It’s time to backlog a bit. I finished the last of this tea several days ago, but had notes for a review sitting around for at least a week. Since it is now the weekend and I have a little time, I figured I would go ahead and post a review while my memory was still more or less fresh.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. I initially steeped 5 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 8 seconds. I then followed this initial infusion up with 11 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 24 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 55 seconds, 1 minute 15 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.
Prior to infusion, the dry leaves presented lovely aromas of cocoa, malt, oak, and orange. After infusion, the aromas of cocoa, malt, oak, and orange were still present, but were joined by traces of honey and vanilla. In the mouth, I detected a smooth integration of malt, cocoa, oak, honey, vanilla, and orange flavors. Subsequent infusions saw the aroma intensify slightly and a strong impression of sweet potato emerge on both the nose and the palate. By the final 3-4 infusions, most of the aromas and flavors had washed out and minerality had begun to dominate. Beneath the layers of mineral aromas and flavors, I could still detect faint impressions of oak, cocoa, vanilla, malt and sweet potato.
After finishing this tea, I came to the conclusion that there is something about all Laoshan teas that just works for me. It seems that I always enjoy them. This was another quality Laoshan offering from Verdant, although I prefer some of this merchant’s other Laoshan black teas. The integration of aromas and flavors was nice, but unfortunately, I thought the tea faded just a little too soon. In any event, this was still a very good tea, one that I would not hesitate to recommend to fans of Chinese black teas.
Flavors: Cocoa, Honey, Malt, Mineral, Oak, Orange, Sweet Potatoes, Vanilla
