Keemun Concerto

Ya’ll…..

There were 2 big, honkin’ hairs in my sample tin. My never been opened, until now sample tin. I know for a fact that those hairs were not mine. Should I tell Adagio? Is this common? Should I just pick them out and drink up?!?! Ideas?

It’s my day off, so I’m sitting on the sofa with my jar of oatmeal (I make my oatmeal 5 servings at a time in canning jars on Sunday, and keep it in the fridge. Steel cut oatmeal – yum. Best discovery I have made in awhile.). I opened the cabinet where I keep my tea, wondering what I was in the mood for. One of the Kusmi Russian teas? A chai? No! My eyes spotted the sample bag of Keemun Concerto I got as a freebie in my last Adagio order. I had been waiting for a nice unrushed morning to try it out. It’s time!

I opened the bag and took a sniff. Sweet and cocoa-y. Other people call this tea “malty.” Perhaps that’s really what I mean when I say cocoa-y, but I am not sure. Calling to mind the taste of the inside of milk duds… yes, I think that might be it. I’m still going with cocoa-y though.

The leaves pretty much look like Keemun Rhapsody, and the smell is similar, but it’s less tobacco-y to me. More cocoa/malty but less pipe tobacco-like.

I brewed it in my ingenuiTea and after a short steep, decanted into my mug, added half & half and sugar and whipped it with my milk frother. Yuuuuuuum.

I may change my mind again on the in-case-of-zombies tea stash. This is gooooood. It’s more filling than my oatmeal! I’ve barely touched the oatmeal, but I have already sucked a mug of the tea down while writing this post.

Though I still agree with Hester June that pearls are probably the most efficient zombie stash. I had a sample of black dragon pearls that are probably quite similar in taste. Dang, I think I am out of that though – it would have been nice to do a side-by-side comparison.

I did my second Zombies, Run! mission after dark last night. I didn’t go as far though – not because I was fearful of zombies, but because I was afraid to busting my butt on our uneven sidewalks in the dark. I think I will stick with daylight runs for now.

Decanted the seconds steep into my mug. Trying this straight. It brewed longer, of course. Strong, and smokey. I don’t get the cocoa/malt taste in this cup. I don’t like it straight as much as I like Keemun Rhapsody – it’s heavier. Serious, if you will.

Definitely a thumbs up as a latte though. That was great.

Now to get going and start my day. I need to go bra shopping. Oh joy. :/

This was the tea that introduced me to Keemun, and made me realize how much I like it. Since this makes it an indirect cause of my buying Jackee Muntz, and inspired by Meghann’s comparison vanilla tasting, I decided to comparison taste this, Keemun Encore, and Jackee. I tasted them simultaneously, which made it harder to identify specific flavors but easier to rank them comparatively. So – no evocative descriptions of camping in a pine forest, but this should help me (and maybe you) the next time I’m looking to buy more Keemun. Encore notes are here http://steepster.com/Tea_Bird/posts/36241 and Jackee here http://steepster.com/Tea_Bird/posts/36243

Preparation notes: 1/2tsp tea in 4oz water, drunk plain first, then with milk (about 1tsp in the remaining 3oz)

The lightest of the three in both color and aroma, more orange than red. Smells sweeter than the other two. Concerto was my favorite going in; it tastes a bit weak after Jackee. Astringency somewhere between the other two. The “black tea” flavor is more noticeable in Concerto than in either of the other two; whether this denotes purity or a lack of complexity is up for debate.

Milk for me brings out the sweetness and richness in the tea. The hints of smoke make a nice counterpoint. I would still choose this as an easy-drinking breakfast tea. Definitely not boring, but not one I feel obligated to prepare precisely and experiment with or anything.

Round 2, ~3:30 minute steep is noticeably milder but still worthwhile.

Conclusion – I will likely buy more of this once Jackee is gone, unless I find another Keemun I like better in the mean time. Better QPR than Encore, in my opinion, and easier to drink.

I have made and bottled this stuff to take to class with me for the last three days. It’s a hearty tea, somewhere between a Ceylon and Assam in body. It’s a bit astringent, but the taste is lively and slightly smoky.

Had this last night, but I was too tired to log it then. Lacking any other reason to sequence this sampler of six teas, I thought I would knock out the two that smelled the most alike first.

This one has a much more pungent smell when dry than the assam. The assam’s fragrance seems to be almost light, definitely not minty but sharing some of that quality in the nose. This one I opened, sniffed, and said, ‘figs’. That’s what it smelled like to me last night…dried figs. This morning I’m getting more of that barn-hayloft-horses smell I mentioned in my assam note…but where other people might find that off-putting, I really like it. It’s like hay and leather.

