Red Tea Coin

This was day ten of last year’s Tiger Box, which I still haven’t quite finished but am working my way through along with the last of my advent calendars. Huge thanks to Roswell Strange for making a note at the time, because this is no longer on Yao Cha’s website and I had no idea how to steep it, having never had a coin before. In retrospect, I was probably overthinking it – I’m not sure that a coin is a significantly different form than any other compressed shape, like a ball, but for some reason I was really thrown by the new-to-me shape.

So, following Roswell’s example, I steeped this up grandpa-style. I really enjoyed watching the bubbles of air escape and the shape plump up in my cup! It starts off with strong leather, roasted notes. There’s also a berry jamminess that gets stronger as the leather mellows later on, though not quite as astoundingly jammy as the scent of the dry coin. This isn’t something that I would have picked up on my own but I enjoyed it a great deal. It’s absolutely the best-case-scenario of doing a box like this: getting to experience something you otherwise wouldn’t, expanding your horizons, and really enjoying it.

What I didn’t account for was the sneaky caffeine punch in this one. I never felt jittery or wired or anything, but then I was up until 4am! Definitely should have started earlier and cut myself off earlier.

Grandpa style!

Steeped up this gorgeous coin for the tenth day of the Tiger Box!! Though pu’erh tends to be most go to tea to steep using this method, hong cha is really not all that far behind – and this is a very lovely and complex one with deep syrupy notes of dark chocolate, raspberry jam, malt, leather, oak, molasses, and black cherry! Mostly just so fudgey, though! Definitely makes me think of decadent truffles.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CZzpCDDOeky/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPa08P7e_e0