Fujian Baroque

OMG I just noticed this morning that Ricky’s no-icon-uploaded-icon isn’t actually, because it’s mirrored! Never realised that before.

I’m feeling a little more human today, so I’ve made a pot of one of the remaining Bethany-teas.

I’ve tried sniffing the leaves, but they didn’t really seem to have much in the way of a smell. Pouring a few out in my hand, all I could really smell was my skin. I’m fairly certain the leaves aren’t actually supposed to smell like me, so I’m assuming it’s actually me smelling like me.

My expectations based on other people’s posts about this are dangerously high, so I’m a little worried about that. It’s always better when it’s the other way around. Low expectations → pleasant surprise. I’m also dangerously impatient and tempted the start before it’s really done steeping, even though I know that this rarely gives a good result.

Right, it’s ready now. Cocoa notes, check! And I’ve only poured the first cup. Fruity notes, check! They’re loud too. It smells a bit like when I was little and my mother made homemade jam from the blackcurrant bush we had in the garden.

What a surprising flavour! It’s very fruity in flavour. I’m surprised that this is supposed to be a plain tea. It definitely tastes like there’s been some sort of addition to it. I’ve checked the other teas that Bethany sent me, and I don’t think it sounds like any of those have rubbed off.

First there’s a little bit of a peppery sort of note, just a hint, and then there’s the tart fruity flavour. I can’t pick up the cocoa in the flavour, only in the aroma. Or maybe there is a small hint of it on the finish, but I’m not finding that on every sip, so I’m a little in doubt as to whether or not it’s something that I’m convincing myself that I can find because I really want to find it.

It’s good, but my enormously high expectations haven’t really been fulfilled. I could have lived with the fruit note not being quite this strong.

(Are we sure there isn’t any flavouring in this?)

ETA: I’ve pushed the rating down again as I’ve been drinking. This fruityness is getting a bit… much.

thanks starfevre for sending some of this in our trade! The only other Fujian tea I’ve had that I remember is an oolong that I really didn’t like because it was so charcoaly. It was too much for me! Luckily, this one is much better. The dry leaves are mixed — some are longer, twisty and black while some are yellow. The flavor is a lighter black. It does have a bit of a charcoal flavor, but just a hint, and also something like tobacco. This one is very good for a light black tea (and much better than the Adagio Irish Breakfast that I tried recently), but I like my black teas super dark and strong! It’s almost like I’m either craving a strong black tea or something like an oolong, but I’m sure sometimes I will want a lighter black tea and I will have this one! It’s kind of simple while also unique. If that makes sense.

Dry Smell: Like 86% dark chocolate from Ghirardelli.

Steeped: I don’t really have anything to say, which is a little odd. There really doesn’t seem to be anything that discernible about this tea from any other black tea I have had in the past. It’s not bad, just very run of the mill.

Used the Tea Randomizer (http://www.jaydeee.net/pickatea.php) to choose my tea this afternoon and this was the winner.

Fujian Baroque was the winner. Perfect selection for this afternoon. I like the light malty flavor. It has strong hints of berry fruityness.

I’m very new to drinking unflavored teas, but wanted to pick up a few to try when I visited the Adagio store. I like that the leaves were available to sniff at the store, which is why I chose this tea. It has a nice aroma of fruit and a bakey ness to the dry leaves.

I won’t rate this one until I try a few more cups. But I do like it!

This tea was interesting. Another swap from TastyBrew. Thanks, TastyBrew!! It steeped up with a scent of cocoa. I thought, cool! Like laoshan black! Except, it tasted much more subtle. I got both notes of cocoa and some sort of fruitiness. I couldn’t discern what type of fruit, but I don’t have that educated of a palate yet. I didn’t add milk because one of the reviews said that milk killed it, and they were probably right because of how subtle the flavor is. Anyway, I liked the complexity of this tea!

The other tea that my brother got me for my birfday.

I noticed the comparisons to Golden Monkey in other notes, so that is pretty much what I was expecting. The leaves are not particularly similar. Darker and not as crazy curly. Like Golden Monkey, it brews up pretty light, and it certainly does have something of the sweet, malty taste that characterizes GM, but it is still, very much it’s own tea. It has a very interesting spicy note to it, cinnamony perhaps? It’s neat because although overall it is a lighter tea than the Yunnan Noir, it is more complicated. The yunnan was quite uniform throughout, whereas this one has layers of taste and not even a hint of astringency – so big props for that.

A very nice afternoon tea, I’d say. Not enough kick in the morning for me, though.

Amazing what a decent night’s sleep will do to your taste buds.

I can actually TASTE. Interesting to read previous notes on this one; all are a little different. First thing that comes to my mind is “malty darjeeling.” Really good malty. Thinking this will be tasty iced a little later today.

