Hao Ya 'A'

Hmmm. I really haven’t been a huge fan of Keemuns in the past but I felt like I should try this sample again, plus I feel it’s good to broaden one’s horizons. When I look back on my tea tasting journey, I used to hate a lot of things which have recently grown on me.

This tea is very dark and I’m definitely getting the chocolate here. The aroma is a bit… interesting. Getting a bit of tobacco here, reminds me slightly of cigars and I’m also picking up on the smoke in the finish. It isn’t really a sweet kind of smoke like you might get with a lapsang, it’s more sturdy and earthy and as my cup cools I’m picking up on some bitterness so I’m going to try a shorter steep next time.

I know a lot of people love this one but I’m finding it a bit strong for me. I can definitely see why people put keemuns in breakfast blends, I think I might enjoy this more with a little something to help mellow it out. I definitely don’t hate it but I also don’t think it’s destined to become a favorite of mine.

Happy Steepsterversary to ME!! Yes, on December 1, 2009, I joined this cool looking tea site thinking maybe I’d check it out every once in awhile. Who would have thought that it would become such a rich source of happiness and fun for me! :) Thank you Steepster Overlords – you’ve created something wonderful :) and thank you Steepsterites! It’s been so great to read what’s in your cup each day and talk tea. I like you guys enormously!!! :)

I chose Harney & Sons Hao Ya ‘A’ for my Steepsterversary cup, because it typifies how my tastes have changed AND stayed the same over the year I’ve been on here. What has stayed the same? My favorite place to order online was Harney & Sons when I joined, and it still is :) (and I ordered A LOT of tea from all over the place to come to this conclusion). Also, I loved black teas the best when I joined, and that still holds true.

What has changed (dramatically!) is that I used to favor Assams and flavored teas with lots of milk and sugar, and now my absolute favorites are Chinese teas taken without milk and sugar. Now take this Hao Ya A. I think I would have just about died if I drank it on December 1, 2009. Now, I’m swooning over the dark roasty chocolate notes, deep sweetness, and slight smoke. It’s absolutely delicious and so satisfying. I adore it! It reminds me of Queen Catherine alot, but richer and more…single minded. Catherine has quite a few things going on, but Hao Ya A is a laser beam of roasty chocolate smoke. I think now that I’ve had both, I understand better why I thought Catherine would make a good afternoon tea.

Ah, I’m a happy Steepsterite today :)

Two more funny facts before I close this note. 1. One year ago today, I didn’t know that you could resteep tea! 2. Since December 1, 2009 I have had 552 cups of tea (NOT counting resteeps!).

As I prepare this, my hopes are high. It smells like it’s going to be a very good, strong black tea. The fine, narrow leaves have a sharp, dark, lightly smoky aroma. It’s almost like a lapsang souchong, but not piney. As it steeps, I smell notes of wheat and cocoa. Almost like kid’s cereal, but smoky.

The dark tea’s flavor is malty and toasted. Great for this wet, chilly day. The smoke also plays a part to strengthen and compliment it, lingering in the aftertaste and exhale. The cocoa does come through, but it’s not the most prevalent flavor. It’s a tiny bit on the astringent side, but not really that bitter. There’s certainly a lot going on in this Keemun, but I like it very much. It’s very satisfying. I will probably get another sample next time I order, along with the Hao Ya ‘B’.

EDIT: Coming back to say that this might be a tea to avoid if you’re caffeine-sensitive!

Today has felt like a Monday ALL day. Thankfully it was Thursday, as work days go it was the usual frantic phone calls and putting out fires here and there. Until my mom called and in a very curt voice told me I needed to come over as soon as possible to move anything I was storing in the apartment storage out. Longer story short…my brother and his girlfriend live in the apartment and want to expand it for more space into the storage area (which is huge). Of course he apparently wants to do this now. Awesome.

So now my dear husband and I will be driving an hour out and packing all this stuff up to try and find a place for it in our basement. This wouldn’t be so bad had my inlaws not dropped off massive amount of their items as they try to sell their house. SO as you can see I’ve had a heck of a day!

When I got home I went to work making room in the basement and when I was done I was determined to have some tea…this tea. I haven’t really had manny Keemun teas. So I thought I’d throw a sample of this with my order earlier this weel. Wel, it smelled chocolaty enough when I opened the package so I opted to have a brownie (gluten free) ok two brownies! Let me tell you the brownie only brought out the chocolate even more! Yum! I also noted the toasty flavor promised in the description.

It is very different from the Assam teas I am used to and I have to say I like different, I like it a lot. I’m not sure I’d drink it very often. Maybe a “break into in case of emergency” supply of sample sizes is in order? Yes I already have another Harney order building in my head. I’m so bad. :) I’m glad I opted to pick this one up….thankfully you CAN pick your tea even if you can’t pick your family.

*Note I’m not mad at my mother…she was feeling pressure from my very impatient brother and let it out in my direction…an apology came 10 minutes later.

Second tea of the morning……

Wow. This is the one. It is much smoother than Hao Ya B, but still roasty, and more intense on the dark chocolate notes one typically gets with a Keemun. More roasty than Keemun Mao Feng, so this one would be my morning Keemun, and KMF for afternoon. There was a slight price jump from Hao Ya B to Hao Ya A (about $1 per ounce), and to me it was worth it. I have spent more on teas I did not care for, and this is worth it at $5 an ounce. Perfection!

