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Sip down. I never did do a proper review for this tea:). The Blueberry is sweet and jammy. The rooibos is present and slightly woody but not really a problem for me. I think the thing that makes me hesitant to repurchase this tea is that the cream is very milky to me and I hate milk. This is a strange food aversion as I love other dairy products, but I never liked milk and I don’t even have it in cereal. However once I get over that, the tea does taste a bit like a warm blueberry scented latte with vanilla. If you like milk with a bit of fruity sweetness and don’t mind a slightly present rooibos, this may be a tea for you.

This was the generous sample I received with my Yunnan Sourcing order.

I think this would appeal to those looking for a nice, robust malty tea.

The tea itself has nice resilient ( they hold up to multiple steeps) leaves, that are a long deep black brown with around 25% gold tips. They have a fresh, floral, hay like tone when dry.

This tea would make a good every day tea for those who prefer a malty tart tea!

This was part of a small adagio order that I made shortly after they began offering sane shipping fees to Canada.

The first tones I get are the cream and almond. The almond is slightly amaretto like and something cherry like. The cream actually has tones that remind me of milk. I think the caramel is there but it kind of supports the other notes with a burnt sugar note.

The base tea is fruity and slightly bitter with malt tones and a hint of coffee like tones. It’s not too bad but tastes a little rough compared to the teas I’ve been drinking lately.

I do really like the flavour though. I love cherry notes in teas, and it melds well with the others.

Does this represent the fifth doctor? I can’t say. I haven’t bothered with cable TV in a long time and I haven’t watched it online. I should though. I really liked Dr Who as a kid when they showed it on TVO. The Dr then had really curly dark hair. I think I may have seen one or two of the new episodes.

Having said that I can see why you enjoy this Sami, and it is well thought out!

As this tea cools I am admiring its leaves. They are really beautiful to look at with furry silver to gold loosely twisted buds among dark chocolate brown blades. The dry leaf smells sweet with a hint of smoke.

Using one TSP in 225 ml of 94°C water, I got a pale copper tea that smells of honey sweet potato and cinnamon,citrus tones and a hint of salty butter.

This light bodied tea has bright citrus and sweet potato up front opening up to cinnamon tinged honey mixed with salted butter, with the briefest echo of its roasting process. As it cools there are also slight sweet grain notes, a faint hint of plum and cocoa, and a hint of clover floral tone. It has a sweet honeyed aftertaste.

This tea is both light and bright and very warming and comes across as very elegant. It is sweeter than a Darjeeling, but is not as heavy, grainy,or chocolatey as many of the Chinese blacks I’ve had. This makes a very pleasant afternoon tea.

Thanks boychik for giving me the opportunity to try this tea. I enjoyed it very much!

The first time I had this tea it reminded me of both summer and fall. It had that tarry pine pitch smell that soaks out of rail ties on very hot days, that oddly provides a bright camphor type tone to the tea, as well as enough charred grain and smoke insence to make me think of fall curled up by a fire reading a book. This is not an overly smokey tea but smoke does influence and add spice to the flavour.

The dry leaf smells of sugar, charred grains, cocoa, and fruit, and a hint of bright camphor.

This is a very resilient tea for a keemun, brewed for steeps starting at 4 minutes I am now heading into the sixth steep.

My preferred brewing parameter for this tea is one TSP/225 ml/@93°C.

Brewed this way I get a minimally astringent broth that smells of charred grains, smoke insence, cocoa, caramel, warm red fruit, and plum, light pine tar/camphor tone, with a hint of menthol.

Roasted grains, smoke insence, and caramel are the first flavour tones. These mix with sharp fruit and cocoa. It finishes with a bright pine tar/menthol note mixed with red fruits and plum. A smoke tone creates a note that is a little roasted pecan like. It has a very sweet aftertaste.

Later steeps had notes of charred grain with smoke insence spice, cocoa, caramel, and plum. Tart fruit notes faded but are apparent as it cools. There was camphor/pine tar in aftertaste. These steeps had a spicy yet cool toned flavour. There were also hints of vanilla orchid, dark chocolate, and a spicy floral tone as it cools as well as a grainy note reminds me a little of horse feed.

My last steep had plum, caramel, cream, over mineral roasted cacao note.

Using more leaf intensified both the sweetness and smokey/Tarry nature of this tea, whereas using higher temperatures increased the astringency and created a woody, drying note in the tea.

This is a robust and very nice counterpoint to the other tea I got from the seller. I very much enjoy them both!
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Tea-Black-Tea-Keemun-100g-Black-Tea-Premium-50g-2-Factory-Direct-Quality-Keemun-Black-Tea/1708195985.html

Despite being a rather old sample, this tea smells of a bit more cherry than my Zen tea option ( having said that, I am not a floral tea hater). Although the base tea seemed slightly broken, it does not taste bitter after being brewed at @ 85 for 1 minute. The base tastes like a fairly robust, fruity green, with a faint spinach note. This works well, to support a rather strong candy/chapStick like flavoured cherry, mixed with a more spicy than bitter rose tone. The robust green, prevents this tea from seeming delicate, in fact there is something rather hardy about it. All the same it is a pleasant cup, that has held up well despite poor storage.

