Tea ID Help
I am brand new to tea and this site – my husband traveled to China and visited a tea house. He brought back a small container of tea which is black in color, smells floral, and is wonderfully sweet. It brews up a reddish color. It is the sweetness I really like. He paid about $100 US for the container about 4″ × 5″ × 3″. Any help in identifying this and giving suggestons appreciated. It’s almost finished!
Hmm, any chance seeing a photo of the packaging or the tea? It might help with tracking down what it is.
Unfortunately I am new to this site and photos aren’t allowed until after 30 days on board. But, it was packaged in a generic metal box, the same box this place apparently used for all tea purchased there. I am hoping my description of a high price, black in color, strong floral scent in the bag, and nice sweet taste and brewing up reddish will help. Thanks, Vickie.
You can always take a picture and upload it to a free image hosting site (imgur, photobucket, whatever) it would help immensely in identifying it, as there are quite a few black Chinese teas out there.
I am not sure these photos will help, but it’s worth a try: http://s807.photobucket.com/user/vickiee14/library/
Also, I would love some suggestions of other teas to try which are naturally sweet in taste, no matter smell!
Like the rest of the folks, impossible to tell from the pictures. But if you’re looking for naturally sweet black teas, Taiwan Tea Craft has a couple of excellent ones. Their Red Jade Black and Yuchi Wild Mountain Black are both delightful. And everything on the web site is 20% off right now. I’ve gotten 5 orders from them in the year they’ve been open and haven’t been disappointed in any of the teas they’ve sent.
Yes, SFTGFOP – the blue and white patterned tin is the container it came in. Inside packaged in thin plastic bag. It was bagged and put into the tin in front of him. It was not pre-packaged. My husband went into the shop along with two locals and had tea in an upstairs area of the store. It was not in a tourist area of Beijing. Almost a back alley location.
To me, it is really hard to tell from the picture, because it looks like it could be any kind of black tea really. It almost looks like a keemun to me. Is there any smokey flavour to it at all? Some keemuns can be smokey, but others are not. I find keemuns to have a sweet and earthy flavour.
The other thing it reminds me of is a really dark roasted oolong (which would go along with the suggestiong of a da hong pao – although for the da hong pao I would have expected larger leaves).
I agree it is near impossible to determine exactly what is from a photo. I don’t have a developed palate to be able to determine smokiness. All I can say is that it tastes as if someone added about 1/2 tsp. of sugar to a cup. So anything similar in taste is what I am looking to purchase.
You know what? I bet if the tea comes out red when brewed, it’s possible that it’s a rooibos, but also unlikely since China is renown for their tea leaves.
looks like a some random low to average grade (small broken and irregular leaves, lots of stems, no tips) black tea, maybe keemun or some other small-leaf black. Or in the second photo (not sure which one is color accurate) almost looks like a really broken wuyi or dancong oolong (although those usually brew orange). Most likely he got way overcharged for something pretty average, getting the foreign tourist price, it does not look to me like something expensive or high grade. Chinese black teas are usually really sweet and some can be floral, try some samples from some reputable online vendors.
Yes, but keep in mind that this is the bottom of the bag, and has been handled by me a lot, and I am probably responsible for much breakage.
There is another possibility, of it being from outside china …my guess a Darjeeling. That would certainly explain why the price would be marked up so high (as well as the poorer leaf grade).
yeah, darjeelings i’ve seen are often really broken/flakey/mixed like that (from being mechanically harvested i think), but with a darjeeling I’d expect to see a mix of colors as well, brown red and green leaves all mixed in, and this one is evenly oxidized and darker that you’d expect. Plus i wouldn’t really think of a darjeeling as super sweet like I would a chinese black.
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