Keemun Imperial

A standard Keemun, nothing fancy, no bells and whistles, just solid, good old tasty tea from the Keemun family. I’m not calling it simple to detract from it, I say that because I find some Keemuns to be very complex, and contemplative. The backbone of this one is a malty flavor, the kind of malty flavor that I find to be the commonality throughout the black tea world, that which makes a black tea taste “black tea-ish”! I don’t really know how else to describe it. (albeit common to most black teas, isn’t always the back bone.) There are little hints of smokiness, and dark chocolate, but there’s no question that those flavors are in the background. The bitterness is halfway between standard black tea tannin and the sort of bitterness that the high grade Keemuns have, which is along the lines of bitter chocolate for me. (definitely a good thing) It is medium bodied and very smooth. Overall, great quality for something in its price range.

This isn’t really something something that I’d use for a tea and cheese pairing class, but since I’m eating cheese with breakfast, I might as well talk about it. Of course basic brie tasted good with it. It gives you that typical milk in black tea flavor, but also brings out the dark chocolate note a little bit, while subduing the little bit of smokiness it has. I also tried it with a Spanish (Navarra) sheep cheese called Roncal. It reveals the orchid flavor that Premium Steap lists in their description, but it’s still not incredibly detectable. The tea also helps bring out some of the fruit in the cheese, as it’s far from the fruitiest cheese out there.

I can’t wait until summertime. This will be great as an iced tea. It would also be at home with a big breakfast of bacon, fried eggs, buttered toast, and sausage… and lets throw some scrapple in there because I’m in Philly!

I steeped it in an automatic Breville for 4 min, basket rotation, 205 F, 9g leaf, 700 ml water.