Wild-Picked Yunnan Jin Jun Mei

First gongfu session of the day, this savory Jin Jun Mei the Charlotte Zero sent to me awhile back is doing the trick. It starts out like whole wheat honey toast, later taking on a peppery quality & a linen mouth. This is a tea Verdant use to offer, which I hoarded for awhile, & then finally reluctantly drank the last of it. It was a real treat when Charlotte sent me the rest of hers, & I have enough to drink it one more time.

Gratefully, I’ve discovered that Yunnan Sourcing carries a couple of different Jin Jun Mei’s, & they are excellent, so I am saved! :)

Another day of intense study, another black tea, and another delightful piece of music. It’s really crunch time for me, so I’ll keep this brief. Today, I’m pairing this malty black tea with more philosophy (but I don’t agree with the author today, so it’s a bit frustrating…), and I’m listening to Das Rheingold as performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Georg Solti. Not the best recording, but I bought this when I was a little less picky, so if you know of a really good recording. please leave a comment.

Anyway, back to the tea, it’s very malty. Not as much as the Golden Buds that I was drinking yesterday, but it’s still the dominant flavor. The tea is a bit too strong yet to be classified as creamy, but I’d say that it will probably be next steep. Finally, the sweet aftertaste provides a nice smooth finish to complete the experience. It’s worthy to note that the tea is sweeter and a bit weaker than last time I brewed it, but not by a terribly significant margin.

As the forth scene of Das Rheingold draws to a close, so does my second cup of this tea. It must say that this was a singularly unique experience for drinking tea, but that might be due in part to the nasty weather I just had to deal with. Anyway, the malt flavor of the tea has begun to retreat a bit, and a wheat flavor has become evident. Also, the wonderful buttery mouth-feel has started to show itself, which combines with the wheat to give a sensation similar to taking a bite of buttered wheat bread, and letting it sit on the tongue. If you’ve ever done this, you’ll realize that it starts to taste sweeter the longer it sits there, kind of like how this tea has a sweet finish. Of course, you should take what I say with a grain of salt, as campus food leaves me longing for something a bit more flavorful…

As the the second act of Die Walküreplays (with an interlude of Byzantine music, see the comment from Bonnie for more info), the third cup of tea finally reached the right temperature to drink. The big developments of this cup was the malt flavor going dormant, and the beginnings of the peppercorn flavors beginning to show up in the aftertaste, lingering on the hard palate of my mouth. Unfortunately, I think this tea is past it’s prime, and I’ll probably only get one more cup out of these leaves.

Ah, the forth infusion of this tea was delightful in it’s subtleties. Most of the flavors of the tea are in decline, but the peppercorn flavor provides a delightful sensation as it dances across the surfaces of the mouth, and once again lingering on the hard palate. Unfortunately, there isn’t much else left for the flavor, so this is definitely the final cup. Surprisingly, one of the things that has stuck around until the (figuratively) bitter end was the buttery mouthfeel. Usually this little sensation would have been long gone from the tea, but that just goes to show how good this tea really is.

It’s been four months since I reviewed this tea.

I was wondering what I would think after going so long without even tasting it at all.
I’ll admit that I was hoarding the half ounce portion in my stash for some unknown reason. (Am I the only one that has the fear of a tea disappearing forever?) I must have more faith that there are further tea adventures ahead of me and bid this and other hoarded tea’s farewell.

Oh what a beautiful liquor this Jin Jun Mei has! Bright red-orange, golden and clear. Something like looking at a radiant amber topaz in the sunlight.

The flavor is not what I think of as a heavy Winter, stuck in the dark library… malty Black Tea. This one is a Spring morning and the World is waking up from months of frost malt type of tea. It’s flavor is alive and vibrant.

I make a caramelized Italian golden squash dish (Mario Batali’s recipe)using long slices of pumpkin (or squash), butter, brown sugar and a little balsamic vinegar and basil at the end. The squash turns into the most delicious sweet and savory, buttery dish. Oh my!

When I drink this tea, I think of this dish! The yammy, buttery and roasted flavor melting in my mouth are what I taste in this Verdant tea.
You can see why I hoarded it. Why wouldn’t I steal away as much as I could for a treat? But it’s gone.
I will have to look with anticipation for that next tea around the corner and now, after four months of drinking stunning tea’s…I know those tea gems exist. I have confidence.

This was a great cup of tea!

My learning continues, it’s just slow.

mmmm sipdown on another tea that the lovely terri sent my way. It was really nice to have this back in my cupboard again for a brief moment :) I really like the steeps and resteeps of this one, though it’s not my all time favourite from verdant, but it’s by far NOT my least favourite black tea :) thank you terri!

Enjoying a cup as soon as I woke up today! What an amazing way tot start the day.
It tastes like I’ve sweetened it with honey (I haven’t), and each sip transforms from a caramel note, to something more grainy, to something dry and crunchy but always sweet!

I’m sadly out of my favourite Canadian Grains bread by Dempsters – but it toasts up to a great sweet crunch with all of the whole grains – that would pair very well with this tea.

