Yunnan Noir

This was my first cup of the day, and it’s actually pretty good!
It’s got that deep dark bready chocolatey maltiness that I love first thing in the morning (and really anytime of day). A drank it in bed with the Love of my life. A perfect start to a perfect goof off day.

Okay, I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority here, but I love Adagio’s new bags. They are cute and I like the feel of them and even the samples are resealable. I don’t know about everyone else, but I have a big box filled with empty tea tins – I don’t need more of them to clutter up my pantry. Yay for bags!

And yay for cute little leaves! These are little black and gold not-quite-pellets and smell malty and fruity sweet and possibly a little cocoa-y. The leaves unfurl easily while steeping and brew into a pretty dark liquid. Mmm, that smells very rich, sweet, smooth and malty.

Maybe my taste buds are wonky because everything is tasting sweet to me. Or maybe I’m just gravitating towards sweeter teas… Anyway, this one definitely tastes sweet. Sweet with a hint of grain (barley-ish?), smooth, a little bright fruity (plum? fig? blackberry?) on the front, a tiny hint of toasty on the end. It’s a very smooth tea that is surprisingly mild. The aftertaste really seems to stick around which makes the mildness of the next sip surprising. As it cools, a little astringency builds up but only to the ‘refreshing’ level, not the ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘unpleasant’ and makes the toasty want to turn into smoky (though it doesn’t quite make it there). And my empty cup is giving me whiffs of hot chocolate, which is interesting since I didn’t really pick up any cocoa notes in the taste.

This is actually very pleasant. Definitely recommended to anyone that likes the smoother Panyang or Fuijian type teas. (Yes, I know, Yunnan Noir is the name, but it’s so fruity sweet and smooth that I can’t help but associate it mentally with Panyang or Fuijian teas, just a slightly stouter version of them.)

squiggle ropes. ANOTHER very very pretty tea.
hand-rolled and elegant. i need to buy a small glass globe necklace or something. so i can wear a little tea around my neck sometimes.
for me, this tea is mellow upfront. even the scent is just slightly malty. then it turns into a warmer flavor, maybe that’s the chocolate notes? ending with a little dry aftertaste, which i like.
gentle and dark. that’s my short hand.

i’m really glad i have a lot more to try of this sample from TastyBrew. i’m gonna try to wrangle my ADHD boyfriend’s attention for long enough to have him notice the leaves as they steep. cuz this is another one of the teas i’ll have to keep an eye on before he drinks it all up in a blink.

This tea is good. It’s one of my first experiences with a Yunnan, and I really like it. I poured it out of the sample package, and the leaves are tightly rolled, shiny and almost snail-shaped. I steeped a few pinches in a paper tea filter. It’s the first time I’ve used a paper filter, and the first time I’ve tried this tea, so I suppose I wouldn’t be able to tell if I was getting paper flavor in my tea, but I don’t think I do.

This is a black I really like. It’s almost a heavy sort of mouthfeel, like it’s solid. There’s a bit of noticible astringency, but it’s not too strong. At the beginning, it almost reminded me of coffee, and as it cooled I’m starting to get some more cocoa notes in here. It’s very smooth.

Tea of the morning (my that seems so long ago) shared with the husband, thanks to Michelle! A decent black tea, not astringent, nothing offensive, held up to three infusions but no shining qualities either, except perhaps the cute comma shaped leaves. Husband said it mostly tasted like tea, but he could tell it was a Yunnan, that may be progress, or he might have just been saying that. It didn’t have strong sunshine and buttery toast qualities that I associate with the better Yunnan blacks, but then again I was drinking it with toast and butter so perhaps it got lost ;)

I loved it! I steeped it a bit long the first time because i walked away from it, so it was steeped for about 6 minutes which made it too strong for me, but on the second steeping it still held a rich smooth flavour. It’s kind of like Black Dragon pearls but more rich. This is the perfect morning tea. If people like English Breakfast, they’ll likely love this! I have to add milk to it, but it’s a great new tea for me!

I love watching these hand rolled leaves slowly unfurl and infuse the water with a golden brown color. The aroma is seductively laced with tones of honey and dried fruit amongst the woodsy base. Adagio has a winner with this tea that is both complex and consistently very good. Similar to Adagio “Yunnan Jig,” but with a touch more sweetness.

Matt: “My cup’s half empty.”
Jack: “I can never get this right without adding some water.”
Jason: “It feels bitter in my mouth.” – This is actually a direct quote :)
Group: “Over steeped!”, “Too bitter”

^{Brewed in Huge Glass Teapot}

A lovely tea indeed! I received 4oz of this beauty just over an hour ago to which I immediately made a cup straight away. The aroma is complex as the taste of the liquor, with hints of honey, a peppery like smell and of course an earthy aroma. The liquor brewed with boiling water just over 208 degrees gave off a stronger aroma of honey and a dominant earthy aroma famous of this tea type with a smooth, slightly sweet, and astringent on the palate. Flavors that make of the tea is dominant in (again) earthy, aged foliage, with a leathery/smoky undertone without the smooth velvet like chocolaty at the back end of the palate. A decent tea, a decent buy with a great price, deserved of Mrs.Luo’s devotion!

