Honey Black

Well… this tea was a hot item 5 years ago. As it happens, my stash of this came from summer 2016 too, but it’s been stored sealed for years. And NOW it tastes strongly of honey and is just lovely. I’m glad I bought more recently and I’ll follow up here when I tuck into that! Very pleasant and non-astringent.

A mellow black tea with moderate body, a sweet aftertaste (which reads more ‘fruit’ than ‘honey’ to me, but I’m splitting hairs here), and a lingering coolness in the mouth characteristic of Taiwanese black teas. I was surprised but pleased by a pine sap note that reminds me of zhengshan xiaozhong. I think the sweetness would be appreciated by both new and experienced black tea fans. Enjoyable either in a teapot or a thermos, but I advise leafing moderately heavy or else the flavor is rather thin.

Finally, the last of my freebies from a BTTC order. Since I don’t care much for honey blacks, I kept 3g of this to sample before forwarding the remaining 25g to a friend who enjoyed it.

I’m not sure when this tea was produced. Gone gaiwan, 3g, 60mL, 205F, short rinse that I ended up drinking followed by 9 steeps at 10/15/15/20/25/35/45/60/90s.

Dry leaf smelled like faint beeswax, warmed had the addition of honey and wood. Rinsed leaf settled back to wood with faint honey. This was a very smooth red-orange liquor with gentle sweetness, complementary tannins and no bitterness to be found. It started off strong in taste with mostly honey and cinnamon (just like those cinnamon honey sticks) with a fruity backing and undertones of nutmeg, green beans and herbs. As the session progressed, the cinnamon, nutmeg and herbs faded and the wood in the wet leaf came forward with the addition of some minerality. The tea faded away gently. Spent leaves were very healthy looking.

I think this would be a great tea for people new to loose leaf, especially brewed western style and possibly in a thermos. It’s good but the rating reflects my rather non-existent preference for honey blacks.

Here’s a blast from the past for everyone. I realized that I still had two reviews from late October that I had yet to post on Steepster and this is the first of them. This is also the tea that started to convince me that so-called “honey aroma” teas may not be for me. They never seem honeyed enough for my taste, and to be completely honest, that was my most persistent complaint with this tea. Otherwise, it was a pretty solid, appealing Taiwanese black tea.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was chased by 13 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves offered aromas of honey, beeswax, and straw. After the rinse, I caught new aromas of wood and malt. The first proper infusion added hints of herbs and cinnamon to the bouquet. On the palate, I found predictably mild notes of beeswax, honey, straw, wood, and malt underscored by a vague hint of nuttiness. Subsequent infusions quickly brought out notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, roasted chestnut, roasted walnut, herbs, maple syrup, malt, toast, and minerals. The later infusions were heavy on mineral notes backed by subtle hints of roasted nuts, straw, malt, and wood. I also found a few very distant honey tones on a couple of these infusions, but they were hardly all that noteworthy for me.

This struck me as being a light, smooth black tea that was perhaps most suitable for afternoon and/or evening consumption. It wasn’t bad, but as mentioned earlier, it was not as heavy on the honey as I would have preferred. Also, it faded a little faster than anticipated. In the end, it was a nice enough tea, but it was not really for me.

Wonderful tea. Big roasted nut flavors, with some fruit and floral notes that lighten everything up and make it quite an interesting session. An interesting note that popped up was a fruity, floral, waxy scent that reminded me of mulberry-scented French soap I got in France a while back. That’s a new one!

Absolutely delicious and worth its price. The only drawback is that there are other (non-Taiwanese) black/red teas that cost half the price and can compete with this tea’s complexity and flavor. That said, it is still very reasonably and affordably priced, and well worth picking some up.
*
Leaf – malty, sweet potato, honey floral, waxy sweet fruity floral (mulberry). In preheated vessel – big shot of clover honey, blackberry syrup, berry compote

Smell – roasted pecans and almonds, sweet potato casserole (sweet potato, bruleed marshmallow, baking spices), waxy fruity floral again – mulberry

Taste – primary notes of roasted nuts (pecans and almonds), warm roastiness, cooked blackberries, and sweet potato casserole. Secondary flavors of malt, dry milk chocolate in the finish, and spearmint, mulberry, and blackberry notes in aftertaste.

This is a nice friendly black that has some characters of a good white. It has that gentle honey and cinnamon taste to it, which makes it more of a bright black than dark. White tea also tends to have this vanilla type base that I think I can identify here.

There’s a bit of maltiness and astringency to it that clearly identifies it as a black tea. I haven’t tried a lot of Taiwanese blacks, so I can’t say where this ranks yet, but it’s very nice, sweet, and gentle.

I am excited! Currently on Coursera (my go-to site for online free courses) is offering three courses on Paleontology! The University of Alberta is the college presenting them, they were the same who offered Paleontology 101 I took a year or so ago, so I was pleased they were continuing the series. The current course I am taking is about early Vertebrate evolution, specifically the lecture I am listening to is about Placoderms, everyone’s favorite bony faced fishes! Gotta love the Dunkleosteus! The other courses are on Cretaceous Theropods (my personal area of specialty) and ancient marine reptiles, another favorite area of study.

