I got this tea only as a sample because it was very intriguing to me. The smell of the dry leaves is really hard to describe. It’s kind of sour but you get a hint of roast. The leaves themselves are pitch black (being heavily roasted).
The first steep (rinse) didn’t have a lot of roasted flavour and I got a lot of the bitter melon flavour, a bit sour. The second steep and the ones that followed the second steep were quite different. They were very smooth, surprisingly, but had quite a very thick roasted aroma to them that was coupled with a rather nice sour-ish aroma.
Flavors: Plum, Roasted, Sour, Thick