Daily Jinjunmei

Very hard to beat for the price. Steeps well in a tumbler without getting bitter. The texture is a little thin, but the flavor is nice and malty, strong but not overpowering.
Unfortunately my city’s air is full of smoke right now, but this warm tea helps to soothe my throat.

Gongfu!

Brewed this up to kick start the morning! Full bodied, brisk and aromatic; this is such a beautiful and delicious black tea. I get notes of dark breads, molasses, stewed and brandied fruits, buckwheat honey, and golden raisin – all with a malty and umami backbone. I certainly don’t have a shortage of black teas at my disposal, but this is one of those special teas that makes me wish I’d bought waaaayy more of it…

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqdTW1POj0N/

I love whenever I get a chance to use this freaky bird cup!

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9lf3VesHnc

I seem to be craving Fujian black teas lately for their chocolate and fruity flavours. I’d noticed this tea on the White2Tea website and wondered what it was like, and fortunately, Daylon generously sent me a sample. On Daylon’s recommendation, I steeped 4 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 180, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of honey, malt, chocolate, and cherry. The first steep has notes of honey, caramel, malt, baked bread, and darker chocolate. The next steep carries hints of berry, though it’s mostly about the darker, almost fudgy chocolate and malt. (Can you tell I think this is good?) In the next couple steeps, the flavour has more in common with milk chocolate, with some citrus, berries, and drying bitterness. I get hints of florality (rose?) in steep five as the chocolate begins to fade. Weirdly, I also taste dill in the sixth steep, much as I did in What-Cha’s Jin Jun Mei. The tea loses its chocolate soon afterwards and ends with honey, tannins, and malt.

This tea doesn’t have much in the way of longevity, but the first five or six steeps are wonderful. I didn’t get much fruit, but the chocolate notes rival those I can get from a pricier tea like Laoshan Black. At around $30 for 250 g, this is a solid Jin Jun Mei, and it’s on my wish list for the next time White2Tea has free shipping.

I started out with this tea on the current nice fall morning. Dropping temperatures were pretty sudden here in Michigan from the humid 87-90 F weather last week to the temperate and chilly 72 and 60s this week.

I gong fu’d it this morning, and I’ve tumblered/grandpa’d it over the past few months. It did pretty nicely gong fu, but wasn’t too different western. Grandpa yielded a lot of smoothed out chocolate cherry flavor when I went medium to light leafwise, and gong fu added a little bit more bitterness and dryness. The previous review nailed the drying hay quality the tea sometimes has. This time, the chocolate notes were more along the lineso of dark chocolate, and the berry notes were bordering on jammy. I’ve been tempted to put blueberry as one. I usually am careful with “jammy” teas because they tend to be a little bit more astringent like in a ceylon or Assam category, but it works with the chocolate and caramel notes insanely well.

The tea really didn’t last beyond four steeps. It’s still a comfort tea that hits all the right spots for my palette in black teas. I’m not sure what to rate it. I can see a rating in the 80s because it’s a daily black that’s not super complex or long lasting, but in terms of flavor and aroma, this is almost a 100. I basically rate teas based on whether or not it serves the purpose I got it for, and I think this is one of the few cheaper versatile blacks I’ve gotten that hits the high notes of more expensive teas.

The tea’s store description says “If you are looking for a daily black tea […] you won’t find a better black tea in this price tier.”. A rather bold claim… which I’m actually inclined to agree with, to my own surprise, now that I’ve tasted it. I personally haven’t had a €0,10/g black tea with this few “rough edges” in any case. It punches far above its weight.

I haven’t yet had the opportunity to try out a “real” (read: very expensive) jinjunmei, but I do have experience with a jinjunmei that was about 4 times the price, which White2Tea’s Daily JJM compares very favorably to, and with a lot of black teas in the affordable €0,05-0,15/g price bracket.

Very prominent and very sweet (flower) honey flavor, sugarcane, milk chocolate, hay, slight citrus. A pleasant, subtle bitterness if you brew it right. Less astringency than pretty much any black tea I can recall in the <€0,20/g price range. Works great grandpa style, and very decent in a gong fu session (though flavors stay pretty consistent). Will definitely get bitter if you overbrew it, but in a dark chocolate way some (..like me) might still enjoy.
It’s just a nice tea overall. Most importantly, it’s a tea that would be nice even if it wasn’t this cheap.