So good news… GOT MY ADAGIO SHIPMENT IN TODAY!!!!!! I was so pumped i bout dove into the box. This is one of the five i picked, basically, at random from the black tea list and was entirely to happy to have picked a Yunnan… funny thing though, i ended up picking 3 Yunnan and was ok with it.

I brewed at 3 minutes and 15 seconds at 195F. i added a small bit of honey and its really all it needed. First sip without sweetener, i picked up on a bold dark cocoa and maybe a little pepper, as well the aroma of the tea was strangely fruity and very sweet.

After the first couple small sips, i added honey and a smig of milk. This tea works very well with others, becoming very creamy and charming, building with the honey for a wonderful medley of flavors. As the tea cooled a bit, the tea flavor subsided a little and a natural fruitiness broke through. A perfect end to a damn near perfect tea.

I am a Yunnan fan and it just hit the spot for me. Thank you all for your suggestions and i’ll will talk to you all in the morning.

Hmmm… I seem to have had this tea before. Very chocolatey, hints of cream way down in the flavor, full-bodied… but I couldn’t put my finger on it until my fiancé smelled it. He took one or two whiffs and then said, “Be right back.” He came back with his tin of Teavana’s Copper Knot Hongcha… and we both agreed that they must be either the exact same tea or extremely similar.

So, folks, if you, like my fiancé and I, LOVE Teavana’s Copper Knot Hongcha, you will love this tea. :) It is good for up to about five steeps, and the leaves just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I love how relaxing it is, and I love how there’s not a drop of astringency, even in the first steep. An AWESOME morning tea!

I live! (again)

Finally manage to get myself moved and settled in. Sadly, my desktop is refusing to connect to Teh Internets, but at least the laptop works. Sigh.

My brother, who is usually a dork, but occasionally (like this time!) comes through sent me tea for my birthday! He is a giant tea snob, so he chose two unflavored black teas. Fujian Baroque and Yunnan Noir. And this is the one I’m trying first.

The leaves are adorable they’re these brown and yellow curls that remind me of very slightly relaxed jasmine pearls. Very aesthetically pleasing, I must say.

The tea itself tastes lovely. It is very smooth almost silky, with no bitterness about it, just a full, black flavor. Perhaps I shall try it out as a breakfast tea.

This is a staple in my tea bar. The tin contains curled black and yellow tea leaves. They’re not quite pearls but more like tiny nuggets. (Snails per the merchant) The fragrance they impart is what I would describe as “aqueous”- like clean, fresh water.

When brewed, the leaves unfurl to partial and full leaves and produce a bourbon* colored tea.

This is one of the smoothest, most mild black teas I’ve tasted. It’s mildly vegetative with no bitterness and is quite sweet for an unflavored black tea.

*Steep responsibly and remember- friends don’t let friends drink bad tea.

Trying my sampler. Brewed it light – 1 tsp/10 oz but has a strong smoky, earthy flavor. This reminds me of large elaborate Chinese banquets. Complex, reminiscent of puer’s dark tastes.

The tea is really fun to watch unfurl. The earthy cocoa notes are prominent. It is a nice black but not my favorite. With a little cream and sugar, it feels like a cup of coffee.

Man, I haven’t bothered writing about tea in so long. Sometimes it just feels better to just drink and enjoy it though, rather than think too hard about how to best describe it.

I actually gaiwan-brewed this; it’s actually been a long time now since I’ve broken out the old IngenuiITEA to western-brew anything in. Funny how my preferred teas and brewing methods change throughout the years. Six months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of sipping a black tea like this without the addition of milk. But today, I’m enjoying the soft chocolate and spice notes alongside a piece of buttery apple pie from the local bakery…just wonderful.

So I tried to log this yesterday and failed. Work got in the way…

The smell of the tea leaves before steeping is wonderful. Slight tobacco notes (but in a good way), notes of fruit, fig more than likely. Once steeped the tobacco smell is changed and is milder, and I am still getting a bit of fruit, although less than before steeping. It steeps to a delectable reddish brown that makes me look forward to that first sip…

Taste wise you have a very good traditional black tea. This one is bolder than ceylon sonata, but doesn’t pull out the baseball bat and hit me upside the head like an irish breakfast does.

I did buy a pound of this after trying the sample so I did like it a lot.

Light and fruity, berry-ish. Slight dry aftertaste.

This tea is my chocolate. :-)

A very nice tea. Not great, but very good. i got a smell of the best tobacco, with some dry cornsilk and bracken. Very smooth rich mouthfeel, with a bit of cocoa, but not much of the spice and pepper I usually associate with Yunnans. A more mellow one than usual. When it cools, the cocoa really comes out. Delicious!