Jing Guan Yin Hong

Interesting one. Heavy florals and flavor bordering on soapy.

Trying it out intuitive gong fu, the smell was super heady from the wet leaf. It tasted and smell like Orange Glow, and funny enough, there was some pleasant dark woodsiness in the aftertaste in a buttery texture. The second was still floral, bursting with orange blossom, honeysuckle, orange, tangerine, apricot, sweet potato, with some slight bitterness. I’m actually a little overwhelmed right now. Third, the smell is super breadsy like a fresh bagel, or sourdough like Leafhopper mentions. I’m glad I shortened the steep time. The Apricot +orange combined really nicely.

Next few steeps will be shortened, and I will return in a little bit….

I’ve got a few more notes I need to make up…

So after I took some Jasmine on my way to getting the Ghosts of Toshima, I had a little bit of a caffeine Euphoria. Getting back to this tea, 15 seconds, and orange syrup coating sweetness, yams, and some florals giving me a little bit of a headache. The leaves still smell good, but I might have to switch to my more milder ones tonight as I power through some notes and historical gaming.

I feel bad that I’m stopping on this one, but I think I got what I needed to from it. This is my kind of black tea, though a little bit strong in caffeine and florals, even for me. This is the kind of tea I would drink if I was taking things slower, but definitely a tea to drink in the morning on the weekend when I’m not quite awake, and have enough time to be careful and to take in the aroma. I think it would be good for newbies who like citrus as they get into straight teas, and are getting into teas like Earl Grey or Jasmine as a novice reference. However, it could be overpowering, and it looks like I was not the only one.

I’m personally rating it 80, though I think it’s between the 75-85 range in terms of quality to price. The big reason I’m rating it lower is the headache from the HEAVY citrus florals.

This is like a wee cup of soapy sweetness with slight edges of bitterness. It almost reminds me of Thrills gum, but not as enjoyable.

This one has to go to the swap pile.

I decided to give this tea a chance after seeing it described as aromatic and fruity, although I’ve had a black Tie Guan Yin before that I wasn’t too fond of. Of course, Jin Guan Yin is a slightly different varietal, though my expectations were still somewhat similar. I used the instructions given in the Camellia Sinensis Summer Session, an online event held in August that reviewed eight of their teas, as provided by Tea in Spoons:
https://teainspoons.com/2020/10/01/camellia-sinensis-summer-session-08-2020-part-3/
They said to steep 5 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 203F for 30, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of sourdough bread, dates, tart fruit, and sweet potato. The first two steeps have notes of sweet potato, citrus, dates, sap, caramel, and baked bread. In the next steep, the sweet potato gets even richer, the citrus resolves itself into orange zest, the tannins become more prominent, and flavours of tart rhubarb and sourdough emerge. That sourdough is especially noticeable when exhaling a few minutes after a sip and is kind of entertaining.

In steeps four to six, the sourdough starts competing with the sweet potato, and I get some earth, tannins, and wood. This is slightly disappointing since I liked those sweet potato-heavy initial steeps so much. The final few long steeps reveal mellow sweet potato, combined with tannins, wood, malt, earth, and minerals.

This tea is a lot better than my previous batch of black TGY. I’d recommend it to anyone who loves sweet potato and enjoys a dynamic gongfu session. It’s especially appropriate at the moment since it’s the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Happy early Thanksgiving to everyone who’s celebrating, and I hope you can connect with family virtually if not in person.