TeaSpring

Another share from the delightful Angrboda! Oh how she spoils me so!

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this one – TeaSpring’s description only says a peppery note with a sweet finish and it blends well with milk – so I was expecting something sort of one-note and a bit rough. That was backed up by the scent I got when I stuck my nose in the cup – a vaguely sweet, mild tea smell, nothing spectacular. But the taste? It sure packs a wallop!

First, the most distinct thing for me is the end note – at first (when the tea is hot) it gives a soft plum-skin-like sour note similar to some Keemuns. Mostly, sour and I don’t agree, but for some reason I tend to love it in my Chinese blacks. Perhaps because it is coupled with such smoothness and sweetness. As the tea cools, this note migrates more towards heavy cocoa. For the second half of my cup, I felt like my tongue was being dipped in cocoa after each sip.

That’s the endnote, though. What about the main part of the tea? It’s flavorful and sweet. Oh, so sweet! I can’t really peg the sweetness – it’s more like white sugar than honey but sugar isn’t quite right either. But it’s very there. The whole front end of the taste is filled with sweetness. Sort of a combination of a sweet light rye bread with maybe a hint of floral or fruit (I can’t quite tell) and then a dash of cocoa. Or like sweet potato without the potato. That kind of sweetness.

Anyway, this is a fantastic little tea. There’s so much going on flavor-wise that each sip is attention-getting. It’s weird, though, because the notes are all sorta soft and elusive as to what exactly they are and so it seems almost delicate. At the same time, though, this isn’t a delicate tea because the potency of the flavor is like punch-you-in-the-mouth intense. I like teas like this that confuse me with so many yummy flavors and interesting characteristics. They make it impossible to get bored!

Another one based on hastily scribbled notes, this tea was from my Discover China TeaSpring order, in which I sought to try out other parts of China apart from just Fujian and the search for the perfect Keemun. …Erm, yes. Well, I am aware that this is in fact a Keemun. In my Discover China order. Which was supposed to take me a little away from that. But honestly TeaSpring has a handful of Keemuns to choose from and as I am still searching for that elusive perfect one, wouldn’t it be stupid to not get some when I was ordering anyway? I think so too.

I have mentioned before my preference tendencies with the leaf grades of Keemun, so I shan’t go into all that again. Suffice to say that this one is the cheapest one the offer, because to me that seemed to spell the highest chance of success.

The aroma had that nice, mild smoky top note, which is exactly as I prefer it. There was a nice bit of sweetness and grainyness to it as well. In the dry leaf, this grain-y note came off as quite malty.

Basically the aroma of this Keemun is pretty much spot on for how I imagine I want the perfect Keemun to appear.

It was a smooth cup. Soft and almost creamy as if I could almost imagine that milk had been added to it. (Note, I never add milk or sugar to anything) The body of the flavour struck me as somewhat thin, though, which was a bit of a disappointment. I had been hoping for something with a bit of substance to it. I think, though, that this is something that might be fixed by having a closer look at the amount of leaf used. I should like to see if the grain-y notes can’t be made to fill out a bit more.

One of the most important things about a great Keemun is that smoky top-note. I already mentioned that it was near perfection in the aroma and it isn’t indeed present in the flavour as well. This is the note that in higher leaf grades seem to turn more floral in nature, but this cheap-skate version from TeaSpring had just the right level of smokyness over floralness.

So on the smoky level, we so have a winner. On the body level, well, it remains to be seen. I really must do a little experimentation with it to find that out for sure. It did develop a little more as it cooled down, though, but that just didn’t really seem enough for it to be a truly awesome Keemun. If the leaf amount is not enough to take it to a higher level of enjoyment, then I suspect I must go one stop further up on the leaf grade ladder and see what happens. I just hope, should that happen, that it won’t mean a loss of that great balance of smoky versus floral notes.

(You know what’s weird? Writing about a Keemun while drinking a forest fruit flavoured tea. I keep expecting the tea in the cup to taste like Keemun…)

Gosh, I think I botched this pot. Bit strong…

Anyway, I think I just had an epiphany of sorts. Does ‘Hong Cha’ mean ‘black tea’? Or rather, ‘red tea’ given the Chinese denominations?

