Premium Selection Qimen Red Tea

TTB. Thought this would be the perfect complement to my eggs on avocado on bagel. Oooo. Yes. Very good. I made it a bit more astringent, aka steeped it longer, so that it didn’t get lost in the food. Quite a lovely tea this one is.

Flavor: Woody. Dark wood. Resin. Cream. A bit of port? A hint if charcoal

Dry leaf: I think the aroma is contaminated. Which is amazing because it tastes great. But this aroma doesn’t smell like I know it should

Wet leaf: Woody. A bit of raisin bread.

TTB 2025 – I had high hopes for this tea since I tried qimen from Jesse’s tea house a couple years ago in a Reddit TTB. That one is still the best qimen I’ve tried. Unfortunately, per their website they switched to a different Qimen. I found this one to be just ok. It tasted smoky and a bit fruity, but not nearly as good as the old version.

2025 TTB #6

This box is heavy on flavored blends (not that I’m complaining!) but this straight black tea jumped out to me, as I haven’t had many “red” teas (not even sure of what defines that?) and Jesse’s Teahouse is also a new brand to me. The dry leaf was pretty! Tight little curls of mahogany brown leaves and a nice winey aroma. Unfortunately, I ended up on a 40-minute work call while drinking this, so wasn’t able to give it as much attention as I would have preferred. From what I recall, it was bittersweet and fruity and a bit drying on the palate. I tend to prefer a more robust, malty black tea, so I’ll probably be putting this one back in the box for someone else to enjoy.

My partner’s sister bought this for him for Christmas, which was nice, but he’s not a big tea guy. He says, “Smells like grass/dirt. Tastes like duller genmaicha.” I found the flavor a tiny bit funky, but in a pleasant way. It’s not something I’d really want again, but it was nice enough with sugar and milk.