Anxi Fo Shou Black Tea

1.5 tsp for 250 mL water @96C, Western style.

1st infusion, steeped 3 min 30 seconds.

I made this strong, but I wanted a storm of tea this time. I am getting lots of honeyed malt and also a creamy, almost vanilla soybean flavour. Very refreshing. Lots of forest floor in the scent, too. Rich and sweet finish.

2nd infusion, steeped 4 minutes.

Some dark winey-notes, and some leather and honey … almost like a blend of Yunnan and Keemun. And that soybean taste again. Really good.

Wow, what a deliciously fragrant cup. As soon as I poured the hot water over the leaves the aroma rushed out and filled the room. The strongest notes of chocolate where present. I love it. It has a mineral flavor and a toasty feel.

This is one of those tea you have to try to really understand its complexity and rich character profile.

Oh, steepster! How could I have abandoned you? I’ve been in quite a funk lately. I mean a seriously depressed funky state of anxiety. Due to financial setbacks we had to push our big move to Portland back and sign a six month extension on our lease. That has really been depressing me and I’m extremely worried we won’t be able to pull it together in the next six months. I don’t care what I have to do. Come June I’ll sell all my stuff, pile the rats in the car and just go. Forget my stuff I don’t need it (except maybe my breville haha).

The delivery of my tea of the month from Verdant has been one of the only things that has really gotten me excited. I haven’t made tea in so long. I even got the 12 Teas of Christmas from 52Teas and was too depressed to even do it. I had a few – but the whole box is just sitting in my kitchen basically untouched. I was so excited to participate and then I just neve did. =(

This morning when I woke up, after a particularly low day yesterday, I looked around my apartment and decided “this has got to stop”. So I pulled my beautiful gaiwan tea set off that damn shelf and got right to setting up a little relaxing tea session for myself.

I think there’s something magical in that little red packet. This tea is exactly what I’ve been needing. It’s sweet dark chocolate and honey. A really beautiful way to prepare mentally to face another day.

Hmm. I like this one more than Laoshan black, but that’s not saying much at all. Both the teas have this smoky burnt taste that I don’t like. This tea is more mild in terms of that flavour, and the rest of the flavour profile is also different, but… no. I will actually be able to finish this cup, and have a few more steeps, but I think I’m only going to keep one package. The rest can be swapped or given away.

I’m glad I did this Verdant order, but I wish I had purchased sample sizes of /everything/ instead of just a few 1 oz packages.

I brewed half a package in a normal sized mug, boiling water, 2 minutes. Second steep will be 2:30, third 3:00, etc. The other half package I’ll try next week in my tiny gong fu pot.

Edit: ok, nope. Moving on to a matcha latte. I’ll try another steep of this later, with added milk and sugar. Definitely not a plain tea for me.

New to verdant and they definitely have not disappointed. Seriously. If you haven’t gone Verdant yet – do it. Its so worth it. If anything to treat your taste buds on a special occasion. Or when you’re feeling bad. Or just cause. Just do it!
I have had a few unflavored blacks but nothing nearly this delicious. The flavors listed in the NOTES: chocolate, scotch, caramel, walnut, coconut, jasmine” are all quite present. The coconut is the faintest but there.

I have so many new teas to try, but when I decided to have some dark chocolate and marzipan this morning, I wanted to have one of my favorites to drink with it. Yum!

Also, this is the first time I’ve been able to drink this tea without getting a song in my head that has “fo sho” in the lyrics. This is mostly because I currently have a really powerful earworm.

This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6V2oCX3Hn4

My favorite part is the “Larchmont country club” part. I grew up there, and went to many Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. None with werewolves. :-(

if i had to ascribe this tea an image it would be this: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/black-purple-calla-lilies—1—macro-flowers-fine-art-photography-artecco-fine-art-photography—photograph-by-nadja-drieling.html …this tea unfurls, draws attention, is unusual. you won’t forget it soon, nor should you.

dark chocolate overtones, but no sweetness. molasses. very low acidity. this is a heavy tea that moves and changes in the space between sipping and swallowing.

it metamorphoses in the second steep. it becomes mineral heavy. it has an odd (but not unpleasant) refractive granular quality, but is somehow still smooth.

impressive.

After hoarding this tea almost a year i decided to sample it today. It was always not the right time. And today Terry inspired me to try(i still have 5 pouches left)I just didnt know what i was missing. Dark chocolate notes,(like if you eat 90% dark chocolate)moderate sweet and smoky. Gaiwan, boiling water, flash steeps

backlog

I was looking through my tasting notes and noticed I never entered a rating nor a new note on this one. I have been taking the little packages of this tea to work and it brews beautifully in my libre travel mug. I throw a very small amount of leaves into the bottom of my travel mug and fill with hot water (yes I leave the leaves there for a couple of hours and it’s fine) Brewed this way, it tastes like a nice fragrant dark oolong, probably doesn’t do this tea justice but it works really well for me at work!!

Alrighty, time to give this tea a try. :D I got my sample size ready to go.

Just ripping open the small packet yielded a heady, chocolatey smell. Which was pretty exciting. :) It smells more like a sweet chocolate, rather than earthy dark chocolate like Laoshan Black.

As soon as the hot water poured in, I could see immediately what people meant about “hot rocks” or mineral, as that was my exact impression, still smelled pleasantly chocolately though, so not too worried. :)

As for taste, it’s actually more similar to Laoshan Black than I thought. The main differences are that it’s much less roasty, and it has that “hot rocks” flavor. Overall it’s naturally sweeter than Laoshan Black, though I’m not picking up on the caramel notes at all. Perhaps a little sugar would bring that out, but as I’ve gone two weeks without adding any sugar to any black teas, I’d rather not fall back into the habit.

Perhaps I’ll taste it more on a second infusion.

Overall, I’m really enjoying this. It’s so sweet I almost doubted myself for a moment and wondered if I put sugar in mindlessly, but I definitely didn’t. That said, since overall it’s still fairly similar to Laoshan Black, in the end I think I’d rather save myself the $1.25 per ounce and just opt for the other instead of this in future orders.

Still have my fingers crossed that the caramel will pop in second the infusion, oof.