Black Tea

Marco Polo TTB

A nice black morning tea. That’s all I remember because I drank it to fast and need to save the rest for other people in the box.

I’ve been trying to scrounge up some more black teas for my sipdown drawers since I’ve mainly been cold brewing oolongs lately. Anyway, this is one that I had forgotten about, so I stuck a tablespoon into my water bottle and into the fridge for maybe around 7 hours. Anyway, I should have guessed from seeing that it is a CTC that it would be strong, but it still caught me off guard a bit with the heavy smokiness. I can tell that there are some other flavors there in the background, but I’m too distracted by the smokiness to be able to really tease them apart. If you couldn’t tell already, I think it was too smoky for my own taste, but I will definitely try steeping this one hot to see if anything changes.

Not feeling it this morning.

Maybe with some milk and sugar but that’s no excuse for a tea. It tastes bitter and even though I felt like I underbrewed it a tad

Going to toss the rest of this cup. Life’s to short for tea that isn’t delightful.

Thanks to Carol Who for sending me this sample. This tea is chopped up so fine, it nearly resembles coffee grounds. I treated it like I would treat ’Grampa’s anytime tea’ or ‘Crimson Horizon’, both Kenyan teas (I think) from Butiki. Although this tea is not from Kenya, but rather from Myanmar, it still reminds me of those african teas, both in it’s finely chopped appearance, & in the resulting cup, with was robustly bold & tart! It also packs a pretty good punch, & although it isn’t something I plan to stock, it was what I needed today.
327

I am going to try to give a fair and balanced review of this tea. I enjoyed my cup, but I think my brewing technique could be improved. The leaves are very small, and do not lend themselves to a normal filter basket or tea ball. I really need to put them in a tea bag due to the amount of dust present. I think this is due to the processing technique. Once I let this dust settle to the bottom of my cup, I got a better taste.
Initial impressions: Strong, bitter, a little acrid, and very brisk! It definitely had the classic, dark breakfast tea taste. I think the acrid taste came from the little bits of leaves finding their way out of my filter. I didn’t enjoy it plain, but with just a little soy milk it was smooth and creamy and flavorful. The milk really brought out all of the good tastes in this tea and I could taste caramel and malt and all sorts of other good, full flavors. In summary, this is definitely strong, brisk and a good kick of caffeine. I’ll use a disposable paper filter next time to reduce the tea dust and maybe it will even be good plain. But with milk it was exactly what I look for in a strong breakfast tea. Well done, Shan Valley, and you cannot beat your prices!
Edit:
Steep 2 – Just as strong as the first, and unfortunately, just as much dust making it bitter. It was a little less bitter the second time around, but still tasty with milk. You can definitely taste the tea through the milk for this one. I’ll bet it makes divine iced tea – probably perfect for Arnold Palmers since it is so strong.

Review rating bump.

This is really good iced and makes for a good blending base. My first review was this tea hot and it was just to woodychippy (like red rooibos) and astringent for me. Iced, its more mellow with the elements I disliked are gone.
I also steeped this with equal parts of a fruit herbal and had a killer fruity iced tea!

Joy! Celebration! Happiness! I am feeling better today, so much so that I left the bedroom and went back to my beloved tea lair. I am definitely on the recovery and I am so happy about it, I can even taste the nuanced layers in an oolong tea! I am not quite up to doing a tasting since my nose is still pretty stuffed, but I am so glad that I can taste things again that I don’t mind waiting. Luckily I have plenty of notes for just such an occasion.

Today’s tea is another of Shan Valley’s samples, the Black Tea to be precise! This CTC (crush tear curl, a method for processing Black Tea. For all the information you could want on this method of processing, I present this Wikipedia article for your knowledge hunting needs) is made from Black tea from Myanmar, as with the previous Shan Valley tea there are no steeping instructions so I winged it, steeping at 212 degrees for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. The aroma of the tea is quite rich and invigorating, blending strong sweet malty notes with rich nuttiness. It reminds me a bit of the aroma of a strongly nutty coffee, or even one of those fancy coffee tea blends that I have tried once or twice. There is a finishing aroma of roasted peanuts. The aroma of this tea certainly wakes up your nose.

The brewed tea leaves have a both earthy and malty aroma with a finishing sharpness. The sharpness reminds me of strong Kenyan CTC tea, there is a touch of sweetness at the finish. The liquid is bright and malty (and quite a lovely color) with a sweet creamy, almost fruity quality to the aroma.

Tasting time, I am sure this is going to give me a wakeup zing of caffeine, which is good since I was drinking this first thing in the morning. The first thing I notice is how smooth the tea is, it has a tiny bit of bitterness that gives it a bold quality and slight dryness. I have found that CTC teas are really hit or miss with me, actually a lot of them are a miss, usually I find them too abrasive, not necessarily too bitter, but too strong and lacking all subtlety. Usually these teas end up being drowned with cream and sugar because I don’t enjoy them straight. This tea, however, is on the end of the CTC spectrum that I enjoy! The taste is a blend of nuttiness, rich earthy notes, and a sweet finish of fruit. Out of curiosity I added a touch of cream and sugar and it was great, the perfect example of a breakfast tea. It retains its bold strength and rich nutty flavor, the cream adds a level of smoothness that compliments the already smooth tea, and the sugar highlights the fruity finish. If you are looking for a bold tea for breakfast, or want to make the switch from coffee to tea, I recommend this tea. I also recommend this tea for people who are making the transition from generic bagged black (think Lipton and its ilk) to a loose tea, who want a more transitional tea rather than jumping right in to the SFGTFOP Assam or Golden Yunnan type teas.

For Blog and Photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/shan-valley-black-tea-tea-review.html

I put off writing a tasting note on this because I thought I just made it wrong when I tried it the first time. The morning rush before going to work May not be the best time to try new teas… But, on my lazy Saturday morning the results were the same unfortunately. This tea for me has a little smokiness and was really strongly bitter. It tasted better with some creamer, but this isn’t something I’d buy more of.

Hubby had some of this a couple of days ago and raved that “this is what tea should taste like”. Mind you, he is generally a coffee drinker… black, no sugar, no cream.

I had a sip, but still suffering from a cold so not trusting my taste buds completely. I’ll give it a rating when I recover.

Deep, rich, bold tea flavor, but not bitter, even when Hubby steeped it a bit too long. I have a feeling this may be a re-order to keep around as a basic rich black tea for him.

Initial scent of cup: earth, leather, roasted nuts

Wow. Never really experienced a tea quite like this. It’s different…robust and hearty. Definitely full-bodied. I never really knew what that meant but I think this is a cup that sums it up. Rich. Astringent towards the back of the mouth, but not bitter…another key note I’ve never experienced in a cup before! It packs a little bit of that astringent bite, but it doesn’t linger, which is nice. A great cup of tea to wake you up in the morning if you’re needing that caffeine kick, but not a tea I would like to drink all day long as I get more of a “get up and go” punch than a “kick back and relax” feel.

Again, great cup to wake you up, but not something you’d want to relax with.
EDIT: Takes sugar very well