on snow watch now, and making rice (potato allergy) clam chowder, looking often out the window. I know this snowfall is only a fluke.

Things will warm up next week I know.
The real snow doesn’t come until Feb.-Mar. but I love the first
snow none-the-less.
Like the little girl I once was instead of an older woman I now am, I watch out my window with joyful anticipation.
I’m waiting for a giant hand to shake a heavenly snow globe, creating a magical white wonderland just for me.

Oh man. Thank you terriharplady!
THIS is a black that is not for those who don’t like rich, bold blacks. Now, is there a lot going on with this tea like say a laoshan black? Nope but it’s got a great character to it and a delicious bold black flavour that i really enjoyed this morning. It’s not a malty black or a chocolate black, but it’s smooth, not astringent and most importantly – delicious. Thank you terri!

I drank this one a few days ago, but with work pressing in on all sides and stifling my tea drinking efforts, I haven’t had the chance to really log it until today.

So, first off, big shout out to Auggy for sharing this with me! She brought this back from a trip to the London Tea Room, so I was pretty excited to try it.

First things first – I’ve never had a Kenyan tea, but Auggy described this to me as a blend/cross between Yunnan, Darjeeling, and Assam.

The leaves here aren’t the largest, and the smell coming off of them is interestingly fruity. In a Darjeeling sort of way, but mixed with a darker tea smell. That black tea smell. Malty and earthy and full.

I steeped this one up, and boy is the cup a dark red and quite a bit murky too! The taste is… interesting. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, days later. At peak hotness, this one really tastes like an Assam. Malty and strong and bracing. Very eye-opening stuff. There’s a tiny pipsqueak peep of Darjeeling that grows and grows as this tea cools.

By mildly hot, this one tastes like a weird mix of Yunnan and Darjeeling, with the Assam only slightly echoing in the background. The Yunnan provides this sort of earth tone, while the Darjeeling brightens things up with a fruity, grape/currant type taste.

There’s so many weird things going on here, that I’m sort of flabbergasted as to how to rate this one. It almost reminds me of SerendipiTea’s Autumnal Darjeeling in the super-crazy-magic flavor changing.

I feel like such a bore right now, but I’m so tired from work lately that I’m not really focusing and the synapses aren’t quite firing the way that they used to. Also, with the shrinking amount of sleep I’ve been getting, I’m finding that tea is more likely to upset my stomach, and I haven’t been feeling well in general.

Le sigh.

After my delicious mi xian black, I pulled out a tea from my swap with Terri Harplady. I didn’t read anything about it first and just made it. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. It was much darker, richer than I expected. A bit of a shock to the system after the mi xian. Especially since that had been so refreshing and sweet. I think this is definitely more of a breakfast tea. I added a touch of honey and cream and it was super yummy. I’m having the rest of my sample as my breakfast tea tomorrow. I can’t wait! Thanks Terri!

I thought I’d try another Kenyan tea! Sipdown! (246)

This one is less harsh than the others I’ve had. It’s a little smoother, and a bit more golden. Tasty!

Thanks Sil!!