This bi luo chun is tightly rolled with about 50% of the visible leaf being silver green downy buds and the other visible portions being a spruce grey green. Once exhausted and unrolled the leaves, the buds and the attached stem are visible and seem to be of good quality.

This is a nice tea with the brightness and sweetness of an early spring tea combined with the nuttiness and density you often get in this tea type.

I steeped 1 TSP of leaf in a 150 ml Gaiwan and using my regular progression of 45 s + 15… I made 6 steeps of this tea.

This tea like the Yunnan white bi luo chun I had ( also from boychik, thanks by the way!), had nice spicy gardenia like floral notes, which in this case were tempered by a lemony note. It also had deepening over time chestnut and plum notes, snap pea, spinach, alfalfa, cream and orange rind. It was slightly astringent while brewed in the low to mid 80’s but had a nice thick and creamy density.

Altogether a really nice tea and a good change from the lighter and very sweet greens I tend to drink most often!

Last night I enjoyed eight steeps of this tea and will probably have a few more today.

This is quite a fruity green oolong with nice floral tones which manages to be both soft and punchy at the same time. It is not a biting green oolong. Its floral tones while spicy and obviously present never present this sensation. However this absence seems to turn into a slight bitterness which is usually absent for me in Oolong’s of this type. It may be that I chose a slightly too long steep time, as the rinse had quite an intense flavour. The punchy tones are apparent in the great fruit tones which I really enjoyed!

The dry leaf smelled intensely of snap peas, melon rinds, and a grape hyacinth. they were composed of cool toned spruce to olive green shaded irregularly sized nuggets. Once brewed the tea had a light yellow green coloured broth.

I steeped this tea at around 85°C and so far I have done eight steeps after the rinse (35,30,35,45,55,70,85,120). The tea is still yielding a flavourful broth. The tea was creamy from the first steep and left a mild tingling at the roof and front of the mouth.

Similar tones have been found in both the scent and flavour. So far I have detected:

°Pineapple, melon ( at times even cantelope rind), mango, orange juice, and that bright tone from the white of orange rind. Pineapple has been the dominant fruit tone so far.
°Lilac and clover nectar, with lilac dominating the earlier steeping, and clover the second half. The floral notes contribute a pleasant spiciness to the tea.
°Cream.
°Mint
°A slightly woody tone
°Savoury tones including snap pea, artichoke and spinach.
°Honey

The dominant tones have been fruit and floral notes.

So far I have enjoyed this tea and look forward to further steeps today.

Drinking what I believe is some Random Yan Cha, scent as a replacement from an aliexpress dealer as a replacement for a tea I ordered. I can’t particularly recommend this dealer. It was my first buy from them, but they listed my order as shipped then told me it was out of stock and tried to foist year old green tea on me as substitution. Then they said they would refund me by PayPal, instead of waiting for the end of the delivery period or me making a dispute, which did not happen. Finally especially since it was a really small sale I just gave in and let her send me a random black tea. The tin is really cute and the tea smells like creme caramel.

Brewed so far it tastes like creme caramel with a tart fruit compote on top, with hints of cocoa. Later steeps are spicy. It’s actually kind of nice, but I doubt I’ll deal with this seller again.

Mmm, this tea is pretty good! You can make it very sweet and chocolatey, or give it a more bright and floral toned flavour depending on how you brew it. The tea is twisted and coiled and reminds me of a thinner leafed Laoshan Black. There are scattered golden tips and the dry leaf smells of chocolate and longan.

I brewed 1 level TSP in 225ml of water.

The first time I brewed it at 90°C. The brew was a pale golden brown, oak colour with a scent of honey, cocoa and longan.

Flavour wise the first sip was of cocoa, avery light roasted grain note, caramel, and butter. This opened up to sweet bright longan over sweet plum and light floral spice note with the sweeter brighter notes of gardenia. There was an udertone of cream, and chocolate with a pinch of nutmeg. The tea had a sweet lingering aftertaste and was creamy and very smooth.

The second time I tried it at boiling as suggested. This produced a red orange brew, closer to the classic Keemun colour.

Brewed this way the scent was of a stronger roasted grain note, caramel, more distinct sweet and spicy floral note, cream, dark chocolate, nutmeg and longan.

The tea tasted lighter than when brewed at 90°. The top notes were floral notes mixed with spice that left acooling sensation at the front of the mouth. Caramel and longan and tart sharper fruit notes, mixed with plum lay in the centre and were followed by roasted grain, dark chocolate and a slightly woody note. Overall the effect was bright and sweet.

This is the lighter, softer and more chocolate tasting option of the two Keemun’s I purchased from this seller. Brewed at a lighter temperature it reminds me of some of the smokeless Lapsang Souchong’s that I have had. Brewed Either way it was delicious.