Nan Nuo Mountain Assamica Varietal Black Tea * Spring 2018

Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Black Tea Leaves
Flavors
Almond, Black Pepper, Bread, Brown Sugar, Butter, Chestnut, Cream, Dark Chocolate, Earth, Eucalyptus, Grass, Green Beans, Leather, Malt, Marshmallow, Mineral, Orange Zest, Peanut, Pine, Plum, Raisins, Red Apple, Smoke, Sugarcane, Sweet Potatoes, Vanilla, Walnut, Chocolate, Flowers, Honey
Sold in
Bulk, Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by eastkyteaguy
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec 6 g 10 oz / 296 ml

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From Our Community

2 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Time to shake off the weekend laziness and get a few more reviews posted from my backlog. This was the last review I logged in my 2020-2021 notebook. I’m almost finished with that one. Then I only...” Read full tasting note
    77
  • “One of many Yunnan assamicas that are typically processed into puehrs but Yunnan Sourcing is now offering as regular red teas. Large wiry leafs, fresh floral malty aroma, which is being nicely...” Read full tasting note
    78

From Yunnan Sourcing

We love pure Assamica varietal black teas and this early spring pick from the Shi Tou Xin Zhai (New Stone Village) area of the Nan Nuo Mountains in Menghai is both unique and delicious!

When we refer to pure Assamica, we are basically referring to the same tea plant that produces Pu-erh tea. In fact, this tea grower processes his teas into both black tea and Pu-erh tea, all from the same bushes.

This tea when brewed offers a dried longan type sweetness, a thick viscous body with a malty finish.

March 2018 Harvest

About Yunnan Sourcing View company

Company description not available.

2 Tasting Notes

77
1049 tasting notes

Time to shake off the weekend laziness and get a few more reviews posted from my backlog. This was the last review I logged in my 2020-2021 notebook. I’m almost finished with that one. Then I only have three more notebooks to get through plus the one I’m steadily filling now. My plan is to hit this one hard and finish it and the 2018 notebook up before the end of the month. We’ll see how that goes. Anyway, this was one of my sipdowns from early in the year. I basically found it to be a gentle, unfussy black tea. It was nice, but it wasn’t exactly a favorite.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 fluid ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 18 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minutes 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves presented aromas of baked bread, earth, smoke, malt, raisin, and dark chocolate. After the rinse, fresh aromas of sugarcane, roasted almond, butter, and roasted peanut emerged. The first infusion introduced a definite brown sugar aroma that was underscored by subtler scents of pine, eucalyptus, and orange zest. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered up smooth notes of cream, baked bread, malt, butter, cooked green beans, roasted almond, and dark chocolate that were chased by hints of raisin, earth, roasted peanut, smoke, and sugarcane. The majority of the subsequent infusions brought out aromas of black pepper, cream, vanilla, roasted walnut, and sweet potato. Stronger and more immediately apparent notes of earth, roasted peanut, raisin, and sugarcane appeared in the mouth alongside impressions of orange zest, minerals, brown sugar, roasted walnut, roasted chestnut, grass, and sweet potato. I also noted hints of vanilla, pine, eucalyptus, black pepper, leather, plum, red apple, and marshmallow. As the tea faded, the liquor continued emphasizing impressions of minerals, cream, butter, roasted almond, roasted walnut, baked bread, brown sugar, and orange zest that were backed up by a mellow melange of grass, sweet potato, vanilla, raisin, cooked green bean, earth, roasted chestnut, and sugarcane hints.

This tea displayed a lot of depth and complexity, and it was very smooth and pleasant in the mouth. At the same time, it was not tremendously captivating due to something of a lack of liveliness and a lack of one or more standout components. While there was nothing wrong with it, there was not anything about this tea that was truly memorable in its own right. I came away wanting to like it more than I did. In some ways, this tea was similar to the Man Gang Village and Yi Wu Mountain black teas that were also offered by Yunnan Sourcing, but I thought it was a little better and more consistent overall.

Flavors: Almond, Black Pepper, Bread, Brown Sugar, Butter, Chestnut, Cream, Dark Chocolate, Earth, Eucalyptus, Grass, Green Beans, Leather, Malt, Marshmallow, Mineral, Orange Zest, Peanut, Pine, Plum, Raisins, Red Apple, Smoke, Sugarcane, Sweet Potatoes, Vanilla, Walnut

Preparation
6 g 4 OZ / 118 ML

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78
226 tasting notes

One of many Yunnan assamicas that are typically processed into puehrs but Yunnan Sourcing is now offering as regular red teas. Large wiry leafs, fresh floral malty aroma, which is being nicely complimented by a pronounced sweet potato note as a wet leaf. The taste did not appear very complex to me: very sweet, in a honey and flower ways. Plus some chocolate, sweet potato and baked bread. The aftertaste is not particularly remarkable nor strong: some rather generic honey and chocolate.

It is a simple but pleasant tea, “not that there’s anything wrong with that”. The type that you are certain to finish (and enjoy!) but equally certain not to re-order because it does not stand out in any way.

P.S. I feel somewhat intimidated because the template for this tea had been created by eastkyteaguy and he has it in his cupboard…which means that soon he will post here a detailed review that would meticulously document about 20 other aromas and flavors for that tea that I had failed to pick up…but I feel bold today.

Flavors: Bread, Chocolate, Flowers, Honey, Malt, Sweet Potatoes

eastkyteaguy

This amuses me. I’m really not that intimidating. I promise.

Bluegreen

Well, it was mostly frustration with myself: there was a certain rather unique aroma that this tea had (besides obvious ones that I managed to discern and describe) and I tried really hard to identify it but failed. Luckily, I know that you will be able to pinpoint it and then it would seem so obvious to me… You are doing a great service to the Steepster community with your incredibly detailed and organized reviews.

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