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I don’t usually go for flavored or blended teas, but I picked up one of the samplers from Liquid Proust’s website to give his teas a go. I’ve never had Sunmoon Lake Black tea, the base of this blend, before. I used boiling water and ~7g in my 120mL gaiwan. It’s possible this would do better western style. Not that I didn’t enjoy it gongfu.

I don’t think I’ve ever really reviewed a flavored blend before, so it seems weird saying that it tasted like its component parts, but that’s mostly what I got from this one. The first steep was lightly malty with a thick and full caramel flavor and cocoa/caramel aftertaste. If I let the tea cool down a bit, I could taste the pecans as well – this held true throughout the session. A few steeps in, the sweet caramel and cocoa flavors began to fade, but at the same time, the flavors from the tea base picked up, making for an interesting session. I started to get some dark fruit notes, kind of reminding me of cherries or maybe plums from the tea, still accompanied by whispers of the sugary sweet notes and nuttiness.

After trying this tea, I’m excited to get to the rest of LP’s blends. The flavors meshed quite well in this one and produced a very good tea. His passion is quite apparent in the care with which he selects ingredients, especially the base teas. I think the problem with a lot of flavored blends is that they just use shit tea – certainly not the case here. This one’s a winner.