Vietnam 'Wild Boar' Black Tea

Another nice tea from What-Cha.

The malt was very present, thick mouth feel yet smooth with chocolate notes.

It isn’t a complex tea, rather reminds me of a strong British cuppa people enjoy in the afternoon.

This is a queued tasting note.

Gong Fu/Stream of Consciousness style review:

5 sec rinse and rest…

5 sec
- Slight astringency + thick mouthfeel
- Thick malt top notes
- Body/finish = Rye, raisin, cocoa

7 sec
- Much the same as previous steep
- Perhaps more sweetness and more overall cocoa

10 sec
- Definitely feels more well rounded
- Malt/cocoa/honey/red fruits
- Lingering sweet finish

12 sec
- Top notes of honey and red fruits
- Raisin/malt slowly creep in
- Sweetness has a clean finish
- Malt lingers

15 sec
- Clean, sweet, fruity top notes
- Intro. of cane sugar notes??
- Otherwise pretty much the same as previous infusion

18 sec
- Malt, raisin, cocoa, red fruit, cane sugar, honey, caramel
- Feels quite well rounded and sweet now

25 sec
- Yes! Well rounded, clean profile
- Flavour of malt/raisin/cocoa is diminishing
- Which leaves stronger feeling, lovely fruit notes

I felt like this was both the decrescendo of the session as well as the sweet spot, but like often seems to happen I looked at the clock and realized that I had to stop the session to start getting ready for work. I would have loved to see this one through to completion though. It was an otherwise A+ session though, despite a bit of a harsher start.

This tea has such an incredible robustness and richness of flavor that its lack of complexity doesn’t matter. It offers an up front burst of dark malt and unsweetened cocoa with staying power and depth, but also a slight bitterness. Very satisfying, and the first tea I would suggest to a coffee drinker.

This is for the 2016 spring version of this tea.

This is a pretty straight-forward but very satisfying black tea. It reminds me of old arbor black tea from yunnan that is leaning just a bit into the Indian Assam territory. The brew is super smooth and dark, clearly a fully oxidized black. The aroma and flavor are mostly malt but with some fruity sweetness and a tiny carob note.

Edit: After spending a bit more time with this tea, I’m getting a fair bit more fruit and honey than I originally was noticing. Perhaps this is due to having recently been drinking more Assam black tea than fruitier/sweeter blacks, thus the non-malt notes are popping out at me a bit more obviously. This seems to fit nicely between the maltier and fruitier/sweeter side of black teas.

Sipdown – kinda

I gave the last of this to my brother for Christmas. I hope he enjoys it as much as I did.

A wonderful tea. So far I’ve been quite impressed with my Discover Vietnam set from What-Cha. This one did have a notable dark chocolate aroma, which translated to a pleasant cocoa flavor in the tea itself. It wasn’t particularly sweet. The chocolate tasted more like those bars which are 90% cocoa or whatever. The sweetness of this tea seemed to come from the thick maltiness which was behind the chocolate. In some steeps I also got some nice earthy notes. The tea brewed up a beautiful clear and red liquor. A nice treat of a tea, especially if you like dark chocolate.

I’m finally getting to try the large amount of samples I ordered after having no tastebuds from a cold for almost two weeks. So happy to have them back!

So, I was curious to try a tea from Vietnam as I don’t think I’ve had one before. The leaf is small to medium in size, dark brown with a few gold leaves scattered about. It brews up nice and dark. The flavor reminds me of red wine or dried fruit with some chocolate. Very nice! I was also able to get several steeps. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. Looking forward to trying more of these teas from What-Cha!

I had a thrift store adventure today! Feeling the predictable ‘I need to go to the thrift store’ tingly feeling in my brain, weirdest super power ever (though sadly not as useful as my finding lost things super power) so Ben was nice and took me to the store. My usual store did not have anything of interest, sadly, so we went to the other store up the road that never has anything, and lo and behold, there were things! I found a Guan Yin statue, something I have always wanted (but never bought new because it is me and I like getting old stuff at stores) so I was so happy, I did a loud squee. When I was checking out the cashier dropped the statue, knocking the head off, eek! Thinking my beloved statue was ruined, I examined it and saw the head could very easily be glued back on, so I bought it and was given a discount, awesome! I am debating painting it to look like some of the paintings, or all gold to look like a temple statue, one thing is for certain, Guan Yin needs a bath!

So, tis time for tea! What-Cha’s Vietnam ‘Wild Boar’ Black Tea, a tea I bought because boars are kinda awesome. The tea is named by the local hill tribe that picks the wild growing leaves after the boars that roam wild in the hills. The aroma of the dark leaves is odd, I kinda teared up a bit because the aroma reminds me of something from my memories, something very far into them but I could not place it, it was maddening and caused an intense feeling of homesickness. Memories aside (since you cannot really smell those) there are notes of cocoa and malt, with a delicate note of peanuts, and surprisingly wildflowers and a touch of roses, it has a gentle sweetness, but it is mostly from the floral notes, the cocoa is like dark chocolate rather than the sweet stuff.

Into the green gaiwan the leaves go for their nice little bath! The aroma of the wet leaves is rather rich! Notes of malt and oak wood with a touch of peanuts and loam. Distant notes of flowers at the finish with a tiny touch of turnip greens. The liquid is a gentle blend of cocoa and sweet honey with malt and again a touch of flowers.

Whoa! That first steep is robust! It starts off a bit brisk while remaining smooth, a good first thing in the morning tea, will wake you up without kicking your stomach in the process. The taste starts off malty and blooms into an almost coconut milk sweetness and creaminess, toss in some cocoa and honey and well, yum!

The second steep’s aroma is rather diminished from the first steep, only mild notes of flowers and malt remain. The taste is also kinda diminished, but still tasty, notes of malt and creamy sweetness with a touch of cocoa are what stand out, with a tiny mineral and floral taste at the finish. This is a great first steep, with the later ones had more staying power, but eh, sometimes just one steep is not a bad thing. Still trying to find out what memory that smell is evoking, the brain is strange sometimes!

For photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/07/what-cha-vietnam-wild-boar-black-tea.html

This was a sample in my What Cha order. I don’t even remember noticing this one on the website. But since most of the teas in my order didn’t really suit me well, I assumed I wouldn’t like this one either.
I was pleasantly surprised!
It was definitely malty, not overly so, but enough to notice.
There’s another really strong flavor in this, but I can’t for the life of me think of what it is. People mention cocoa and chocolate notes, but I’m not really getting any of that.
I’m sure that the next time I drink this I’ll figure it out. But I do enjoy the maltiness of this one. (:

Thanks for the sample, What Cha!!

sooo many teas in my cupboard and that number is just climbing haha hard to believe that i was at 75 in december….and in the nearish future i may be damn near pushing 200 lol it’s ok though since a lot of them are smaller sizes that i can sip down in a couple of cups. PLus it gives me incentive over the year to really stop buying teas to get down to 50 by the end of the year haha.

this is is a really nice tea and one that i’d consider getting again if the price point was compareable to other malty sort of teas that i like. A nice find from what-cha!