If yes, can I always count on the word ‘Hong’ referring to the type, or is it only if it’s combined with ‘Cha’?

I hate c25k with the burning passion of a thousand suns. There I said it. Now let’s move on.

Here’s another Explore China tea, and as some of you may have noticed it’s a Yunnan black.

“Hey, hang on!” I hear some of you exclaim. “You keep saying you don’t care for Yunnan blacks!”

“Yes,” I answer, “that is quite correct. Well spotted! However, there is the odd exception to the rule, and this is it.”

“But you keep saying that Yunnan black tastes like hay and you can spot it mile off!” I hear some of you protesting.

“I can. But not ALL Yunnan black tastes like hay. Most do, but some don’t,” I reply patiently.

“Hmmm…” I hear some of you mutter sceptically. “Ang with a Yunnan black… this cannot end well.”

Well, let’s not turn the whole thing into a screenplay, lest we be forced to act it out. 95% of all Yunnan black teas I seem to come across are the golden type. Those, I do not much care for. Those, I often feel is a mouthful of wet hay. Those, I can only drink and enjoy when in the proper mood (under which circumstances I do find them very enjoyable)

But this stuff is different. This stuff is like being smacked round the head with toffee! I want to say it’s a bit chocolate-y, but that’s not really it. Neither is it properly caramel-y, so fudge or toffee is the closest I can get here. It’s that sort of candy-like sweetness with a touch of malt underneath. Just enough to make it not smell like a sweetie shop and just enough to give it a hint of grain.

I have to say I botched the steeping slightly because I wasn’t using the timer and it went slightly over the time I had expected it to end up at, but I can inform you that the leaves didn’t care. It’s not bitter, it’s not astringent, and it doesn’t even taste particularly strong.

There’s a slightly woody flavour to it, which somehow comes across as a more mature sort of that hay flavour that I normally associate this region with.

It’s also rather more cocoa-y than it was in the aroma and less of the other types of sweets I mentioned. The malt is still there though, just a little bit, and the grain-y aspect is a little less obvious.

I had this tea yesterday as well, three steeps of it. I have to say the third steep wasn’t really all that worth the effort, as it was quite thin in flavour, but it was still fairly nice. I’m quite pleased with this purchase.

And if anybody can explain to me what it is that makes such a huge difference between this Yunnan black (or those dragon balls for that matter) and those other golden ones, the ones that I don’t care for, please do.

Good morning Steepster.

Following the Tragic Loss of the Roy Kirkham teapot as documented earlier on, I found myself this morning faced with a problem. I don’t work on wednesdays, you see, so these are the days when the RK pot got the most exercise. It held 400 ml, exactly the same as the mugs I prefer to drink from, so it was really great for just one person. Now, though? I have a large pot that I use when sharing with Husband, and we have a middle-sized one that we usually use with rooiboses. What the plock to do now??? O.o

Well, the middle sized one is a bodum press, and since it had just come out of the dishwasher, I temporarily re-purposed it. I’m not keen on the press element, being used to loosely flowing leaves. However, needs must. Needs must.

There will be a new RK pot. Two actually, so that we can share a cup without necessarily having the same tea. When Husband suggests something and I’m not interested in that one, he always immediately adjusts to whatever my suggestion was. He says it doesn’t matter much to him, but it kind of annoys me when I want to give him the one that he wants. So two RK pots. We’ve picked out which ones too. One with garden birds and one with butterflies. Kinda pricy though, and shipping is murder, so it has to wait until the other side of payday. And also for me to get a new passport so that I’ve actually got some valid ID in case I need to pick it up from the post office. (I changed my last name following the wedding, and we’re also having some small adjustment to our address (new house number), so if anybody wants/needs to have their address books updated, please pm or email me)

Anyway, following all that todo with working out how to even make it, I thought that this tea, which Husband didn’t like, would be a good one to have when he’s not at home.

It doesn’t appear to have suffered from the french press method, but I do think I’ve made it stronger this time than the first time. It’s more cocoa-y now in both aroma and flavour, and it has developed some stronger grainy notes in the body. Brewing this one strong suits it very well, I think.

