2008 Red Robe

SIPDOWN 24

A tea I have received from derk, apparently quite a long time ago. Thank you! And what a sad sipdown. Aged oolong isn’t something I drink daily.

I noticed year ago some raspberries… maybe they were there. Today it roasty, mellow, sweet, molasses, a bit of chocolates, and overall very pleasant.

I did first few steeps quite carefully, but then I lost track, as I was writing notes to my Wednesday exam, so I was just keeping it in gaiwan for random time; and well it wasn’t a bad preparation method, I felt free about it… and got a lots of interesting and all tasty steeps. There weren’t some steep I would say… this is a weird, undrinkable, awful or whatever.

I guess it was better prepared for first time… but as I wasn’t paying attention to this session, I am happy it went that well.

derk wrote as well: “I like it even though nothing about it stands out in particular. It’s mellow and calming enough to be a daily evening drinker without much attention having to be paid.” I have to agree completely. It’s 9 pm here; and indeed it works well for that purpose. Evening drinker with mellow and calming qualities.

Finally a sipdown. It’s a really solid heavily roasted and aged da hong pao or something similar. There was a ton of broken leaf in the bottom of the bag. I dumped all of it in my gaiwan and regardless of the amount of dust, this still brewed up super smooth and sweet with dark milk chocolate, raspberry, brown sugar, and meaty roasted nut notes; some woody cassia spice smoothly integrated, background minerality that tingles the tongue like magic, cooked raspberry, peach and salty aftertaste. Instant calm. My cheeks are on fire :)

Edited to add: I simmered the leaf this morning and it’s so aromatic and so hard to describe. Brandy but darker? with raisins? vanilla? cocoa? black figs? pipe tobacco! and a trace of smoke. What an excellent send-off!