Jin Die

To celebrate our 5th anniversary married together, I prepared one of my husband’s (and mine) favourite teas: Jin Die.

Drinking from the first steep, I’m greeted with the familiar flavours of Jin Die: deep rich, earthy tea body, cinnamon, spices, tomato (not like SML), the liquor ends on a smooth-velvety feeling. An odd characteristic also makes it’s appearance here, the flavour of ripe puerh. It’s not something I expect from black tea, but I quite like it!

The second steep is much the same with some chocolate and pepper showing up.

As I keep drinking through the steeps, the flavour just keeps intensifying. Fifth steep brought out some caramel flavour, and was our favourite steep.

In each resteep the flavour started to weaken very gradually. I could taste the puerh flavour up until about the 9th, and much of the spice notes stayed up until the 15th.

I ended on the 16th steep because I really couldn’t drink anymore tea. It didn’t even have the taste of my water, just really weak, earthy, fuzzy, slightly sweet tea. The liquor had a yellow-amber colour, which is still pretty dark for so many resteeps I think.

Overall, I have always found Jin Die to be an amazing black tea, but this short steeping experience has heightened my enjoyment of it. As of writing this review, it’s my best black tea resteeper (Ying De Hong Cha from Jing Tea Shop had 14, Yunnan Dian Hong golden tips from Teavivre had 12). My husband isn’t obsessed with tea like I am, and he doesn’t always remember the flavour or names of our teas (especially if they are foreign), but Jin Die has left a powerful impression on him and it quickly became one of our favourites.

_{See previous tasting notes for more of my thoughts on this tea}

100ml gaiwan, 2tsp, 16 steeps (30s, +15s resteeps)
Up’d rating slightly

Still drinking this quite often. A few days ago I had a cold, so I made a nice big teapot of Jin Die and drank it all day. It’s a terrific resteeper, so I used the same leaves for 6 steeps. I like the feeling of hot black tea going down my throat when I’m sniffly.

Anyway, same sort of deal this morning. 6 steeps in my tiny glass teapot. The last two were a bit weak but still enjoyable. Especially since some black tea of mine isn’t very good on the second steep.

I’ll probably buy more of this again sometime. Depending on whether or not I just want to try different teas in my next order. It’s certainly a favourite, and has a good price considering the flavour and resteeps.

Jin Die continues to amaze me. It starts out like a typical smooth, earthy, almost kind of sweet or zesty, then subsequent steeps are a deep earthy flavour similar to pu-erh. I’ve also never had a black tea that was such an excellent resteepter (previous note had 6 steeps, and 1-5 were very dark).

This is another black tea in my collection that I enjoy steeping in a gaiwan (or my tiny glass teapot), because they are just tea buds with no debris, and it’s ideal for resteeping often. I’ve tried both long and short (start :30, then +:30) steeps, either way it’s a tasty treat.

(This is a continuation of my first tasting note today.)

After the first steep, the flavor changes pretty dramatically. Jin Die starts off like a typical black tea, but my second to sixth steeps all tasted like pu-erh!

So I used 3:30 for the first steep, and then 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 5:30 and finally 6:30. I gave the six and last one a bit longer because the color faded on the fifth steep.

I’ll absolutely be resteeping this one from now on. It’s like I get 2 different teas with just one teaspoon of leaves. I can’t believe how on the second steep it suddenly becomes so earthy, smoky, slightly malty and just pu-erh`y. I used a small teapot for this, next time I’ll do shorter resteeps with my little gaiwan. :)

Up’d the rating due to the awesomeness of this tea.