Mi Xian Black

I had a lovely tea party yesterday with my parents. I made finger sandwiches, jam thumbprint cookies, poppyseed shortbread cookies and a couple types of tea, one being Mi Xian Black.
I adore this tea and felt that it would be a great choice to let my parents try. They both loved it too. My dad was very interested in the history of the honey notes of the tea and happy the process was not like kopi luwak coffee…. He loved the natural honey flavor and could taste fresh citrus. My dad is a chef so I was not too surprised at him noticing this tea’s subtlety. My mother really enjoyed this tea as well, she said it had such a clean flavor and that most straight black teas she has tried have a “mustiness.” She really has only tried grocery store teas.
I replied, “Welcome to the world of fine teas!”
They both now want to come over regularly and pick things out of my cupboard to try.
But what really shocked me is that my mom brought me a small gift. A yixing teapot!
I couldn’t believe it. She picked it up in a thrift store. It still has a little sand in the bottom which makes me think it has never been used or loved…
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/d2uKAnHvHzO4fh_MgliAEhZgvqRNEkNLo6PVlNcRmOc?feat=directlink
This is my first yixing teapot. I think I have the perfect tea to love this teapot…Mi Xian!

I enjoyed this so much last night that I had to have another cup today. I do that. I’ll love something so much that I’ll drink it exclusively and then, BAM! Gone! (216)

I’ll need to get more eventually. Maybe for Stacy’s birthday sale. :D

It’s funny – drinking it today I notice far more peachy notes than I do with the honey. It’s much fruiter and juicier than I remember from last night. Is it the cup that makes a difference? Who knows. I’ll resteep it and mull on this further.

Thank you Stacy for this juicy tea sample!

I can understand why Stacy stocks this tea so that she has plenty on hand for herself! It’s really good tea!

This morning, when I saw the words ‘Black Tea’ on the sample packet, I casually picked it up thinking, "OK, a nice Black Tea for my morning kick in Le derrière ".

The leaves were long and beautiful. Chocolate brown twisty fingers.
With such dark leaves the liquor was lighter than I expected,
very clear and fragrant, with a scent like apricots and honey.

Before tasting my tea I went to the freezer and took out a few of my prized dried California Apricots (the plump ones that are hard to get ) and cut them up to gather the aroma. ‘Sniff’
The scent was the same as the tea!

I took a sip and the black tea was honey apricot without any maltiness. The mouth feel was rich and full even though you would have imagined at first that the tea was light as a feather.
The smoothness hides the slightest tingle of astringency as the tea cools. There is plenty of juiciness and sweetness, but it’s really all about the golden apricot honey which is hypnotic and swishes you away.

Being raised in Northern California, Apricots were plentiful and never cold packed like the kind you find in the stores today.
My mom (Pat) canned them, grandma (Lolita) made jam, and I picked them off trees to eat fresh, made desserts, and froze them for my kids as popsicles.

Before Silicon Valley was ‘Silicon Valley’ it was agricultural and had orchards and Canneries. Sunkist, Del Monte, S&W, Hunts, Libby’s, and Marianni’s all were there, and in the Summer the teens from my High School worked cutting ‘Cots’.
(Yes, there were no McDonald’s jobs because in the earlier 1960’s there were almost NO fast food restaurants!)
You cut ‘Cots’ (apricots) and got blisters on your hands for minimum wage, and were glad for it! If you were frugal, you might earn enough in a Summer to buy a $100-$200 used car!

Years later, (1980’s) across from the Apple Computer World Headquarters in Cupertino, I noticed an acre of huge drying flats of apricots laying in the sun at Marianni’s Cannery. The old and the new were side by side (and now gone).
A last remnant of what was once a lush valley of 100,000 that had been replaced with concrete and a population of over a million people.

Some have never tasted an apricot fresh off the tree when the sun has ripened it with a blush of red on the skin. The sweetness at just the right moment is juicy and bursting with life.
Try to stop at a stand where they are fresh if you can.

This youtube is somewhat bizzare, shows a 1955 film of Silicon Valley agriculture (a silent movie with soundtrack). Makes me want to cry because it’s gone! I lived for 12 years across from a Prune orchard and vineyard which are part of a freeway now. http://youtu.be/-PacfbdTIms

This tea for me was one reminder of my childhood and I want pass this kind of flavor memory forward like my family did with me.
One of the reasons that I love the organic farms and buying local!

Thanks Stacy! (I know Stacy tastes PEACHES but I taste APRICOT)

Mmm, this one steeped up bright and fruity for me today. I want to sip and savor it but I also want it to hurry up and wake me up…I have the afternoon sleepies.

