Rose Congou

Rose Coungou is one of my favourite teas and I’m craving a cup tonight before bed.

This blend smells like sweet rose petals which reminds me of my dads red roses that grow each spring. There are dark pink dried rose petals amongst dark brown thinly rolled and chopped up tea leaves.

Once steeped the tea is dark orange in colour with a sweet rose scent much like it’s raw form.

This tea is very refreshing and it leaves such a wonderful floral after taste. The Congou is smooth and velvety with light malted tones which is nicely finished with a gentle rose sweetness. There is also a slight sweet yet sour effect but at nice subtle levels.

I made the right choice, I will be tasting flowers as I sleep now :)

Oh, this is a classy classy rose congou. I was comparing it with my random generic rose tea from this old tea (coffee actually) shop and this is so different.

Not that the generic tea is bad, it´s actually pretty good (and the 100 grams I bought before this one was good, though this latest batch is not the same. They deny being a different tea, maybe it was due to freshness or being crushed or just differences with the blender. The problem with “generic” teas), and large enough leaf. But this is quite different – less roses, and a different rose smell. The generic tea is more full of rose petals (pretty filler but adding very little to flavour) and is richer in aromatic oils (oil can became bitter and just cloying). The generic tea is more one-note rosy. This tea has a different, more complex, more realistic but just as intense rose smell. Its leaves are also a smidgeon bigger and plumper. It brews much more subtle and much smoother. A very classy tea, if that description makes sense to anybody but me.

Notes – it is of course a rose tea. I usually find rose teas sort of fruity , in this case it reminds me a tiny bit of grapes.

This is a very nice rose scented black that has a similar flavour profile to my favourite rose white:
http://steepster.com/teas/big-active/35474-white-tea-with-rose-petal
hence I’m already disposed to look on it favourably.

It brews to a bright copper colour, and has a scent of tea rose mixed with a deeper , slightly bready tea scent.

The first taste is of rose water with a slight metaliic ting. While it captures a similar flavour profile to my favourite rose white tea it lacks a bit of the sweetness and most of the citrus notes the white possesses. The tea underneath is quite smooth with very little astringency, just enough to leave a freshness in the mouth. The base tea has green vegetal that blends well with the rose flavour as top
notes that dissipate into a sweet fruity, raisiny base with biscuit notes. The tea is not powdery or overtly perfumy. It resteeps quite decently with the rose becoming a little more peppery and the base developing a faint hint of liquorice. I would enjoy keeping this tea in my cupboard.

Dear, sweet, merciful teacup, this was good. I had no expectations of what Rose Congou should taste like, but one sniff, and one sip, and I now have my ideal Rose Congou in my head. Made a cup for Cara and she liked it as much as I did (and also added wisely that it didn’t smell like her paternal grandmother, who always wore rose perfume!). Like drinking not just a rose garden, but a garden full of tea roses.