Grocery shopping today! But until then, I’ve been watching this 24/7 Live Corgi Puppy Cam. It’s taken over my life!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/live-247-corgi-puppy-cam

Auggy shared this one with me. A couple of years ago I received an education in Jin Jun Mei as a type from someone here on Steepster. I believe it may have been Spoonvonstrup (who hasn’t been around lately, what’s up with that?) but I can’t remember for certain. At the time I got some JJMs that were produced in Yunnan and some that were produced in Fujian, and I came to the conclusion that while I enjoyed them all, I greatly preferred the Fujian ones.

Biiiiiig surprise to everyone present, I’m sure.

Anyway, I know the type and I know it’s one that I like, so I was happy that Auggy had shared hers with me. I’m not the least bit surprised that it would by a type she would be interested in. In fact, knowing Auggy and knowing me and knowing how closely our tea-tastes often match, I’d have been immensely shocked if she hadn’t bothered at all.

Back when I received the aforementioned JJM education, I did actually also receive a sample of this one. I’m afraid I gave it a somewhat lack-luster rating, but that must have been a different harvest. It could easily be that this one suits me better or that my taste has changed a little. Therefore I’m not particularly concerned about that now.

The aroma of the leaves here was rather odd. There isn’t really very much of it and what is there reminds me mostly about the Oriental Beauty oolong I wrote about earlier. I remembered smokyness and grain and such. What happened?

Oh well, it’s not the smell of the dry leaf that counts. It’s the aroma of the brew and the flavour that counts, so we’ll see how that turns out. I’m still not put off.

Oh yeah, this is a different story! Now it’s all grainy and thick and malty. In regards to the malt, it’s an almost syrup-y sort of smell. It’s actually very sweet when you really get your nose into it. I’m thinking chocolate and caramel here. Dark, dark ones, but still.

As for the flavour, first off it does have that Yunnan-y taste of hay, which… I could live without, frankly, but it’s not super-strong. After that it goes all out on the grain and the malt, and it gives me that association to Danish rye bread that I look for in a really great keemun. The dark dark chocolate-y caramel-y sort of malty note is making up a good deal of the body along with the grain. It’s fairly discreet, but once you’ve noticed it you find that it’s all over. I rather like that.

Now, I’ve looked up what I said about this the first time, and let’s just say that I don’t agree with myself at all. Back then, I had a sort of two-step experience of the flavour, which I’m not getting at all today. It’s very well merged this time. I suppose that’s a pretty good illustration of differences between harvests. Especially with wild-picked stuff like this, I imagine.

Raising the rating accordingly (and significantly). I may actually invest in some more of this myself in the future. We’ll see.

Strangely, though, Husband didn’t care for it at all. He found it tannin-y. But but but it’s Chinese! A Chinese black doesn’t even know what tannin is! Shocking. Also kind of funny because I count this one in the same sort of general family as keemuns and the Laoshan Black and such like which he enjoys, the latter even to the point of being renamed Life-Giving Tea. I just can’t get a grip on what I think he’ll enjoy and what he won’t. I’m coming to the conclusion that his tongue must be in upside down or something. Or broken.

Oh, and by the way, we bought a house.

I have been sipping on this one for a while but haven’t been able to jot down tasting notes yet and figure it was long overdue since I am now on my last cuppa! This is FAB!

It has a hint of pepper but is a bit smooth and creamy – especially at the end of the sip. The toast-like flavors are great! It’s savory. It has hints of wheat and/or barley, sweet corn, and woodsy notes and I think they are great! 2nd and 3rd infusions are sweeter.

Great cup!

I am working on a review of this tea but its slow going as I am not feeling well today. I am wondering however if anyone else has noticed how badly this tea stains your tea cup and teeth! LOL it is an absolutely wonderful tea – one of my favorites now, but dang it stains!

I had written a review of this and then my computer died and I had to restart and lost it. Boo!

Anyway I had one longish steep of this, about 4 minutes or so, I thought this tea was malty and very grainy. Definitely reminded me of toast and had a sweet flavor with only a tinge of bitterness. I thought that might be related to the longer steeping time.

My second cup I re-steeped the same leaves for around 3 minutes and got a nice mahogany colored tea liquor. Now I think it reminds me a bit of the dark German rye bread that I get sometimes and it’s also a bit like a golden monkey.

This is a tasty tea but I will probably not feel a burning desire to order more because I already have a few teas with similar flavor profiles. I enjoyed it though!

This smells so sweet and buttery, like sweet potato pie, or butterscotch. The flavor is more rugged, showing grain and the peppery side of yunnan rather than chocolate or cream. There is a sweetness though, as I sip longer. The description suggests honey and butter on toast – that seems about right, but it’s a hearty wheat bread, well-toasted and crunchy.

Sometimes when I first sip I’m convinced that I oversteeped this, but then the bitterness never actually materializes, it just rolls into that rumbly dark toast taste.

I’m also going to wager that this is highly caffeinated, from the way it’s going to my head already.

Overall, a good strong black tea to drink straight-up and start the day

ETA: On my 3rd steep now, more mild but still flavorful, getting more sparkly spice and a bit of fruit.

western style, 2 heaping tsp to 8oz water