Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong of Wu Yi Fujian Black Tea * Spring 2015

To my knowledge, this is the last of my Yunnan Sourcing teas from 2015. I opened it a few months ago and have been surprised by its inconsistency. In some sessions I get dark chocolate with a hint of raspberry, while in others I get stewed fruit and malt. For this review, I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 7, 10, 13, 17, 20, 25, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The first couple steeps have notes of malt, tannins, minerals, and creamy raspberry. My initial impression is of a generic Chinese tea, but it’s mellower and a bit fruitier. The fruit really comes through in the next few rounds, resembling raspberries and other tart berries. There’s also some roasted barley. After the fifth steep, the berries recede and malt, roasted barley, honey, tannins, and leather take over. The session fades into minerals, vegetables, tannins, and malt.

As other reviewers have mentioned, this tea might not have been great when young but has improved with age. The unusual raspberry and mellow flavours make it interesting, although I would have preferred some chocolate in the mix. I’m down to my last few sessions with this, and I can’t help wondering if I’ll miss all my old teas now that they’re almost gone.

Oh, boo. This harvest is a bit of a bummer. I’ve tried it a few times now, with a handful of different parameters and I just can’t get it to work all that well. It’s not bad, but compared with the previous harvest which has to be one of my favorite teas ever, it’s very disappointing. Where that was hefty, perfectly chocolatey and malty. This is insipid. With a terribly odd aftertaste. I’ll definitely try the next harvest, but fingers crossed it’s back to where it was before.

Forgive me, Steepsterites, but I must vent and I know you lot will understand.

My father doesn’t like tea. At all. He feels about tea the same way I feel about beer, i.e. NOPE! Blech! Spitty! My mother enjoys the occasional cup of tea, though, but wants it to be as convenient as possible, so preferably bagged stuff. Recently she has been very fond of Lady Grey from Twinings.

So my father writes me an email saying could I help him find something like that, only maybe a better quality than the Twinings bags and such and such is the budget. Sure, I do some research. Twinings, imo, isn’t actually the worst bag out there, but even so the next step up is loose. And if we’re going for loose, we might as well go that little bit further. So I trawl through AC Perchs’ website and finds a couple that sound to me like they might be similar and I trawl through Carstensens (another large Danish shop, but I have never used them much for no other reason than sort of forgetting they’re there) and find things that are similar.

And I put all these findings in a very long email, which has links to both websites, price per 100 g of each and price of shipping. Plus information that these are loose, not available as bagged, and he should make sure to also get a box of those filter bags to go with or a brew basket or similar for her cup. Also point out that if he wants the tea tinned, he must buy a tin separately. All of which is available for purchase at both websites.

The reply I get doesn’t actually say ‘tl;dr’, but it might as well have. It then becomes further obvious that he didn’t read it all when he says it must be bagged, because otherwise she’ll just never get around to drinking it because it’s too much of a hassle. Clearly he didn’t get to the bit with the filter bags or the brew basket which can just be whacked in the dishwasher afterwards. Then the initial question once again, now posed in a mansplain-y way as though I was five, but with the added strong hint that he would like me to order it for him. Oh, and if necessary could add such and such to the budget.

So I got rather irritated and waited until the next day to reply, in which I had to explain that using a filter bag was no different from making coffee (which is somehow not a hassle. Seriously, spoon leaves into bag or spoon coffee into filter and toss the lot after use, what’s the flipping difference?). Also explained that while sachets do exist, they are not something one can count on, and throwing more money at something will not make it magically exist. Refrained from pointing out that what he was actually asking was similar to wanting a high quality whisky but preferably pre-mixed with cola in the bottle. Husband’s analogy, that one. Also pointed out that I had done my research based on the criteria I had been given.

Reply was, ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, I surrender.’ And THEN the initial question again now posed as though I was three, complete with ‘I don’t know anything about it other than I don’t like it.’ Then he remembered that I had once brought some sachets up for her years ago and could we get some of that again. Oh, and still including the strong hint of the never actually asked question, ’can’t you just order it for me?’

