Xiang Luo roughly translates into fragrant snail and is a tea that combines the processing methods of traditional keemun and biluochun. It is produced from whole bud first flush tea and yields a rich and fragrant tea deserving of its name.
This tea has fairly long tightly wound glossy black leaves that are loosely coiled into corkscrews. Occasional golden brown tips are seen among the dark coils.
The dry leaf smells of chocolate, caramel and grainy notes.
The tea smells complex and spicy with chocolate and caramel rising first from the cup, and with light longan mixed with plum and other stone fruits underneath mixed with bright spicy notes of cinnamon mixed with a tone resembling bay leaves and some upper tones of malt.
I used a TSP (@ 1.5g of tea)/225 ml in just off boiling water steeped for 3.5 minutes.
The resulting tea has light longan mixed with honey and spice flavour notes up front that are blended with buttery caramel. The spice is lightly floral and is pleasant and bright. Cocoa is underneath mixed with a tone that is a slightly bitter sweet but mixed with cooked barley mash. The overall effect is a creamy, sweet and bright tea, that is well balanced with deeper lightly bitter notes. There is a light astringency but this is countered by the the body and creaminess of the tea. The tea produces a cooling effect in the mouth. There is no determineable smokiness.
The Resteep at 4.5min is similar in flavour in colour, but is slightly more tart, with more apparent malt and grain tones. The tea remains spicy and sweet though with chocolate, spicy floral and fruit tones. It is peppery and cool on the tongue, yet remains very smooth. The tea is still very flavourful suggesting it may yield another resteep. Altogether it is a really tasty cup, with a nice dose of caffeine and is suitable for all day drinking.
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Thanks Capital Tea Ltd for the sample. I would definitely consider repurchasing this tea in the future!
