Greetings all.
These days the boyfriend and I are watching a BBC series about China. We tend to do one episode per evening while eating (Dining table? What’s that? Ooooh, you mean the cat playground!) and the episode we watched yesterday was primarily about the Yunnan province. Although tea wasn’t mentioned more than briefly. Mostly it was about nature and a wee bit about anthropology as well. Quite an interesting series, actually. The first episode we watched was about how they grow tiny little rice fields terraced up and down mountains and with little walk-ways so narrow that it looked like if you lost your footing and fell, you would be lucky if you got out of it with only a broken leg. Amazing how adaptable the human species is! And how inventive. O.o
Anyway, inspired by that first mentioned episode, I thought I should drink some Yunnan tea today and it just so happens that I’ve got a sample of this one which the very kind Ssajami shared with me recently.
While I was steeping it I found myself assailed by a strong caramel-y aroma. Especially while pouring my cup. It’s was unbelievable and for a moment I wondered if I had actually managed to pick something caramel flavoured instead of what I thought I had taken. But as the sample tin that this is in is a small pale grean Adagio sample tin and as the tin the Caramel is in is a large, brown Kusmi tin, I didn’t think this very likely. So apparently this tea just have a strong note of caramel in the aroma. That’s new to me. I’ve never noticed this sort of note in a Yunnan before.
So when I tasted it, I was expecting something with a slightly sticky flavour and absolutely dripping with caramel. But it wasn’t. Instead I got something that from sip one was more nutty than anything else. Walnuts in particular. I can just visualise them in my head as I’m drinking it. The note is so strong that this would be a poor base for something walnut flavoured, because it would just be impossible to tell a difference.
If I didn’t know any better, I would think it WAS flavoured!
How very pleasant to happen upon a Yunnan black that doesn’t taste like hay, but like walnuts. This is definitely preferable.
It’s not completely unusual though. It is in fact still very recognisable as a Yunnan due that unmistakable spicy, pepper-y, prickly note in it and it’s all smoooooooooth too.
Very nice tea this. Thanks for sharing, Ssajami.
ETA by the way of the unrelated kind! Finally have the real ring, a photograph of which can be seen here. http://pics.livejournal.com/iarnvidia/pic/0000121b