Two of my favorite things in the tea world are bug-bitten teas and hong cha (though depending on my mood the location where said hong cha originates changes) so is it any real surprise that I just freak out over Honey Black Tea? No, it really isn’t, and Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s was super high on my list of ‘to-try’ so I am super glad I got a sample at the Midwest Tea Festival. Mixiang Hongcha (or Honey Frangrance, that Xiang shows up a LOT in tea, especially Dancongs where all their different names are ‘something’ fragrance) is nibbled on by adorable little green leafhoppers which causes the tea plants to release an enzyme, in turn making it super sweet. The aroma of these curly long leaves is unlike any other tea, it has the rich yammy and malt quality associated with Hong Cha, but with underlying raisin, pumpkin, chestnut, and of course honey notes I associate more strongly with teas like Oriental Beauty, clearly the little buggies have done a wonderful job! It is sweet and rich, and the notes seem vaguely autumnal to me.

Into my clay pot the leaves go, because of course I have a pot dedicated to specifically Taiwanese Hong Cha (though not Red Jade, that gets its own pot!) The aroma of the leaves is yummy, strong notes of malt and pumpkin with underlying notes of honey, peanuts, yams, raisins, and chestnuts. At the end is a note of cumin seeds that have been roasted in a pan, it adds an almost savory quality at the finish and no joke, makes my mouth water. The liquid is almost sweet cream, it smells creamy (but not milky, more vanilla creamy) with strong notes of honey and raisins and a finish of malt and pumpkin. Keeping the sweet and still reminding me of autumn.

My goodness that first steep is sweet! I even went a bit heavy handed with the leaves, expecting a tiny bit extra briskness, but nope! The mouthfeel is thick, almost syrupy, like warm honey water, and honey is a fair comparison since the taste has strong raw honey notes. There are notes of yam and pumpkin, with accompanying notes of chestnut, and a finish of rich raisins and brown sugar. I feel as though I am drinking a dessert!

I wasted no time to move to the next steep, the aroma of the tea has a stronger pumpkin note, along with a slightly stronger malt, it is still very sweet though. Again, no briskness to be found, just smooth thick mouth and sweet rich taste. It starts with warm honey and vanilla sweetness, then moves to more rich yam and raisin, with a finish of chestnut and brown sugar. The blend of nuttiness and sugar reminds me vaguely of nut brittle, and I want chestnut brittle to be a thing now!

BTTC is not wrong when they say you can get three good steeps from this one, after steep three it really starts to pitter out, but the three steeps you get are pretty wonderful. Aromatic and flavorful, and never brisk, bitter, or watery…just sweet, smooth, and thick in the mouth, though this steep is a tad less sweet. This steep takes on the notes of yam and adds oats and stronger chestnut, the honey taste is replaced almost entirely with brow sugar, and there is a touch of pumpkin at the finish that lingers into the aftertaste. One thing I found surprising was this tea’s Qi, it is very mellow and I am so chill after drinking it, it is also a bit cooling in the chest which is nice on a warm day.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/06/beautiful-taiwan-tea-company-honey.html

The scent of these black wiry leaves in a warm gaiwan is of dark chocolate and malt. After the first infusion, the wet leaves smell like dark chocolate and raisins. The liquid is a honey gold color and smells like mashed potatoes.

The first infusion tastes like malt quite a bit, and sweetened oats, and little bit of chocolate. I’m reminded of malt-o-meal cereal.

Second infusion is more of the same, but with a sweet honey overtone, relatively thick body. The flavor of this tea is rather mild for a black tea, tending to stay on the light side. There’s an aftertaste of raisins.

The third infusion is more rich, with a stronger sweetness. The flavors are the same as before. I brewed this infusion more strongly, and I definitely prefer the flavor this way. It has a lot more assertive flavor, notes of dates now in the mixture.

A good and easy to drink tea. Honey blacks are not generally my thing, as they tend to be really sweet and often mild in flavor compared to other black teas. This one has a very clean taste and mouthfeel, great for people who avoid the stronger and potentially more biting red and black teas.

Sipdown. Rest of sample packet, 212F, 100ml gaiwan. Pretty consistent steeps. Honey and malt. Solid tea that lasts a long time.
Using 100ml gaiwan, I drank approx 10 steeps (I think). Wasn’t counting, just drank until the tea was done.

First time I drank it Western style. It was not very impressive to me. Had a vegetal, hay like scent and flavor. Being that I got this in a sampler, I was not too disappointed that there was a small quantity.

This morning, a few days after my original taste, I decided to use the rest of my approx 6g to brew Gong Fu style. I have to say that it is resulting in a much better experience. In the first two steeps, there is still a vegetal quality in the infusions but it is now accented with a slightly sweet citrus after taste on the tongue. The hay scent is still there but, again, it is mellowed and balanced with this method of brewing. The third steep is the most balanced, though I’m not sure if that is because it is losing it’s strength at this point and some of the stronger flavors are fading. To me, it is still a drinkable infusion. Also starting to feel that familiar tea buzz at this point. The 4th steep (at 1 min) still has about the same flavor as the last. This is not a complex tea. It is not swill, by any means. An average every day tea is where I would put it. Which is semi-disappointing with a name like Honey Black Tea. Honey is one of my favorite things on this Earth and I wish there were more of a honey flavor to this. But alas, my rudimentary palate has not yet picked up on it.

The liquor is a golden honey color throughout the first 4 steeps. Very pretty. Maybe that is where the name Honey is attached, the color of the liquor rather than the taste.