Gongfu (from last week in Saskatchewan)!
Thank you to Tea Side for providing this sample for me to review! If an Old Fashioned is the cocktail that you use as a benchmark to see if a bar is quality or not, then in my mind I really nice Dian Hong functions the same purpose when evaluating new tea vendors. That’s why I wanted to try it, for sure!
Here’s what I wrote on instagram the day of, when the tea was fresh in my mind!
This was the second tea session of the day; a delicious Thailand Dian Hong made from ‘ancient tree’ material! I’m in a bit of a state of holiday vacation calm and serenity, and I have found my last few sessions have been more meditative. It has been challenging to stay in the present enough to retain flavor notes with the steeps, but this hong cha had a full bodied chocolate note, like high quality semi sweet baker’s chocolate, with a heavy undertone of dried plums, black cherries, and prunes & sticky, densely sweet figs – with a dark woody finish. It was hard not to remember those flavours as they lingered heavy on the palate. Thank you for the sample – it made for a lovely afternoon!
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6l3Hb5AJt1/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHNPT_QPQ_U