After the tasty but a bit lackluster Ceylon of this morning I wanted to try something that would wow me. I have seen a lot of love for this tea so I figured it was time to give it a go. The leaves are very long, thin and twisty which made measuring some out an experience but I got there in the end.

Steeped, I get another orange cuppa with aromas of citrus and cream. That might be a mental association because of the colour, but that is what my mind gives me! The flavours are a bit of a chameleon, starting rather plain and light, leading me to think I had under steeped it. After cooling a bit though I get some creaminess and a definite natural sweetness that really appeals with some stone fruit flavours. At the end of the sip things morph back to a ‘regular’ OP sort of taste, but with each sip the flavours accumulate. This is not one to have with a snack as you lose the concentration of flavours when you eat or drink something else.

This one is a lot more interesting than some other Butiki Teas for me but at $6.35/.5 ounce (that’s only 14 grams, folks!) I definitely won’t be restocking. Wow, this is probably one of the most expensive teas I have ever drank. I wavered when ordering but hoped that it would be manna from heaven based on the reviews. Alas, not so much. I estimate I will get 4 cups from this .5 ounce, so this is about $1.50 per cup. That is a hard pill to swallow. I think I will try re-steeping later to see what I get. Rating reflects cost and value.

So.

I got pregnant last spring and within a couple of months realized that being pregnant made me hate tea. I’d open my cupboard and all the flavored tea smells mingling together turned my stomach. So I basically spent 30 weeks not drinking tea. Except for Tetley, the old Canadian grocery store standby. And make that 30 weeks plus 5 weeks because now I have a five week old tiny human.

I have been trying to get my tea love back (lust, really), starting with old favorites that are a sure thing, like creamy earl greys and some butiki teas and kusmi and harney and sons. Hating tea has been bad news for my over the top flavored tea stash… I’m hoping they’re all still good. I’ve been giving samples away to friends so that someone could enjoy them. Was even debating doing an ebay listing or something.

I am in no position to review anything really at this point, but consider this one of my “dipping my toes back in” teas. Anything super flavored still makes me cringe. All I have wanted to do over the last 9 months is drink coffee, and that remains the case.

Bear with me! Bare with me? Either one will do!

I have basically forgotten all the tea brewing and reviewing rules!!

(Edited to correct an annoying typo. Sorry!)

This smells almost wine-y when dry. Like fermented fruit. Steeped it still smells strongly of fruit. Not sure I can pick out which one or ones in particular, just fruit. But not sweet.

A wonderful, deep and smooth flavor. Quenching and yet with just a hint of dryness at the end of the sip. Another leafhopper tea that meets with high approval. Those little bugs are pretty good for tea, apparently. :)

After the CUP OF COFFEE I had this morning (So there, JustJames.), I used the tea randomizer (yay!) and it pulled up this tea. Miracle of miracles (since my cupboard on Steepster is a mess), I actually still had this in my stash.

Since I only had 2 tsp left, I did 2 steepings in 8 oz and poured them into a bigger mug. This tea also goes well with candy corn. It’s delicious. Light and sweet. Very complex. Doesn’t really need anything added, although some honey might be nice.

This is an “Oops, I sat down to write a note and the tea is gone because I got distracted and drank it all” note.

Definitely worth getting again, even though it’s more of an afternoon tea than a morning tea for me.

Thank you Stacy for including this sample. What a treat!

Great looking long black whole leaves. There is so much flavor coming from this tea. This may be the mellowest bold tea, with its green fruity character. I know, seems contradicting. How can it be this full in the mouth, yet mildly cleansing of the palate?

This tea is refreshing and clean. Reminds me of the mist after an early spring shower. Invigorating and engaging. It’s as if you can smell the beginning of new life from the fresh blades of grass, springing up from its underground death during the winter.

There is plenty of the sweet peachy notes with a touch of creaminess. I like the way this tea smells and taste. It has a lingering good astringency. What a true treat and delight, found in this tea. Completely in a class of its own, amongst the other black teas. Glad I had the opportunity to enjoy this tea as my last cup of the day.

Sipping down my sample from Nicole this morning.

It’s been an odd morning – slept really hard and had weird dreams, woke up tired even though I slept for 8.5 hours, it’s rainy as heck, and I was going to practice my bass but then decided at the last minute that I should probably help get the house ready for my friend coming over tomorrow.

I underleafed it again. Good thing I’ve still got some wet leaves to resteep for work. This flavor is exactly the bold, smooth, comforting thing I need this morning. I’m so glad tomorrow’s Friday.