Yunnan "Black Gold Bi Luo Chun" Black Tea * Spring 2017

Sampler Sunday! This is a tea from the Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox, so thank you to tea-sipper for organizing and all who were kind enough to share their teas! I know this is probably a tea that would shine best gong fu style, but again… I just rarely have time for that, so I brewed this western style, in my doubin teapot, to sip on while Todd and I “groupwatch” (over the Internet!) the new season of The Tick on Amazon Prime (while chatting our thoughts in realtime in a chatroom… it’s practically as good as sharing a couch!) I brewed the whole 3.8g sample in 550ml of 205F water for 3 minutes (and will likely resteep between episodes until either it or me gives up).

The tea steeps up a pale golden bronze color, and smells of malt and sweet and sour mandarin sauce. On the sip I’m getting a strong impression of mandarin orange; the tea is very smooth and sweet, with a bit of a honeyed note toward the end of the sip. It’s lightly malty with some very subtle smoky hints and a very faint peppery spicy note on the tip of the tongue at the finish. It has a faint mineral component, as well. It is tasty, but isn’t wowing me as strongly as other Chinese blacks I’ve tried; the age of the sample could easily be the case, since this was a Spring 2017 harvest. It’s certainly enjoyable for my Sunday Afternoon teatime, which I look forward to each week, and the tea accompanies the little mini croissant sammies I made very nicely!

Discovery TTB #1

First tea I’ve sampled from the box and it’s a good one! This is the kind of black tea I love: sweet, smooth, and malty with a lovely chocolatey flavor and no astringency. It also re-steeps beautifully! I think I’ll be hanging on to this one.

First time I have tried Black Gold Bi Luo Chun" and this 2017 production.
I like the malty sweetness and hints of chocolate.
It is always a treat when an enjoyable tea has a budget price so it can become a daily drinker.
I’m going to order the 2018 and keep it for a year as I’ve found Yunnan black teas are often at their best a year after processing.

One of the nicest Yunnan black teas I have had a chance to try. The smell has the usual notes of malt and chocolate, but also some apple and yeast.

It’s a full bodied and smooth tea. Not too much of bitterness or astringency to be found, but it’s also not super sweet like some other Yunnan blacks. I don’t find it very complex, but it is really yummy and easy to drink. It pairs well with lighter cheeses like some goat cheeses.

I tried to recreate the steeps of this one exactly like the 2014 harvest of Black Gold Bi Luo Chun that I adored. Even when the 2014 got older it was still so complex. Wasn’t hitting those complex notes in this harvest so tried to steep the same this time around. I think the tea is still delicious but still isn’t as lovely as before. I even was able to get really great third steeps for such golden leaves from the 2014 but the 2017 harvest isn’t as strong on the third steep. It’s still a surprisingly dark tea for such golden leaves though. And I still love this tea.

Attractive Bi Luo Chun style tightly rolled leaves. The flavor is nice, but somewhat generic for a Yunnan black with a strong maltiness, slight sweet potato, dark chocolate, fruit, and brown sugar notes. Good daily drinker.

thick robust malty, dark chocolate, smoke, sweet potato
medium astringency, but is outweighed by the sweet malty flavours