The taste of it was surprisingly grassy for something that smelled to me as though it would have darker raisin elements than the assam. Grassy, and then I was able to get the smoky quality the longer I sipped on it. I like both of these equally, I think. The assam might be easier to drink a great deal of, but this one was just as good for totally different reasons. I only had time to steep it once, but next time I’m going to be curious about steeping it several times, as it, like the assam melody tea, lacked bitterness on the finish.

Okay, so I wrote a huge detailed account of this tea as I was tasting it…then steepster decided to crash and it was lost. Much like my first attempt at brewing this tea. I grabbed a cup, not knowing that this cup already had some water and baking soda in it. So the tea was nothing but salt.

I call it quits. The tea was good. It was mild, it was mineral tasting and light. It smelled kind of like tomato soup, tobacco and clay I liked it fine, as a black tea.

That’s all… Wish me more luck with my next tealog.

-Sinny

A sweet smoothness is the first impression that I notice on my first sip of this tea. Slightly earthy with a bit of a slight roasted mineral taste like a good wuyi. I’d call it a good everyday black tea overall that is cheap, not the best overall but one that is hard to top in its price range.

As I was digging through the ever so organized tea drawer this morning looking for ceylon, I found this instead. I was excited because I didn’t realize there was a keemun in there (my boyfriend had ordered it), so I definitely decided to have this tea instead of the ceylon, eagerly awaiting the keemun goodness I’ve come to love.

Well… I was a bit disappointed. It smelled very smokey and slightly woodsy. As I took a sip I was less excited. The powerful scent just doesn’t live up to the taste. It’s very flat tasting and watery thin. There isn’t much body to this tea and it has this odd tangy after taste to it.

First Steep

A hint pf a malty smell. Very full-bodied flavor too it, a bit too much so. A bit of a lingering aftertaste, but nothing too bad.

This is an incredibly dense tea – hard to handle on its own, really needs something mixed with it to bring it down.

1 heaping tsp for 8 oz

Very decent black tea. A little more astringent than the Teavivre organic superfine but also has more of that Keemun flavor and character in my opinion. Maybe the Keemun character I am thinking of is particular to less expensive varieties since that’s all I used to drink.

We shall see where my opinion winds up when I’m done with my current Keemun comparisons.

I just found this site, so I thought I’d try to review a tea! This is the tea I’m drinking this morning. I’m almost all the way through the 3 oz I got from the black tea-of-the-month club from Adagio.

While this isn’t my favourite tea, I do like it enough to keep drinking it every day until it is gone. Considering I have at least 35 different types of tea on my desk at work and at least 10 at home, this is saying something. This tea is middling dark with a smokey flavour with a bit of tobacco and malt. I do add milk and a tiny bit of sugar so there is a sweetness to it that there might not be for those who drink without. A bit over a teaspoon of tea to 14 oz of water.

I usually steep twice and it holds the flavour pretty well. 3 minutes on the first steep and 4 minutes on the second.

So, I’m sad to say I haven’t written nearly enough reviews of this tea, not enough to match up to the actual amount I drink it.
I make it pretty regularly. It had a good caffeine kick (at least, I think so) that keeps me awake during classes.
Today I made this tea for my Argentinian photographer friend in a handmade teapot thrown by my ceramicist boyfriend. We drank out of two identical mugs which matched the teapot. (A small teapot, for sure, holds about 2 1/2-3 cups of tea, but that’s usually just enough for a friend and I).
I used the leftover tea leaves to brew it again and again, as I’m working on a large-scale watercolor drawing/painting, and I needed something to keep me going.

Interesting. A bit smoky for my tastes, but not too off-putting. I’ve been nursing a small pot for about three hours now… watching movies on my first Sunday off in almost 3 years.

The first steeping had a nice dry finish, without being overly astringent. The tea was slightly sweet, and a bit of honey brought out some citrus notes. Smokiness comes out in the second steeping, although the finish loses its qualities. Ideally, I’d like more body and perhaps a bit more in terms of complexity from a tea.

Rich, smooth tea with less acidity. The leaves smell rather earthy, almost musty before brewing, but none of that mustiness comes through in the brewing. Really delicious.

Has kind of a roasty, vegetal flavor (sweet potato?), with a slight corn cereal-like taste in the background. I get a lot of chocolate notes on scent, which I couldn’t taste right away, but it is there in the aftertaste. No harshness.
After subsequent times drinking this I definitely prefer it with sugar, seems to accentuate all of the tasting notes I like in there. I also like a relatively short steeping time at lower temperatures.

Bit smokey smell
dark dark amber steep
Not bitter. Not smooth though, bit astringent.

This tea really had a bit of a medicine-y taste to it. I see some comments about astringency and smokiness, which I guess is what I was tasting. I wasn’t particularly fond of that. I’m not sure if different amounts of tea and different steeping times will affect that.

Mild malty taste

Steeped this one for about 10 minutes and then let it cool before drinking, and it came out really smooth. The smoky flavor was downplayed, and it came out with a nice, rich black tea taste.