Keemun Hao Ya A

So it’s official – good Keemuns are really good! Adagio’s Anhui, Chicago Tea Garden’s, Jackee Muntz and this one – they’re all a little bit different but they’re all good. They each have similar notes of rye and sweet and smoke but in different strengths and proportions. Adagio’s and CTG seem to sit on one side of the spectrum for me with softer, smoother notes and lots of complexity. Jackee sits on the other end, representing the Keemuns with a stronger, more straight-forward flavor and texture and oh yeah, if the stars align, major sweet-in-the-form-of-caramel notes.

This one strikes me as sitting pretty much in the middle of that spectrum, with some delightful characteristics of the Keemuns to either side. The dry leaves smell sweet and slightly smoky, which somehow combines to give me the strong impression of chocolate – more milk than dark, but listing slightly towards the dark side. Post-steeping, the smell is slightly smoky, rich and silky, with a bit of a dark grain/yeasty note that is too sweet to be bready and instead translates into almost crème brulee-ish. You might see where I’m going with this…

The taste is lovely. Not quite as complex as CTG’s or Adagio’s Anhui Keemun but still with that overall gentle smoky taste and almost-bready/grain-ish/woodsy solid note. Then a bit of stars-aligned Jackee pops up in the insanely smooth and silky feel. The end taste is especially smooth with no hint of a raw or acrid note that a lot of Keemuns seem to have. Instead, it’s silky, rounded and heavy. If this tea was a shape (other than, you know, the shape of whatever container you pour it in to) it would be a large, frictionless, dark garnet sphere – that’s how smooth it feels going down. It also has a strong sweet note – not quite as sweet as full-on-caramel-mood Jackee, but sweet enough that, combined with the thicker grain-ish/yeasty/solid note and the smooth, decadent feel, it makes me think a bit of crème brulee or custard.

Ultimately, I like the edge and greater complexity of CTG’s and Adagio’s Anhui Keemun just a hair more (a very tiny hair, in fact) but this is a really good tea. Those that find non-caramel Jackee a bit strong would probably really enjoy this one, especially the sweet notes and silky feel. Actually, anyone that enjoys Keemuns would probably like this one unless you tend to go for rougher, rawer feeling/tasting Keemuns – it’s truly delightful.

A big thanks to Angrboda for the share!

Is it just me or is Steepster responding really slowly these days?

Anyway, the finest grade of Keemun. How extravagant. I remembered liking the Keemun from Nothing But Tea a lot, but I can’t help feeling like TeaSpring, being specialists in Chinese teas and shipping directly from China, ought to be my first choice when it comes to my plain Chineses. Or at the very least thoroughly explored before making the choice to go elsewhere. They have a couple of other lower grade Keemuns too, so there should be some exploration ahead there, I think.

The dry leaves greet me with a very sweet aroma and a clear note of smoke. A little spicy too, but mostly surprisingly sweet.

After steeping it’s got a VERY sweet aroma, yes, even caramel-y. I’m reminded of all the Jackee Muntz reviews I’ve seen speaking of heavy caramel notes and glancing suspiciously at my cup. Might this be what I’ve found here? It’s all thick smelling, like you would expect the liquid to be all viscous. The smoke note is still present but not overwhelming and again a tiny little spicy note as well.

Oooh! Strong! I did involuntarily give it an extra 30s though, as I decided to give my cup a wash while it steeped and I was too slow. I must remember not to do that again.

The flavour is surprisingly heavy on the smoke considering it took a secondary position in the aroma. It’s all prickly all over my mouth. Underneath that we find the sweetness.

A sweet note with heavy smoke on top, that sounds a bit like LS but the sweetness is definitely different here. This is more sugary whereas when you really pay attention to LS that comes across as more fruity.

I’m not sure I would call it caramel-y though and the tea seems slightly bitter on the swallow, but I can see where it might turn really caramel-y with a little care and attention to steeping time.

On the other hand, I currently have a cold, so maybe my nose and tastebuds aren’t entirely to be trusted at the moment. Rating is subject to change. It is a very good tea and you can taste the quality, but right now I don’t feel it’s beating Nothing But Tea’s Keemun Superior which I scored at 95 points, but under better conditions I might try again. Considering how much more expensive this is, at the moment I would prefer the NBT. Once I’ve tried it under better circumstances, we’ll see if the rating will change.