I’m surprised I hadn’t rated this by now, but I’m sort of glad that I didn’t, as I don’t think I’d tried several Golden Monkey cups of tea before I bought this. I would’ve missed the similarities, or at least not have been able to spot the differences. I’ve had it for quite a while, and just been off on other tea adventures since then.

It has that very same bake-y, flour-on-the-bottom-of-a-loaf-of-rural-bread flavor as Golden Monkey does, but the flavor isn’t quite as ‘clear’, prominent (either in the nose or on the palate) or as dry. There’s more fruit in the mix, too, but dark fruit…the flavor is, overall, a bit shadowy, but not too heavy.

I suppose I can interpret what I’m tasting as the cup cools as either cocoa or spice. I tend to lean toward cocoa, though, especially now that the tea isn’t as hot anymore.

Overall, not a bad cup of tea for this morning. I wanted something different and bracing, but with less caffeine than the Dawn I’ve had over the last several mornings (which seems to pack a pretty strong punch for me, for whatever reason).

Well, I can’t speak for what the dry leaves smelled like because I was in full on “stagger mode” to get tea made this morning. Last night I lay awake until 7am thinking about different scenarios for location scouting for my film. Which was a waste of time either way because “bleary baffled middle of night insomniac” me didn’t convince any of my imaginary conversation partners to let us shoot on their imaginary locations.

SO!
I have no clue what the leaves smell like.
The liquor though smells awesome! It’s like an egg pastry… some kind of bavarian creme egg pastry. A-ma-zing.
I started out drinking this neat without milk.
The flavor is nice and nutty with a full mouth feel. Even better, it’s astringent in a good way! Instead of just making my mouth feel like I sucked on a desiccant packet, the dryness adds to the nutty flavour.
This does not need any milk at all.
So, like an idiot, I said “I’ll add milk! And see what I think.”
Well, let me tell you. Milk totally kills it. All the subtlety is gone.
So I did a second brewing of the same leaves.
The second brew smelled nuttier and slightly more bitter. The liquor is still thick and it’s still creamy, but in more of a roasted nut kind of way. It kind of reminds me of the first cup of coffee I ever had (it was also the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had). We were camping and it was kona coffee brewed in a percolator, drank under tall pines in Maine. It was pretty perfect. This tea has the same nutty aftertaste.
Overall – I love it! Next time I won’t ruin the first steeping with milk…

I’m attempting simultaneously to be productive and relax today. The relaxation part is where this tea comes in. A smooth, comforting tea that is dark and strongly flavored, but not stout – perfect for relaxing. But not too sure about how it’ll mesh with the productivity portion of today’s program.

It tastes quite like a mild Yunnan black, it has that same malty characteristic, though it lacks the smokey, tannic undertones a Yunnan usually has. The aftertaste has a touch of fruity sweetness and there are also hints of cocoa here and there. It’s an interesting, complex tea that’s expressed in nuances rather than bold, out-there flavours.

I have discovered that I like smooth and velvety qualities in my tea and this is indeed smooth and velvety and I’m having it with a pink frosted cupcake!
People who don’t like cupcakes must be evil :)
Just discovered this vendor: http://www.postcardteas.com/
I love the concept – well done!

I felt like having a black tea this morning, but thought I should stick with the Chinese teas since I’ve been focusing on those samples recently. This one is the last of my Chinese black tea samples, the rest coming from Teavivre.

I like Teavivre’s way of recommending not just the steeping temperature, but also amount of tea (particularly in grams) and the length of time for each steep. It just gives me a little more confidence that I’m treating each tea right. And at least with this Fujian Baroque, I think I’m justified in thinking so.

Adagio recommends one heaped teaspoon in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. Okay, this may sound a strange question, but how much water? Teavivre will prescribe for both a 3oz gaiwan and an 8oz teapot. A “cup” of water in the tea world seems to be anything up to 250ml. There’s no mention from Adagio about how many steeps this will handle. So I did my usual 200ml, using my tea scoop that is 1.5tsp, and it weighed out at 2.6g. I did two steeps, 3 and 5 minutes respectively, both ends of Adagio’s listed times.
1st steep: The dry leaf looked nice with long twists of charcoal brown and some golden buds. There were gentle scents of cocoa, a little malt and freshly baked bread. The wet leaf smelled of that same bread and the Southern-style cooked-to-an-inch-of-its-life green beans that I’ve noticed before in a couple teas of this type. Not a bad thing, seems similar to those, though a good bit weaker. In the cup it was a dark mahogany color with a smooth but thin texture. It had both a bitterness and a slight semi-sweet taste. I could notice the freshly baked bread flavor, but I had to search really hard to find anything else. As the cup cooled (significantly) I could taste some cocoa and maybe some dark fruitiness like plums and berries. Overall, the feel and flavor was very thin, and not terribly interesting, certainly not compared to Teavivre’s Bailin Gongfu or Keemun Hao Ya.
2nd steep: Uh oh. This steeped for 2 minutes longer than the first cup but it’s lighter this time. The first cup felt weak; what of this one? It’s now a medium mahogany color. I take a sip while it’s still much too hot, and it feels just as thin as the first cup, but at least there are some notes of cocoa and spice. As the cup cools to drinking temperature, the fresh bread flavor returns to join the cocoa and spice, but really it doesn’t leave much of an impression.

