Sipdown! (49 | 396)
My tea of the morning for the past couple of weeks. A lot of times with these Andrews & Dunham teas, I have a tendency to not want to sip them down because the stock is so inconsistent. But this one wasn’t my favorite so I figured I would go ahead and sip through it, as it was one of my oldest teas.
This is a mix of multiple Yunnan black teas, one is a smaller, wirier dark leaf with a bit of gold, and the other is a large, fuzzy, golden bud. Mostly it’s the smaller leaf, with a few buds mixed in. It steeps up a deep, dark, chocolaty brown, almost like a shou puerh. The flavor is very woody with some mineral earthiness underneath, along with a hint of smoke. There’s a touch of malt as well. It brings to mind an ancient forest, with massive tangled trees covered in a layer of moss.
Anyway, as I said not a favorite for me. I feel like it lacks a bit of dimension and I tend to prefer Yunnan teas with more bready and sweet potato-y notes to them. Not a bad tea by any stretch of the imagination, just a bit underwhelming given the beautiful tin.
(this tea, Checkered Flag, and Caravan Resurrected happen to be available at the moment, by the way!)
Flavors: Earth, Forest Floor, Malt, Mineral, Smoke, Smooth, Soil, Thick, Wet wood, Wood
