ZY30: Yunnan FOP Select

This was a sample from an order. The first steep wasn’t bad, a fair example of a golden Yunnan with some chocolatey notes, but the second steep is rather weak so I don’t think I’d seek this out for purchase.

I found a free sample of this tea at the very bottom of my pantry. It must have been from an order that I received a year ago so it is quite likely that this tea would be better when fresh but I would likely never know: I have pretty much abandoned Upton as a source of cheap everyday tea in favor of Harney and Sons and so far have been having very few regrets.

So I tried this sample. It has very little to offer for the nose: I had to breath like a whale to pick up some faint generic Yunnan smell. No points for that. The leaves look rather boring: small, slightly twisted, no golden tips. More than a few appeared to be broken.

Then I made it Western style for a minute or two and it came out awfully weak. Undeterred, I steeped another teaspoon for something like 4-5 minutes and was pleasantly surprised: this tea displayed a comforting cherry maltiness and sweetness. It lingered and was quite pleasing. I still had a bit of this tea left and was really looking to that final cup to set my impressions but oh horror – someone from my family mistakenly judged that pouch to be empty and disposed it. Ouch.

I was bummed by it more than I want to admit and had to reinforce the rule that any tea-related thingies randomly strewn throughout my house are to be treated with the utmost respect and never touched /moved by anyone but me, be they full, empty, broken etc.

In any case, this tea will probably remain my personal unsolved mystery. Despite all of its typical cheap tea drawbacks it had a simple comeliness and some potential that will be never realized with me. In any case, I can totally see how somebody else may choose to use it as an affordable everyday sipper.

What a delicious start to the weekend! I received a nice sized sample of this tea from Upton a few months back, and it was the perfect “something different” in my first few cups this morning. A wonderful convergence of malt and sweetness, the long, dark leaves with their golden tips produced a deep amber cup with just a hint of chocolate as it lingers.

Steeped for 4:45 just short of a boil.

Received as a sample from the company.

Brewed in my porcelain Jingdezhen gaiwan with Los Angeles municipal tap water just off the boil throughout.

Gold tipped, twisted, wiry leaves.

No rinse, starting with a 30 second infusion: burnt umber/seal brown gradient in the cup; sweet potato, burdock, loam, and low vegetal notes in the nose; the flavors mirror and intensify the aromatic notes, adding to them a long finish suggesting roasted pecans, cocoa nibs, cassia, and autumn leaves. Fairly tannic but presenting as more minerality than bitterness. Lacks the sweetness and creamy malt notes of superior Dian Hong, but is pleasingly robust without being bracing.

Many subsequent infusions at 15 – 45 seconds preserve the same character, though the sweetness gives over more and more to a drab hint of cinnamon.

While more refined than many ripe pu-erh, it could serve a similar function as a counter-point to a meal.

Smells like molasses and fig cookies in the bag

Taste mostly makes me think of honey, with some hints of the scents mentioned above.

A good bang for buck Chinese tea.

On bringing up to nose the smell of mixed berries, raspberries and blackberries mixed, hits hard. Is strong delightful sweetness of scent before the much harder taste of the tea.

The tea is a light standard black but with no charcoal or cinder to the taste, none of that acrid burnt of often black tea tastes. It has the darkness, but a yellow to the lightness that exists. And a sense of citrus at the very back top of throat.

The sides of the tongue are yellow, too, but with hints of green further you go on them. The yellow is much more burgundy in its depth and shape, as hard as that is to describe or see to others with them being such different colors… But it’s there inside the yellow.

Sweet malt blues under the front of the tongue in the pit behind the front teeth and about 1/2 way backward to base underneath.

As the tea cools those berries come out clearly onto the center tongue where they didn’t show before in the taste itself. They roll over and as the tea comes into the mouth and other favors stay much the same everywhere else. A bit of astringency creeps in as the berries quickly disappear and the rest of the tea mellows into its lower-temp’s finish.

I love the golden, yellow, citrus, dark, red, and berries in full of this yunnan. I’m a fan of yunnans and having that lighter and yellow tones compared to the rich thick darkness I like in assams.

Loving this one.

2.25g/6oz, 205 degrees, 4 minutes

A simple, delicious tea.

Black tea is a taste that took me a long time to acquire (I am a longtime drinker of greens and oolongs), but after thoroughly enjoying my last several cups of a tin of Prince of Wales, I decided to order samples of several other black teas. Upton Tea included a bonus sample of this tea in the order, and I decided to taste it first. In general, my impression of the first tasting was of a palatable but very ordinary black tea—inoffensive, but not particularly memorable.

The dry leaf had a pleasant, slightly fruity, but rather weak scent; the scent of the wet leaf was overly sour when hot, but became enjoyably sweet and fruity after cooling. The cup was very dark and quite strong, but not at all bitter. My palate did not detect any unique flavors that would draw me to purchase more of this tea, but that may change with a second tasting.

i grabbed the wrong tea when i meant to grab an oolong…

im just going to say, im fed up of being unimpressed with black teas :(

i have one left to try and i doubt i will like it.