Thank you JC for this sample tea!
New Year’s Eve mail…samples from JC! I picked this Black Tea for my first tea of the New Year!
JC had reviewed this tea using a Gaiwan and short steeps. I decided to use longer steeps and a finum filter in a glass mug, a more Western Style brewing method with a heavy and rich taste.
When I opened the packet of tea, the scent of the dry leaves was sweet and the leaves were long, medium cocoa brown with golden threads.
My steep time was 3 minutes (JC don’t fall over!). While this may seem long, I used 1TB. tea to 7 oz. water and had no problem.
The flavor was not cocoa or malty like I had expected.
Instead, there was a clean, brisk taste that reminded me of Teavivre’s Bailin Gongfu Black Tea, but better. (As much as I’ve always loved the Teavivre Black tea, it has an aftertaste that’s vegital that I don’t like.)
There’s citrus in the scent and flavor (barely orange) as though this is a lovely Nepalese Black Tea blend. (By this I mean that Black Tea from Nepal often has a fruity flavor, close to Darjeelings which can have a citrus taste).
One of the journey’s I’ve been on (if you can call it that) is trying lots of different Black Tea’s. Strong Irish and Scot’s Black Tea’s, Kenyan and Chinese Black Tea’s from different regions (Yunnan, Taiwan, Laoshan, Etc.), Darjeelings, Assams, Thai Black, Ceylon.
This has been my Winter Project…and works well with drinking
lots of Pu’er punctuated by many sessions with roasty Oolongs.
This Guizhou is one of the best black tea’s I’ve ever tasted!
Next time JC, I’ll try this in a Gaiwan your way and follow your steeping style. This time I was my own wild woman!
I sweetened the tea during the second steeping (many black tea drinkers do this so I had to check it out) Sweet but not diminished. (Same with adding cream.) The flavor stands up to additions. (I hate losing the flavor of tea to milk and sugar!)
Great way to begin tea tasting for the New Year!
