Keemun Mao Feng

Another new sample I am trying from Harney & Sons, I am still branching out and I really want to get to know more pure teas, instead of blends. Now this one I really love. It is full bodied, little sweet, nutty, definitely chocolatey, but not an obnoxious chocolate taste, and a bit… woodsey. I didn’t really taste the fruity part until it cooled down a bit, then I got that description. It has a dark malty liquor color and definitely something that I will buy again. I think I found my standard black tea for the mornings.

Sadly it seems pretty expensive per ounce ($10), and Harney doesn’t sell more than two ounces at a time. Trying this Keemun, makes me curious about the other Keemuns, and also I want to see if I can find this cheaper, and in greater quantities elsewhere.

This was another of the tea samples I finished back around the start of September. It was something of an important sipdown for me as it spurred me to finally admit something to myself: I do not generally care for Keemun Mao Feng nearly as much as I do Hao Ya A and Hao Ya B. This particular Keemun Mao Feng was nice enough, but unfortunately, the most memorable thing about it was something of an off note.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a very quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 205 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 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 produced aromas of cocoa, honey, ginger, and cinnamon. After the rinse, I noted an aroma of pine accompanied by hints of smoke. The first infusion introduced a sweet potato aroma as well as a bizarre stewed tomato scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of ginger, cocoa, honey, and smoke that were backed by impressions of sweet potato and stewed tomato. Subsequent infusions saw aromas of candied orange, malt, toast, roasted almond, and rose emerge. New flavors of candied orange, rose, malt, toast, minerals, roasted almond, leather, and caramel emerged along with belatedly appearing hints of pine and cinnamon. The final few infusions emphasized lingering notes of minerals, roasted almond, and malt that were accented by hints of ginger, sweet potato, and caramel.

For the most part, this was a decent Keemun Mao Feng, but I had trouble getting over that strange and borderline unpleasant tomato presence that was so noticeable in the early infusions. Also, this tea faded very quickly. For what it was, it was pleasant enough, but there are better teas of this type out there.

So I was and still am figuring out the Lupicia Group order details with Tea-Sipper. I was steeping this and didn’t hear the timer go off. It’s very over-steeped so much so that even the Coconut Milk eggnog didn’t help it. This was the last of it so now it’s a sipdown.
If there’s ever an ok time to oversteep your tea this much it’s definitely when your in the process of ordering more teas to try! Haha This tea is quite good when it’s steeped properly (: Unfortunately I haven’t seen it on the Harney & Sons website for quite awhile even though I bought it only last year. It’d be a shame if they discontinued it.

I ordered a sample of this along with a Scottish Morn sample and 4oz of Assam back before I left on my summer tour with the Academy Drum and Bugle Corps. I loved this tea before I left, and I hoped it would keep in it’s airtight bag, and it did! I had another cup of it today, and it tastes just as great as when I first had it months ago. It definitely has that chocolatey taste to it like a good black tea does. I can taste a little smoke, but not a whole lot. I find this tea to be great because it’s on the simpler side of the flavor profile, but still is very satisfying to drink as it’s so well balanced. This is something I will definitely consider ordering in bulk for my next order to have alongside my assam.

On another note, I just tried re-steeping it, and while it’s currently too hot to drink as of yet, I can say the brew looks significantly lighter, so this might not be the best tea to re-steep. But that is speculation.