(Oh, and to those of you who saw That Post on the boards, just try to ignore that guy. He pops up from time to time and seems to always drag trouble in his wake. He’s just a troll.)

wheeze

wheeze

WHEEZE!

We are doing C25K and we’ve had our fourth run this morning. I officially hate it. It’s absolutely horrid and now my legs aren’t working properly anymore, having gone all wobbly, so I’m rewarding myself for having at least made it this far.

This tea is from the Jiang Su province, which is on the East coast of China, North of Shanghai and on the Yellow Sea. It’s south of the Shandong province which is where those Laoshan teas from Verdant are from, and I believe those are the only other teas from this general area that I’ve had before.

According to TeaSpring’s notes, some connoiseurs would name this one the best black tea in the world. Well, in my case that means it has to live up to the Tan Yang, and really, it’s got its work cut out for it there!

The leaves are rather nice looking, and they look exactly like in the picture there, all highlighted in golden brown and twisty. They don’t have a very strong aroma on their own, though, not even after I’ve breathed on them, but I am picking up something that reminds me of sweets. Can’t quite put my finger on what sort of sweets though, but it’s definitely something along those lines.

The aroma after brewing is remarkably sweet, and now I know what it was I couldn’t really place in the dry leaf. It’s caramel. Sugary and caramel-y and there’s a smidge of floral undertones to it, but the sweetness is really what I’m mostly noticing. This? This bodes well!

What a peculiar tea! It tastes nothing like it smells. Where the aroma was largely a thick caramel, the flavour is all cocoa-y. There’s something pseudo-smoky as well, hiding just beneath the surface like a hungry shark, waiting to strike at the unsuspecting drinker.

Apart from the cocoa note, I can tell there are other notes to it, but it’s like they’re all hiding, so I can’t examine them properly. It makes for a fairly complicated cup. We’ve already covered that pseudo-smoky note, and like Auggy has said, it does lead the mind in the general direction of something Keemunesque, but without the heavy grain of the Keemun. There are some grain notes in this as well, but not to the same strength.

This tea tastes a bit like it’s trying to be several things at the same time. It tastes confused and a little shy.

The cocoa note is really what carries it forwards, but there is a very nice aftertaste as well. That’s where the caramel-y tones from the aroma are finally coming in. A good chewy chocolate-y caramel, that’s what the aftertaste feels like. The way the mouth feels coated in flavour and sticky after having eaten one of those. It’s not a very long aftertaste, it doesn’t really last much longer than just the act of swallowing, but flavourwise it’s one of the best aftertastes I’ve come across.

I should have liked the actual flavour to come together a bit more. Right now it’s feeling a little all over the place and disjointed, and if it had come across as a little more compact I would have enjoyed it even more. As it is, though, it is still a very nice black. It’s definitely a suitable reward for having suffered through all that jogging.

Best black tea in the world, though? No. For me that’s still Tan Yang.

ETA: Hmm. Husband didn’t care for this one at all. And instead of just saying so, he suffers through the entire cup, nearly, and only admits it when I ask him what he thought of it. Have put a little Not Suitable For Husbands sticker on the label now and hope in the future he’ll remember that I can’t read minds.

Me? I’m on the second steep now. Same as the first, but a bit thin.

Actually this post was supposed to be about the Keemun that I bought… But I was writing and completely forgot to pay even the slightest bit of attention to the cup. That’s how well the writing was going! That 750words.com site that Michelle told us about on the boards is AWESOME! It’s doing absolute wonders for my productivity, I can tell you that. Even if it does impede my ability to analyse Keemun, apparently. Three flavourful steeps of the same leaves have gone down without a hitch, though, so it must be pressing a good number of happy buttons. :) But, you’ll have to get THAT post another time.

For now, however, I remembered that I had some notes on this one from the other day lying around. This is one that I had been very much looking forward to since making that most recent TS order. Their description of the tea promises cocoa notes a-plenty and those always tend to go down well in black teas. Interestingly enough, I’ve never had much luck with actual chocolate flavoured teas. For some reason they always tend to fall short on me.

