Yu Lu Yan Cha Black

This tea has grown on me a lot. I’d said a while back that I couldn’t get an enjoyable Western-styled brew out of it, but that has changed since then, and it’s become a very nice tea to have on hand at work. Love the cocoa, malt, and the overall “texture” of it—it’s rich without being sweet, complex without being challenging. It’s taken me a while to love, but it’s a really lovely cozy tea as the weather is slowly getting cooler.

From my pre-order package! I finally got into it today. Aw yes. I haven’t had this tea in a good while. Probably a year, when I ordered my first five teas (sampler!) from Verdant.

I used almost 2tsp in 10oz of water. First steep: 1min. Second: 1min20. Third: 1min40.

The tea has an aroma of cocoa, grain, honey and malt.
It first tastes like honey and sweet potatoes. Next, there are some flowery muscatel notes that remind me of a Jin Jun Mei or a Darj but then, are nothing like those at all. Kind of fruity-winey but juicy instead of dry. There is a hint of chocolate as well. It’s not strong, it’s not heavy, but it’s there. This IS a very light tea. It feels smooth and soft, like…silk. Yes. Airy and lovely. Persisting throughout is a sweet, juicy honey flavor. It grows stronger before being joined by notes of grain and light, buttery pastry. Those are the flavors that linger behind: buttery bread, honey, and sweetness. It leaves a malty feeling without being thick, heavy, or “dark”. Difficult to describe.

This is a truly exceptional tea. In later infusions it gains a woodsy, spice dimension to it as well. It has a lot of flavor…especially for something that feels so light and delicate. I think it would be perfect as an evening tea, something to enjoy while curled under a blanket at home, reading a book. It’s something special. Many thanks to everyone on the Verdant team for bringing such a lovely tea to my cup!

Ugh! I am so pissed off at myself. I saw that Verdant’s Zhu Rong was low stock this morning when I checked before work. Running short on time I thought no way the 2lbs they have left will sell out before tonight, so I left it until I got home. Well I got online and they’re all sold out! cries Now I’m so bummed out. I was totally looking forward to trying that tea. I guess it’ll serve me right to wait when I should just get my butt in gear and put my order in. Though now I’m not even sure I want to put in the order I had planned since the Zhu Rong was the reason for ordering. x.x; We’ll just have to see I guess.
But even though it’s really too late to have tea, I decided to make myself the other half of my sample of this tea to soothe me for the moment. I don’t work tomorrow. I can deal with being up with jitters. XD

The package itself was unfortunately tainted with a nearby fruit tea, so I didn’t get much of the actual tea’s smell from the leaves.

And because I still haven’t gotten around to even trying to use my gaiwan(s) yet I brewed this up western style rather off the cuff. 3g of tea which was kinda 2 1/2 tsp, though to be honest I didn’t measure all that carefully since I wasn’t about to just put a half tsp back into the package. 3 min @ 205*ish water. Probly about 13/14 oz. Again, I just filled my mug, which I usually do just 12oz, but tonight because of the bit of extra tea I almost filled the mug to overflowing to compensate.

Brewed this is malty and roasty with a nice smokyness. At least I guess that that’s smokyness there with that different flavor. Lol. It’s got a nice silky, full sort of mouthfeel to it which is nice. Not sure about the supposed sweet potato, but considering I haven’t had sweet potato in awhile, I’m not too concerned with missing that. Same with the citrus. Not tasting it, but not missing it either.
The astringency is very mild and is really only present because I’m holding the tea in my mouth to try and figure out the tastes. I’m sure if I was just sipping at it normally that I’d hardly notice the astringency.
I will say that I added a bit of Truvia about halfway through and it toned down the roasty/smokyness a bit and make the whole tea much nicer to drink. At least for me. But then I tend to like all my teas somewhat sweet, even the ones where I guess it could be considered blasphemous to add anything to it. Lol!
If I do decide to go ahead with my order, I’ll be tossing this into it since it’s a nice tea to have around.

Just want to say cheers to this tea for still tasting good with my icky chlorinated water! I was getting depressed when some of my more delicate teas were completely ruined by it and thought I’d have to stick to flavored teas and tisanes completely but on a whim I brewed some of this up with lots of leaf and it’s kept me happy through several steepings!

So yay for new apartment! Yay for new beginnings! Booo for nasty water :(

I’m not going to rate it now cause I’m sure it’d taste even MORE yummy with good water but for now I’m a happy camper. I highly caffeinated happy camper but one none the less.

I’m waiting not so impatiently for my Golden Tips tea club order to come. It’s out for delivery so no more caffeine for me till it gets here :(

I might sneak in one of 52teas flavored whites or greens shhhhhh.

I received this tea from QueenOfTart’s stash sale. Thank you!

I tried this back in January before I had done much straight black tea tasting. I liked it, but it didn’t scream drink me now. I have been on a Chinese black tea kick for the last week for my evening cup. This is my cup tonight, well and last night. It is wonderful. This is a bit more roasty than the blacks I have been drinking. The first few infusions were ccoa, sweet, creamy with a hint of roast. As I infuse this more the roast is coming out a bit more and the sweet cocoa becomes part of the first part of the sip instead of the end. This tea just keeps giving as well. There is a really nice earthy-ness to this one as well. All around I really like this one.

