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I picked this tea up several months ago, during the big sales event, and am just finally getting around to it. I haven’t been in the mood to write reviews for several months, plus I wanted to sipdown some of the already opened teas that had already been reviewed multiple times, so now that’s coming along nicely, and I feel like I can open some of the newer packages. My friend Lisa came for breakfast yesterday, and it seemed like the perfect time to do so! Lisa fell in love with this tea immediately, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, so I’m sampling it again today, using the gongfu recommendations of:

5G + Gaiwan X 5 sec (+ 3 sec per each additional steep).

The dry leaves are tiny & very dark, with a faint aroma of tart fruit. I heated up my Gaiwan & let the leaf warm up and was rewarded with a richer, fruitier aroma, bringing memories of when I used to cook overnight wholegrain cereal in my crockpot, spiked with chunks of dried fruit, back in my Vegan days (yes I was a vegan for a long time…) The perfume is rich and sweet, tart dark plums, lychee, honey and a grainy malty toast. It rises thickly into my sinuses and lingers. There is also a peppery quality, but not enough to make me sneeze.
On with the steepings…
I’m not sure how to describe what I’m sipping, and I’m actually not sure if I like it. The first round is kind of bitter & peppery, like nasturtium leaves. It’s not what I expected at all, however by the end of the first cup a sweetness has begun to layer into my soft palate & throat with each sip, that has my mouth watering like Pavlov’s Dog. Gradually the steeps get sweeter: Lychee, dried plum, sorghum essence, a sweet incense like aroma that rises into the sinuses almost like some oolongs, but not as lingering. The color throughout is a beautiful dark orange.

The name of this tea translates as Concubine’s Smile, but this isn’t some girly girl. She’s bold, sweetly perfumed, but a little on the bitter side … like maybe she’s carrying a little vile of poison up her sleeve… you know… just in case you piss her off…