Malawi Bvumbwe Handmade Treasure Black Tea

March 2014 harvest.

Rich, robust, bright, complex and fleeting, highly structured. Tastes is somewhat like a mix of a bright and fruity Kenyan black with the savory and complex tastes of an unsmoked lapsang souchong. Thick finishing dry with a great sourness and persistent aftertastes. This tea was a lot of fun to drink! The citrusy-sour backbone was a pleasant jolt in the morning. The orange-flesh vegetable tastes mixed with malt, autumn leaf, dried fruits and herbs and spices fit spectacularly this time of year where I live.

An awesome lower-oxidation black tea treat that tastes like it was made this year.

Thank you Malawi, What-Cha and Leafhopper :) I would love to see this around again :)

I believe I bought this tea in 2015, possibly because it was on sale and I wanted to try something from Africa. I couldn’t have known what I was in for. I steeped 5 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 16, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

Whoa! These leaves are massive and twisty. “Handmade” is right! Dry, they smell like alcohol, veggies, and dark rye bread. The first steep has notes of pumpkin, carrot, malt, earth, wood, and tannin. The second steep adds citrus and herbs and is strangely creamy. Something like cabbage emerges in the next couple steeps, and the liquor becomes even more astringent. By steep five, it’s a mix of pumpkin, carrot, cabbage, and other veggies over an earthy, woody base. These flavours persist into the eighth steep before fading into generic black tea notes.

This is one of the strangest teas I’ve reviewed so far. I struggled to pinpoint the flavours, and judging from the two previous reviews on Steepster, others have found it quirky and complex as well. A daily drinker this is not, but I enjoyed the experience.

Very interesting tea from small farm in Africa. It is more of a oolong than black. The leaves are irregular in color, less or more dark. Taste is way too complex for a regular black. Still it possess astringency of African teas but with vegetable notes. I feel carrot, pumpkin, some herbs and spices. It’s worth giving a try. Don’t drink this tea hot. Let it cool down for few minutes and sip slowly. This way you will be able to adore its depth and complexity.

So, this was supposed to be posted yesterday, but I was super busy, swamped even, with deciding what I am doing with my life. No really, yours truly might be going on an epic adventure pretty soon! No spoilers yet, because I do not have all the details and such, but I can safely say I am excited and a little scared. Unless something goes drastically wrong (like my computer explodes again) it won’t affect the blog long term, there might be a week or so where I don’t update, but I will be sure to let everyone know ahead of time.

Since I missed my What-Cha Wednesday review, this will be a rare What-Cha Thursday! Today it is time to revisit the country of Malawi with Malawi Bvumbwe Handmade Treasure Black Tea, I was really blow away by their Antler and Peony White Teas, so I am super excited to dive into the Satemwa Estate’s Handmade Treasure Black Tea. For a while I was rather apprehensive about trying new black teas from Africa, a few nasty run-ins with some particularly dirty tasting Kenyan black teas unfairly soured me on the whole continent for a while. Really, quite narrow minded of me, but they were really gross. Anyway, onto more pleasant things, like these lovely twisted dark leaves! The aroma is pretty rich, blending notes of an oak brandy cask with roasted peanuts and yams, and a touch of loam and spice. Something about the way this tea smells reminds me of home, not any homes that I have lived in, but a feel of ‘home’ yes people, this tea smells like a concept to me.

After steeping the leaves (they get rather huge post steeping) and giving them a good sniffing, I am pleasantly surprised by the fruity notes that have now shown up. It has the oak wood and slight earthiness of the dry leaves, but now with a blend of cherries and orange zest with a hint of cocoa, oh yeah, and a spice finish. A little like allspice and a little like nutmeg, with a faint sweetness to go with it. The liquid has a lot more of the spice notes, definitely allspice with pepper, and a tiny hint of nutmeg. There are also strong notes of cocoa and cherry, with just a delicate hint of orange zest and distant flowers.

The tea has a definite briskness to it, and is quite bright, the texture is light and it really livens up the mouth, kinda like liquid sunshine for a morning wake up, without being really overbearing. I am really picky about how brisk and astringent I like my black teas, and not just because they tend to give me a belly ache, I find when they are really intense they are just too overbearing, much like some people find mint too much or flowery teas. I like my black teas (more traditional western style ones, not the delicate Chinese reds) to have just a little bite to them. The taste is both robust and sweet, blending creamy notes of cocoa (bordering between milk and dark) and peanut butter, with earthy notes of sweet potatoes and woody notes of oak. The finish is a delicate mix of cherries and orange zest with a citrus aftertaste that lingers. I feel this tea has the potential to be a really iconic morning tea, proving once again that the Satemwa Tea Estate has some mad skills.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-cha-malawi-bvumbwe-handmade.html