Queued post, written May 7th 2014

I’m cold to the bone and quite tired which probably doesn’t help with the whole body temperature thing either. But it’s May, dammit, and I refuse to turn the radiator further up. I was up late because I was watching the first semi-final for the Eurovision Song Contest. Denmark is hosting this year (and there’s somewhat of a scandal behind the scenes because the whole thing has turned out to be a LOT more expensive than various people holding the purse strings had initially been told, so suddenly there was a slew of extra bills. I expect that’s why Denmark has such a rubbish song this year. They want to be certain they don’t have to pay for it again next year) Also, regarding the countries that qualified for the final on Saturday… WTF, Europe??? O.O And can someone please explain to me, using small words and diagrams, why exactly Armenia’s ultra-boring song is the bookmakers’ favourite?

KS had this tea yesterday and it made me think I should have a sample of it too. The name rung a bell, so I had a rummage through the box of untried things and lo and behold! Courtney had shared a sample with me. How lucky am I?! I need a bit of luck after all the wrong songs qualified and only half of the good songs did.

When Husband and I were in Norwich for our honeymoon, we had caramel flavoured hot chocolate (which didn’t taste very nice) and it smelled quite like this tea. Very cocoa-y and very caramel-y, but both notes are so strong that they keep trying to out-do each other. The whole thing becomes quite toffee-y. The cocoa note also has a tinge of wood-notes to it, which makes me think wood notes and cocoa notes are ‘related’. Same way that the same note in a Keemum can be floral or almost smoky.

The flavour has a wood note as well and it’s the first thing I notice. After that, the tea becomes quite sweet and sort of in between caramel and honey. KS told me, when I asked about whether he thought it was a strong tasting tea, that he thought it tasted like a sort of mix between Dian Hong and Fujian. I find that’s a very accurate description, actually. The honey-y notes from Dian Hong and the cocoa-y notes from Fujian.

I thought this tea was very enjoyable indeed. I would probably have enjoyed it even more, had I not been distracted by curious activity going on under the road bridge on the other side of our garden fence. A guy had parked there and proceeded to unpack a drum kit. He spent a good hour arranging drum kit and some mats around it and just generally going back and forth between his drumkit and the car. It was highly mysterious and I could see it all from my window. Turns out, I think it was some sort of activity the local school was doing, because a group of ten children showed up accompanied by another adult who took photos and sat there as audience while Drum-Guy drummed at them for maybe ten minutes or so. Then they spent some 20 minutes playing on the playground on the other side of the bridge and cleared off, after which Drum-Guy spent another hour packing everything back into his car. Two hours arranging, packing and unpacking for ten minutes drumming! I hope the children got something out of it. But anyway, all this unusual activity meant that the tea got somewhat cold before I could finish it.

No problem, though, because it tasted eminently resteepable and I also have enough leaf for one more go.

This is a generous sample from Terri HarpLady – thank you.
Gongfu method
5g 150ml gaiwan 200F
Rinse/3/5/5/7/10 sec etc
This is a wonderful tea. Very chocolaty bready with some toasty notes. I really like that slight smoke roast, it makes it more interesting . It may be similar to Lapsang Sauchong + maple syrup – Best combination (learned it from Sil and Terry). You don’t need to add any sweetener because it is so sweet. I do see similarities with Laoshan Black. I enjoyed it a lot.
Thank you so much Terri. It’s another winner and definite purchase .

Another sample from Dexter3657. I had expressed the desire to try this tea in a post, and abracadabra, it’s here! (Cause Dexter notices, yes she does, and then she tosses some aside for you!)

Can’t help comparing it to Laoshan black. It does have similarities, but it’s got a personality of its own. Though it is chocolaty, with big notes of honey and sweet potatoes, it’s not as rich and malty as LB is.

I get some spice in the background, and a faint sourness that is not at all displeasing, almost apple cider like.

A very satisfying cup, among the best black teas I have tried for sure.

I’m having it western style, in my new favourite mug. Beleive me when I say I spend a fortune in teaware every year… And yet, my favourite mug of the moment was bought in a Dollar store for $2! It’s the perfect size and all my favourite infusers fit perfectly in it! Goes to show how much price tags are irrelevant!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/13984547980/lightbox/

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to try this Dexter3657, I won’t be afraid to add it to my next Verdant order, that’s for sure…

From the Here’s Hoping Traveling Tea Box #2

Backlogging form yesterday.

Yesterday my friends and I were going to celebrate my birthday (my birthday was in March, but yesterday was the first time all seven of us could get together), but instead we received a shock when one of my friends went into labor three weeks early. We postponed my birthday and worked on finishing up the baby’s nursery and knocking a few items off the new mom’s to-do list. It was a fun day that culminated in my friend having her first baby (a girl!) and everyone being healthy and happy. As days go, this one was pretty awesome.

With my awesome day I drank this awesome tea. There was only one serving left in the box, but I steeped and resteeped it so many times. It was delicious. Wonderfully malty with lots of chocolate and sweetness. For a few of the steeps (I don’t remember which ones) there was also some spice right at the end of the sip. I know I steeped the leaves at least five times – probably a few more – and every cup was great. Definitely one of my favorite teas from the tea box so far.

I received a sample of this from Terri (thanks). She wasn’t crazy about it. When I opened the bag and sniffed all I could think was WOW! Smells so chocolaty. Steeped the aroma is roasted and grain. Sipping I get honey and roasted grain. Underneath and very late in the sip I occasionally picked up floral notes that my senses detected as rose. I don’t recall anyone else getting rose. It only hints at chocolate, malt, and sweet potato. It is thick and silky feeling. I quite liked it.