I still refuse to take the bait, because I know he’s not actually that helpless, so I link him directly to the sachets that ACP sell, tell him which two it was that I had bought then, and a few others which are also black tea (my mum’s not really that adventurous, so didn’t want him to get her some green or white blend that she wouldn’t know what to do with). At the same time, I’m thinking that not only did he not bother with reading the initial reply, he also didn’t bother with the links, because if he had clicked on the ACP link, for example, he would have seen a very large bit of the menu that said ‘tea bags’ on it. Also hoping that the direct link will serve as a strong hint that he’s not so helpless he can’t do his own damn Christmas shopping.

The final email from him said he had written to Perchs (hallelujah!) and they had suggested a different blend as the closest thing they had to Lady Grey, so he’d ordered 100 g of that.

Loose.

headdesk

To be fair, he did also get two boxes of sachets, but still. After all this hassle he put me through because he didn’t want loose, he goes and buys her a #¤%#%# loose tea!

Give me strength…

Do you lot have to deal with these people as well, or is it just me? At least I avoided doing his shopping for him. For the record, I’d happily have ordered something for him if he had asked me to. I do not, however, volunteer just because he’s feeling whingy. I’ve got my own shopping to deal with, thanks.

Am putting all this under this particular tea, because I’m having a cup and it’s life-giving, and I need life-giving after all that.

( ETA Please be aware that I may choose to remove this post again later on. Right now it’s simply a need to share so I can get it out of my head.)

I brewed about 4 grams in a 100ml gaiwan (tho I usually like my blacks western style) at 195f. I started with 10 seconds on first steep then moved up to 15 seconds for the next few. I was expecting more traditional fujian black flavors with this one than I got. It started of with an expected malty flavor with a hint of a hard to describe back end…maybe hearty/meatiness and touch of bitter. After the second steep it became apparent that this tea was not gonna be what I expected. A VERY floral astringency started to take over…much like a darjeeling tea. I’m not sure if I like this or dislike this at the moment as I do like to taste different flavors. This tea kept giving up to7 steeps though I decided to bow out there. The best way I could describe the flavor is if a Golden Monkey mated with a Darjeeling. To me those are the exact flavors…as if I mixed the two teas into the gaiwan. I have read some reviews on here saying the older offerings are chocolatey and are better as well as that this tea may be better with some age. Not one to sit on my black teas I think I’ll pepper this one into my black sessions til it disappears. All in all its not a bad tea but doesn’t really make me think of a Fujian black.

I have to agree with Dexter and Sil on the 2015 harvest of this tea. It’s a pale comparison to the 2013 and 2014 versions. Missing is the rich chocolate aroma and the profound cocoa notes in the cup. It came across as thin, with just a hint of cocoa and malt and a slight underlying sweetness. I’m not going to rate this just yet. Perhaps if it ages another 6 months or so it might get a little better.

Backlog from this morning. It did taste thin, but I figured I just underleafed. Now, seeing others’ reviews here, I think it might not be me, but the tea.

I did get some chocolatiness from this, but no smoke. I thought this was pretty much the same as lapsang souchong?

I was expecting this to be pretty bad after reading the other reviews on it. It is true that 2014 was better. It had some nice chocolate notes whereas this one doesn’t but it’s still a nice malty black. I might add some chopped vanilla beans to it to see if I can get some chocolate notes out of it.

Sad, sad face….. :((
2015 is not a good harvest for this tea. It doesn’t taste anything like a Fujian black should. It’s thin, light, almost acidic. If handed this not knowing what it was, I would have put on a puzzled look and guessed Taiwan black, but not in a good way.
It’s just so sad. 2013 was AMAZING, 2014 was really nice, and this…..well isn’t.

dexter sent me this to try and today i tried to compare it with the 2014 version. I’m glad i have a little more to try this again because this was fairly flat and tasteless today compared to the 2014 version (which imo was a little less awesome than 2013). i’m going to withhold my rating until i have a chance to try this again….plus it’ll give me time to convince dexter to try it as well :)