China Black Tea (Yunnan)

Thank you so much for this one, Nicole! Only Nicole and I have reviewed this one so far? Hmm. Yunnan is my new favorite… but I’m not sure if there is a strict flavor difference between the golden yunnan and the black yunnan. After steeping for four-five minutes, this one is medium bodied. It tastes more like a ploughed field of hay (in that delightful tea-like way) than anything chocolatey. It has a tiny bit of maltiness to it, but the flavor isn’t dark and deep enough to have too much of a malty flavor. Are these the differences between golden and black yunnans? I don’t know. I just found out today that not all yunnans are golden. The steep color is a lovely shade of amber, after all!

The second steep at boiling for six minutes was certainly more like my favorite tea flavor.. deeper, chocolatey and maltier. So you can certainly tailor this (or any tea, really) to your tastes. So the first cup had the lightness of a darjeeling, but the second had a much stronger flavor. I like the differences! And I guess I answered my own question.. the black yunnan can certainly still be deep and malty — it’s all in the time and temp.

We had this today with Christmas brunch. It went very well with the food. A basic, solid black. No astringency with a weighty body. I picked up this one since I had really enjoyed the Golden Yunnan from Republic of Tea during my last vacation.

Overall, I think I prefer the Golden Yunnan teas. They seem to be maltier to my taste. I have been using Kally Tea’s Royal Golden Yunnan as my breakfast tea at work (and I’ll need to review it before it’s all gone…) and while this Yunnan is good, I don’t think I’d choose it over a Golden. I probably won’t replace this when it runs out but it has been a nice tea to have around.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas day!

S&V offers a nice range of straight black teas, and though I don’t enjoy this quite as much as some of their others, it’s still pretty good. I grabbed a few teaspoons from a tea box. It has a delicious full flavor. It was good before I added milk, possibly even better without milk. It’s a little weaker than I’d prefer, but not bad.

Samurai TTB #11

I do love a good Yunnan and this one was nice! More fruity than I would have expected, with notes of cherry and raisin coming through most strongly. But I do get that nice chocolatey flavor in the aftertaste. It’s also beautifully smooth with no bitterness or astringency. Exactly what I was in the mood for on this chilly winter night!

Samuari TTB Tea

This is a standard black tea, sometimes similar to what I keep in my tea cupboard at all times. The tea is described as “well rounded” on the package, which I think is accurate. Some dark chocolate (cocoa) notes, some mineral/wet rock (Earthy?) tones, a good amount of tannin. No bitterness. The brew is fairly thick, but not sweet. Certainly a lovely, reliable tea for when you don’t feel like anything fancy.

Samurai Travelling Tea Box – Tea #48

Gongfu!

A late morning tea session that has some really brilliant brandied stonefruit notes!! The dry leaf aroma was sweet and dense, like stewed fruits and figs. Steeped up, that figgy aroma doesn’t translate as much into the taste but it’s still a very fruity profile – the aforementioned brandied fruit notes, but also cassis and cooked down red fruit w/ a pleasant malt and woody undertone and sweeping pleasant astringency over the roof of the mouth!!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDZXQ77gcw8/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyZzCR_kbdA

From the Samurai TTB.

I enjoyed this one, another from tea-sipper. It’s a solid black tea. Maybe not as bold as I would have liked, but as it cooled I really enjoyed the chocolate flavor that came through. In fact, I think I preferred this at room temperature. The flavor was more pronounced.

I don’t know if the pouch I got was old, but this didn’t really have any of the flavor I associate with Yunnan. None of that cocoa-ey or raisin-y flavor at all; it was very light and honestly a bit weak. Even when I opened the pouch, the leaves were scentless. Since tea normally smells like SOMETHING, I associate that with it going stale.

The second steep was even worse; lighter and weaker than the first. I have bagged, supermarked-purchased Yunnan that tastes more like it should than this does. Again, I don’t know if this batch was old, or S&V’s unflavored teas are just really weak.

Might give one of their other Yunnans a try, but certainly not this one again.