Anyway, this is of course another step in the Explore China program and as the name says, it’s from the Sichuan province which is just north of Yunnan. This does not surprise me, what with the abundance of cocoa notes. Normally I would say that Yunnan teas in generally taste largely of hay to me and I don’t much care for them, but I have had a few which were very cocoa-y and not very hay-y and I would have been fooled completely had I not known beforehand where they came from. Now that I’ve seen this, and I’ve looked at a map of China, I suspect perhaps those were produced in the northern region of Yunnan, not very far from the border?

Anyway, back to the Sichuan.

I was initially a little disappointed by the aroma of the dry leaf, because it didn’t smell of cocoa at all. Not even slightly. It was fruity and spicy and had an undertone of honey. Then I tried breathing on them, though, and there! There was the cocoa! And lots of it too.

Okay! Thus heartened, I proceeded to steep up a pot for sharing. The aroma of the finished tea did have cocoa notes right away, but they were not strong. Quite subtle notes of cocoa with something that just hinted at what I had found in the dry leaf. There was also a sort of wooden note to it all, which may or may not translate to some of that spicyness I found in the dry leaf.

The cocoa really came out in the flavour, though, and it did not disappoint. It was cocoa, mind. Not chocolate. Cocoa is a much rougher sort of flavour than the sweeter, creamier chocolate. I didn’t test the claim that with the addition of milk, you would get something that tasted akin to chocolate milk because I’m not used to adding anything to my tea ever, so I thought that would rather ruin the experience for me. (That sort of thing has never worked for me anyway)

So lots of cocoa, and again the fruity, wood-y, spicy notes underneath it all. I feel that the cocoa is the primary flavour here, but these undertone notes are the most important ones, as they are the ones that carry the whole thing. The cocoa notes alone wouldn’t work. That would just be like a thin cup of cocoa and not very enjoyable. Without these other notes laying the foundation, this tea would be nothing. But with the foundation firmly in place as in this cup here, I got a very enjoyable cup indeed.

I would definitely order this one again, I think. It tastes like the sort of thing one might get addicted to if one is not careful…

Another from my recent ‘Explore China’ TeaSpring order, and it’s from the Hu Bei province, which is in mid-China, just west of Anhui, which is where Keemun comes from.

This one is another one that comes with a LOT of expectations from me. Auggy has had this one and she was very impressed indeed, so that really raises the bar for me as well. Auggy hasn’t been around much in a while, so many of you might not be aware of this, and many who were might have forgotten, but the thing is that when it comes to black Chinese tea, we have discovered ourselves to be taste twins. Or as close to it as it’s possible to get. We like so many of the same ones, and we tend to appreciate pretty much the same qualities in them. So when Auggy gives this stuff 98 points? It seems that it must be almost impossibly good.

The aroma of the leaves were a good start. They were very chocolate-y and had some fruity, raisin-y undertones to them. Perhaps a little leather-y too. Mostly chocolate-y though.

After brewing it seems to be the other way around, with the fruity, raisin-y note in the foreground and the chocolate-y one somewhat in the background.

The flavour, however, is all chocolate-y and raisin-y again. I think it’s about half and half of the two, but the raisin-y bit is simply the one I notice first of the two. On top of it all there is a thin layer of something vaguely floral.

It’s a smooth cup this, and I suspect that the chocolate aspect with start standing out more against the raisin-y note as it continues to cool down.

Yes, Auggy… I can see what you mean.

This reminds me of the Japanese black teas I’ve tried – it’s got a sour taste to it with a strong woody note. But it doesn’t sparkle like the Japanese black teas did. Instead, it’s kind of muddy, like typical Chinese tea characteristics are trying to poke through but are dulled by the tart-plum taste. It balances out a bit as it cools, feeling more underripe sour fruity dessert-ish but it still just misses the boat for me.

It does shine a little more when brewed in larger volume. It has less sour/tacky notes (though they are still there at the end of the sip, just a tad) and more warm, fuzzy Yunnan-ish notes. It’s still not a tea I’m going to adore, but a 12oz cup is much tastier than an 8oz cup. That requires that I give the tea a little bump in ratings, but it’s still not all that shiny for me.

More backlogging! Whee!

