Sipdown (118)!
Thanks again Stephanie for the sample. Finishing off the last few sips now; I enjoyed drinking it alongside supper which, tonight, was a blueberry bagel sandwich with maple cheddar, vegetarian slices of ham and spinach. Mmm! Not gonna lie; I could totally go for another one right now…
Last time I had this one I didn’t pay very much attention to it, so I’m making sure to do so now so that I actually learn something from it, and requesting it from Stephanie wont be in vain.
Most of it I drank hot, but it’s totally cooled off now and I’m kind of liking it cold better than I did hot. Hot, I found there was a bit of dryness from the tea, and it was maybe a little too brisk and smokey. Now that it’s cooled I feel like I’m enjoying it more as well as noticing more of the contributing flavours. It’s still smokey, but there are also a lot of bread notes – I agree with Cameron B.’s review quite a bit; it’s like whole wheat in a way. Actually, I currently have a whole wheat and flax seed bread in my kitchen from our in store bakery – and it’s reminding me of that in particular.
Other things I noticed besides the smoke and bread flavours were a very faint cocoa flavour and a fruit note that is probably the thing in the blend that agrees with me the least. I was having problems identifying it until reading Cam’s review – she called it raisin like and that’s exactly it. No wonder it’s not agreeing with me; raisins are usually a big ‘nope’ for me – in tea and outside of it.
But other than the raisin taste, this isn’t terrible just not astounding either. I still want to continue to explore some more Keemuns – but I am kind of seeing a pattern forming already. When I had WP’s Pine Peak Keemun I also described it as bready (though that one tasted more like Rye to me) with cocoa and raisin notes and overall it wasn’t something I was a big fan of. If these are the more common and natural flavour notes in Keemun (which I believe, with the addition of smoke, they kinda are) perhaps it’s just not my kind of tea?
It could be nice ruling out a whole ‘class’ of tea; it’d save me money exploring it. I still have the Keemun from Amoda to drink though – so no rash decisions yet.
Oh man, your dinner sounds wonderful! Love your description of this tea as well.