I need some help here. I’ll ask a question in the forums, but you can answer me here, too. Did I not treat this tea right, as I was wondering earlier in this review? I’ll compare this to Bailin Gongfu. Teavivre recommends 7g for 250ml, and steeps of 1, 2 and 3 minutes. That one was wonderful. I didn’t use half that amount of tea for this one but steeped for 3 and 5 minutes. So was this “my” fault, even though I used Adagio’s (sparse) recommendations? Or have I simply spoiled myself by having Teavivre’s offerings first? The evidence here on Steepster is that Teavivre would have higher quality tea than Adagio in most cases. Please, correct me if I am wrong. I am happy to accept the student position for a good TEAcher. (Sorry, once that came to me, I couldn’t think of another way to write that.)

Note: Despite how it reads, I was in a good mood prior to tasting (I’m not in a bad mood now, either), ready and eager to be pleased. I just feel let down by this particular tea session.

If you live in the South, you are familiar with the muscadine grape, or scuppernongs, as they start making an appearance in the grocery stores and farm markets about now. They are rather alien looking, as they are perfectly round and very large, and have this incredibly thick, tough skin. They also have the oddest flavor – very sweet, musky like a cantaloupe, but with a tannic, rather bitter bite.

This tea reminds me strongly of fresh muscadines. Which is a good thing. And which reminds me – since the muscadines are coming in, it’s time to put up some scuppernong jelly. Which would taste wonderful on toast, with a cup of this tea.

I ordered the toasted sesame flavored tea a while ago, and frankly, I should have ordered this one instead. It’s got a barn smell in the bag that’s sure to bring a smile to the lips of any equestrians, cowboys, or 4-H-ers.

Once steeped, that aroma becomes this warm, enfolding embrace of nuttiness and savory—just like coming home.

Now, as Cogsworth said, ‘You can’t fix it if it’s not baroque.’ There is nothing baroque about this tea, therefore there is nothing that needs to be fixed. I’d call it steampunk rather than baroque, since the brassiness and sesame-salt flavor evoke rust-worn metal, gears and goggles. A distinct copper tone. Or if steampunk isn’t your thing, then this tea will seat you at a harvest feast in a modest abode, cozy with the sense of hearth and home.

More reviews can be found on the Snooty Tea Blog at snooteablog.com

This smells like Fruity Bubblegum or something…the dry leaves that is. Once infused it’s a combo of fruity and woodsy and black tea.

I don’t think it tastes anything like it smells…yes, there is a bit of a fruity taste but not the type of fruitiness that I smelled. Hard to explain. Has a hint of cereal taste to it as well.

Not bad…glad I tried it and would most likely have additional cups! Interesting tea, indeed. I am thinking this is one of those teas that might infuse differently almost every time you ‘brew’ it!? Time will tell…

This is strange, I really don’t know how to describe it! I don’t think I’ve had a black tea with these sort of flavors before. I definitely get a wine taste from some sips, and a bit of fruit. Interesting!

A nice solid black tea with a malty sweetness. Two minutes works perfectly for me.

A good black blend with potent wake-up appeal. Had a strange taste I have trouble identifying, a natural sweetness, and a nice smooth strength. Tea had a decent energy kick to it as I felt rejuvenated drinking it rather than relaxed, which is a good thing depending on the moment. Although the tea is enjoyable, not sure I’d order it again. Just no sure what that ‘other’ taste was and it’s not my favorite version of the black teas. Was sure to only steep for three minutes and this produced a lovely color and strong taste without any bitterness at all.

The first thing I thought of when I took my first sip of this was of bread. The really nice type you buy at specialty bakeries and eat plain because it’s such a shame to mask the flavours of the bread itself with jam or butter. I have never tried Golden Monkey so I can’t compare them. I can also taste the slight cocoa notes as the tea cools. I’m not picking up any spice or fruitiness at all as many reviewers have tasted.

First impression is that I like this tea and I wouldn’t mind drinking more of it.