The smell is super interesting. Grassy but toasted, floral, honeyed woodsy and chocolaty. The wet leaves have notes of fresh rye bread and… raisins? The liquor smells toasted but green – somewhat like Zealong Aromatic.

Oh the flavor! It’s honeyed, roasted, floral, green, creamy. It has a fuzzy, creamy mouthfeel on the front and a clean, slightly crisp aftertaste. There’s all sorts of lovely flavors poking out and swirling about in this tea. Green, floral, creamy, woodsy, toasty, grain-y, honey, fruity…. it’s really delightful.

The second steep is a bit more on the roasted than green side of the street. It’s still got nice floral and honey notes, but stone fruit pops out more, as well as a gentle roasted note.

Third steep brings to mind a slightly more typical wuyi with darker flavors and an air of mystery.

Fourth steep brings to mind a milk oolong. No seriously, it does. Lightly caramel notes over a soft silkiness. I should have kept the leaves. Why did I get rid of them before trying this cup???

I’m pretty sure this tea was one I got because something Angrboda said struck my happy button. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I’m glad I gave this atypical-for-me tea a shot.

The dry leaf smells woodish and a bit of a mild/dark cinnamon. The tea, however, is mildly smoky, sweet, fruity and a bit floral. Lots of interesting stuff going on.

The taste is lovely. Sweet and smoky on the front end (in a cigar-ish way) and sweet and nectary on the back end (like honeysuckle). SO GOOD. There is still a bit of that wood note that is in darker oolongs that I just can’t love, but the other aspects are super tasty. Very deliciously drinkable and pretty, even.

I can’t say for sure if I will rebuy this just because I don’t normally find myself going for this type of tea, but this is a lovely example of type that I would be happy to drink again (and again).

I’ve discovered that I need to do some backlogging of my TeaSpring teas from my order a few months ago. Whoops! Sadly though, I only ordered a very small amount of most of the teas – 25g – which seemed like a good idea at the time, but obviously wasn’t.

Because this is so good. The dry leaves smell like cocoa. And the tea juice? It tastes like cocoa! It’s so smooth and sweet and cocoa-y with a little woodsy aftertaste. It’s fantastic! Slurping brings out fresh bread and maybe a hint of a light preserves – a bit like pineapple preserves in that it is fairly mild on the actual fruit-tasting front. But yeah, this is so tasty, it makes me want to get up and do a little dance.

Well, except for the fact that it is gone. That is not dance-worthy. And it went so fast, too! But this tea pretty much guarantees I’ll be placing another TeaSpring order before too long. And ordering much larger sizes.

A new day, a new tea! This one somehow managed to hide from me, managing to be the sole untasted tea from my TeaSpring order a few months ago. But I found it yesterday and decided we can’t just leave it unsampled so it gets busted open today!

I really like milk oolongs. But see, they don’t taste milky to me. I don’t know why exactly, but I always end up tasting a light and strong sweetness that makes me think of Juicy Fruit gum (which is a positive, in my world). Nothing like milk (though I suppose an argument could be made for a bit of condensed milk due to the sweetness) but I love them still.

This, however, is surprisingly different. There’s a heaviness, an almost spiciness that reminds me of white pepper. Underneath that is the sweet tropical fruitiness that I associate with Juicy Fruit and milk oolongs. The end taste’s fruitiness continues well past swallowing, becoming higher and sweeter as I breathe through my mouth. It’s gorgeous.

As it cools, the darker spiciness and lighter sweetness start to sink into each other creating this heady, rich mix of thickness and sweetness that still isn’t milky to me but is much too sophisticated and sensual to be associated with a mere gum.

In the second steep, the flavors have swapped. First I get the sweet, thinned condensed milk fruit-ish sweetness followed by the darker, heavier former spiciness that has evolved into something more bready, like fresh white rye bread. The overall taste has muddied up some but it still tastes very yummy. Not as sophisticated as the first steep, but tasty enough that my cup emptied super fast. The aftertaste is still sweet, but not quite as pretty and it is coupled with a prickly faint pepper note that isn’t as nice as the first steep but still interesting and enjoyable.

