I have been looking forward to this yunnan ever since my tea samples came to me. The leaves were long and slender. They wouldn’t play nicely with my flat bamboo tea spoon, so I just filled the bottom of my press with leaves. The brew is nice and dark brown. It looks like a solid black tea and I could probably fool some of my friends into thinking this was coffee. It is that dark at just three minutes.
The second steep (4 mins) is just as delicious as the first (3 mins). Bold and roasty. The second steep has a slight undertone of chocolate that I love with this tea. I keep timing my teas wrong. This is a good tea to wake up with in the morning. It is slightly heavy tasting for the afternoon, but I adore it anyway. Maybe the promise of this in the morning will actually get me out of bed earlier so I can make it.
Later… third steep at 4 and a half minutes. The flavor isn’t as strong, but it is still tasty. I think I only like doing two steepings for yunnan blacks because I like them stronger.
I got the golden tip sample of this one, and based on it I thought this one might make excellent iced tea.
That would be interesting. I thought the same thing about the gongfu black I tried since that tastes a little bit sweeter than this one to me.