Sample provided by @Amy Oh
I was pretty excited to try this when Amy Oh offered to mail away 5g of her sample. I’ve never tried tea from Norbu before, but I have tried 3 other black teas from Guangdong, China. They all tasted pretty different, so I was wondering what sort of category this one falls into.
Sniffing inside the sample pouch, I’m picking up on cherry, earthy, maybe something kinda sour. The scent of sour and cherry is mouthwatering.
First steep reaffirms what the dry tea leaves suggested. Very earthy aroma with sour cherry, mild sweetness and roasted flavour. I can kinda also taste something that reminds me of chocolate, but it’s very faint.
Second steep brought out more of the roasted and sour flavour. The tea body itself is nice, there is a nice depth to it.
Third steep is getting astringent (borderline annoying), but all the other flavours are still going strong. The earthy, sour cherry flavour might not really describe what I’m tasting. But it’s the best rough description I can come up with.
Fourth and fifth steep lost some of the astringency, which made it more palatable. However the tea flavour is starting to weaken.
I decided to end on the sixth steep because the astringency was starting to rub me the wrong way. Sometimes I like that characteristic, but if it’s too prominent, the mouth-drying sensation is nice enjoyable.
Overall I like this tea, it’s pretty much the same as another one I tried from the same province (Feng Huang Hong Cha – Camellia Sinensis). Flavour wise, it’s pretty different from most of the black tea I’ve had the pleasure to drink. However it’s a great flavour that I couldn’t stand to drink all the time, it just ends up annoying me (if that makes any sense).
100ml gaiwan, 5g, 6 steeps (15s, 30s, 45s, 1m, 1m30, 2m)