Not the most perfect, end-all-be-all of milk oolongs and probably the one that has reminded me least of Juicy Fruit gum. But I quite like this and think it is a very nice example of the milk oolong category, or at least my somewhat limited experience with it.

Very earthy but with chocolate and very attractive roasted flavors. Strange on the first brew, where the earthiness is very strong. The great thing is that this can last 5 or 6 steeps easily. rich wet earth aromas, and chocolate notes that dance in and out. Great value for the money.

Light apricot, grassy, lovely sweetness in the mid palate with a finish that is lingering. Really love the fresh bright flavors you find here.

Multiple infusions permitted (I prefer three, maybe four). Good tea. I need to drink another cup of this. Later. LOL

I ordered this over 2 months ago. Wasn’t until now that I decided to write a note about. This was my first Tie Lou Han, description on the website is pretty interesting, “A strong, rich and full-bodied tea that will warm your body and energize your mind.” I was honestly intrigued but the end result was a little disappointing. I have since tried other Tie Lou Han’s so I feel better writing about it now.

>Dry Leaf Appearance/Aroma
Short curled dark leaves. Lots of broken pieces and some dust. Light charcoal aroma.

>Brewing Method
Gaiwan, Gong-fu style, boiling water, one rinse. Brewed 5 times.

>Liquid Apperance
Clear amber.

>Taste/Aroma
This tea has a very faint smell of rocks and charcoal. The tea has a strong charcoal taste with a medium body in the first cups, which then fades into very subtle cocoa notes.

Starting from he 3rd cup, the tea became lighter in taste, but other than that no noticeable changes from here onward.

4th and 5th cup followed the same pattern, loss of taste with no changes in texture or new flavors. I honestly got tired of it, so I ended the session there.

>Wet Leaf Appearance
Nothing out of the ordinary, dark leaves, mostly broken.

>Overall
If someone had told me this was a cheap wuyi oolong I would’ve believed it. The description of this tea really intrigued me so I was expecting something more, this one just feels like a cheap overly toasted da hong pao. Does this mean it’s a bad tea? no way. Despite the letdown, I did enjoy this tea, it’s just not amazing or has anything that makes it stand out.

Sipdown, 170. This feels like a milestone! It is as low as I’ve gotten since I started keeping track. I’ve been yoyo-ing around mainly between 180 and 200 for a couple of months now so its nice to see the number actually dropping again (although looking back I started at 264, which was my highest number, so I’m almost down 100 teas). Now that I’m here, no going above 190!

Most of the sipdowns I’ve had recently I haven’t been too sad to see go, but this one is different. Is it my favorite tan yang? No, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious. I was reminded about this one by Angrboda’s tasting note on the tan yang from Teavivre today, and I definitely agree with her that this is kind of a wild child tan yang. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but today it is giving me really lovely chocolate-cinnamon bread notes, which is totally unexpected (where is cinnamon coming from in a tan yang?!) but awesome nonetheless. Glad I had this one around for a while.

I swear this is the never ending pouch of tea. I thought there would be one cup left after this one but there is definitely two. Well, at least its tasty!

My cup today is very roasty-chocolatey. This tan yang defintely has more “bite” to it than some others I’ve tried; it’s less honeyed or caramelly, and it has a hint of astringency not unlike some robust keemuns or assams that I’ve tried. It’s a little too “bold” to be my perfect tan yang, but it’s tasty and nice for a kick in the pants when I need it.

Ugh, it’s mornings like this where I want a gingery black tea. Something I ate last night did not agree with me and now I have a headache and a serious feeling of blah. I decided to go hearty black this morning and hope that it takes care of at least one of the two.

This is certainly robust this morning; perhaps I overleafed it a tad, but it is a little rougher around the edges than I remember. That’s actually working in my favor right now… its not only helping with the headache, but also cutting through the leftover garlic taste in my mouth (yeah, the chimichurri salad dressing I ate was so garlicy it stayed around through two tooth brushings and mouthwash. Delicious, but perhaps not worth it :P). Anyway, this malty, grainy tea has helped. But now I need another because I’m still not awake!