Usual mug method….

The multicolored short, choppy leaves are slightly smokey with an underlying sweet grassy note.

Steeping produces a dark cup. The spent leaves have a somewhat unpleasant acrid smell. The tea itself, however, is a smokey vanilla caramel.

Many of the reviews here mention chocolate notes. I didn’t get that and the flavor of this tea is new to me; it was like a mild lapsang with a touch of vanilla. It’s of medium body with a slight astringency.

This is a bold tea and I like this one a little more than Queen Catherine. The more I got into the cup the more I enjoyed it.

Decided to give this a try for breakfast. I ordered a loose sample with my most recent Harney order. This is a very nice bold keemun tea. I did detect a slight cocoa taste more like a dark semi bitter chocolate taste. I enjoyed the rich “roasty” taste of this one. I drank it without any additions. It was great on this dreary, rainy morning. Unfortunately the rain canceled our outdoor egg hunt plans with the girls.

Not as smoky as I was anticipating (makes sense though; my intro to smoke teas was a very hardcore lapsang souchong served at Crumpets and this is my first keemun-on-its-own); brewing it smells more like toasty chocolate than anything, with the smoke sneaking in on the chocolate note’s coattails. The smoke’s subtlety is really quite nice here because the bigness of the toasty chocolate aroma complements it so well.

Does taste rather bitter (which kind of works actually, with the chocolate aroma…makes it seem like an almost painfully dark bar of chocolate). I’d steep it for a minute less next time and see if that makes it perfect.

Powerful indeed. I need to spend more time with this tea before giving it a proper review.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple”. – Oscar Wilde

Harney and Sons’ Hao Ya ‘A’ is a complicated, beautiful beast. The dry leaf of this keemun has a strong musty scent with a very slight cocoa note. The wet leaf emits a more mellow, smoky smell. The scent is neither inviting nor offending. The strong, muscular scent does not necessarily translate to the taste. The brew is gentler with a dry-forest, earthy flavor. Woodsy. There is a profound dark toasty taste that intrigues. But the real stand out is the superb dark chocolate aftertaste. An exquisite dark chocolate that is finely bittersweet. The more I sip, the more I respect it. I’m loving this.

This is a thinker’s tea. Deep. Crafty. Quite possibly, menacing. I don’t see this as an everyday tea. This is a tea for a special occasion. An occasion where one wants to shake up life’s monotony. An occasion where one wants to question everything that is perceived as true.

This tea has a nice, dark color and a crisp, smoky aroma. The flavor is not bitter, not too dry and not very smoky at all, as I thought it would be from the aroma and my experience with other Keemun teas and blends such as English Breakfast. It is even less smoky than its nearly as delicious sibling, Hao Ya “B”. It has a very clean, crisp, fresh taste, very complex and sophisticated. This tea has a depth of character unlike any other tea I have tasted. This really is an excellent tea. It does not need cream or sugar to be fully appreciated, but I found that if you do use cream and sugar, both work better with this tea than either alone, but be cautious; you only need a very small amount of both to augment rather than overwhelm this tea’s natural flavor, which just keeps getting better and better with every sip. Even the aftertaste is itself a unique and flavorful experience. I must admit, this tea has greatly improved my heretofore under-informed opinion of Keemun teas and may indeed have supplanted others as my tea of choice. I am delightfully surprised by how delicious this tea is and I’m already looking forward to my next cup and to sharing this tea with others!

The leaves are a very fine dark brown with just a few grays to represent the experience contained in this tea. At once one will recognize the unique scent of this tea – an unmistakable smokiness beckons your sip. My first reaction to this tea was strongly towards a similarity to some coffees, but after about a cup and thinking about why this connection rose into my consciousness, I realized this was so because the distinctive taste stays with you as you exhale, especially through the nose. Coffee has a similar effect, a lingering aftertaste. The taste, however, is not that of coffee, there is a cocoa note underwritten by the tea’s characteristic smokiness. I had not previously been fond of Keemun’s but this is rather an exception, the swift kick it gives has grown on me and I drink this tea when I need to concentrate or get moving.

I finally broke down and purchased one of Chinas top 10 teas. I throughly enjoyed it. Well worth the money. I would highly recommend….

Good. I like others more, but I wasn’t disappointed. I do love chocolate, but this one was a little too … I don’t know. Bold? Smoky? Something like that. Would I buy it again? Probably not.

AMAZING

Had my first cup this morning. This is a good Keemun tea, but I think I like Winey Keemun by Grace Rare Teas a little better. I detect a woodsy, slightly bitter scent, but I wasn’t getting dark chocolate. I think I would like this tea a LOT more if I lowered the water temperature just a hair and shaved about 30 seconds off the steeping time. Will add a new note when I try that. That being said, I think this tea is supposed to be a bit bracing. After all, it is supposedly on the breakfast table of the Queen of England, and we know how the British usually take their tea – strong, with lots of milk and sugar! I added no milk and only a little sugar to mine. It could grow on me….

Starting off the morning here at Harney’s with a nice warm pot of toasty Chinese Keemun.