Maaan I need to get my morning groove back. All of last semester I was really good about getting up early and getting to work and being productive. This morning is pretty much the earliest I’ve gotten in all week and I just cannot wake up for some reason. Hopefully tea will help.

I haven’t tried this one in quite a while. It really is quite good. Notes of lightly toasted chocolate (I always think of the browned chocolate bits on the bottom of a chocolate chip cookie) and some slightly molasses-y grains. Not quite my perfect fujian black, but a pretty darned good one.

With my recent taking to Fujian black teas, I couldn’t wait to try this tea, and thankfully SimplyJenW fulfilled that desire by immediately sending me a sample of it! I’m brewing it western style because that’s how I’ve done my other gong fu blacks so far, with parameters that approximate the parameters I’ve used previously, except this one I brewed a little hotter because that’s more like what TeaSpring calls for.

From the dry leaf I’m definitely getting molasses and grainy notes, that is, it smells pleasantly like horse grain. I’ve smelled that before from the base of the Tea Spot’s Organic Chocolate “O”, and though I know it doesn’t sound like a compliment, it totally is because I love that smell. I always wanted to eat the horse grain as a kid because it smelled tasty, but of course uncooked grains are not that palatable even when covered in molasses. Anyway, back to the tea. Steeped, I’m smelling more of those cocoa, malty, grainy notes in the cup.

Nice grainy, malty, slightly molasses-y, slightly cocoa-y notes in the flavor of this one. It’s also a little less sweet-seeming and a little bolder and a little less smooth than the other gong fu blacks I’ve tried. I’m glad Jen also sent a sample of Keemun Mao Feng, since a few people have mentioned that this tea reminds me of a Keemun without smokiness. I’ve never tried an unflavored Keemun so that will be good to compare. I think Jen nailed it when she said this one was less honeyed and caramelly than the Tan Yang I brought back from China (and I also think Teavivre’s Bailin Gong Fu), but those are some of my favorite parts of the cup. I do have plenty of leaf for this one to try many times and compare side-by-side to some of my other faves, not to mention the others that Jen put in my box (thank you!).

I am definitely enjoying this one very much, but it isn’t an easily-acquired replacement for my Tan Yang I brought back from China (of course I knew that going in from Jen’s reviews). I will have to try the higher-grade Tan Yang Jing Zhi from TeaSpring as well at some point.

My TeaSpring Ti Kuan Yin order has just arrived! I ordered about an ounce of each of their TKY and will be reviewing them in the coming weeks as soon as I can. First lets start with their lowest priced TKY.

>Dry Leaf Apperance/Aroma
Curled up dark jade leaves, typical Ti Kuan Yin look, nothing out of the ordinary. Floral aroma is really subtle, barely noticeable on the dry leaf but prevalent in the the foil pouch the tea came packed in.

>Brewing Method
Following Teaspring’s directions using a Yixing teapot, freshly boiled water, and 1 min steep time.

> Liquid Appearance
Clear golden green, first cups were very pale.

> Taste/Aroma
I re-steeped this tea 5 times. After the 4th cup I noticed a sharp drop in flavor and decided to end the session after the 5th.

The 1st cup was very light in taste, faintly floral, but with a really smooth taste. Not as “fresh” as other TKY’s. The 2nd cup remained with a similar muted floral taste, but the tea became slightly thicker, almost creamy. In the 3rd cup, the tea had a very nice creamy texture but aroma and flavor was lacking. By the 4th cup, the tea lost most of its creaminess and a subtle green taste began to emerge. The 5th cup was really faint in taste, no aroma, and barely any texture.

> Wet Leaf Appearance
The leaves were mostly medium sized, mostly damaged in some way, but with few stems.

> Overall
Well I really wasn’t expecting much from TeaSpring’s budget TKY. Despite its low price, I don’t think I would purchase this again, even as my everyday option, as I feel the taste is too light and there are much better affordable options out there. I did enjoy how the texture of this tea evolved from light and smooth, to thick and creamy.

On another note, I don’t know if it has always been this way with TeaSpring, but in my last two orders, both my packages came heavily damaged (cardboard box seemed as if it had been under a super heavy item during the whole shipping process). Thankfully the tea itself wasn’t damaged.