I hate c25k with the burning passion of a thousand suns. There I said it. Now let’s move on.
Here’s another Explore China tea, and as some of you may have noticed it’s a Yunnan black.
“Hey, hang on!” I hear some of you exclaim. “You keep saying you don’t care for Yunnan blacks!”
“Yes,” I answer, “that is quite correct. Well spotted! However, there is the odd exception to the rule, and this is it.”
“But you keep saying that Yunnan black tastes like hay and you can spot it mile off!” I hear some of you protesting.
“I can. But not ALL Yunnan black tastes like hay. Most do, but some don’t,” I reply patiently.
“Hmmm…” I hear some of you mutter sceptically. “Ang with a Yunnan black… this cannot end well.”
Well, let’s not turn the whole thing into a screenplay, lest we be forced to act it out. 95% of all Yunnan black teas I seem to come across are the golden type. Those, I do not much care for. Those, I often feel is a mouthful of wet hay. Those, I can only drink and enjoy when in the proper mood (under which circumstances I do find them very enjoyable)
But this stuff is different. This stuff is like being smacked round the head with toffee! I want to say it’s a bit chocolate-y, but that’s not really it. Neither is it properly caramel-y, so fudge or toffee is the closest I can get here. It’s that sort of candy-like sweetness with a touch of malt underneath. Just enough to make it not smell like a sweetie shop and just enough to give it a hint of grain.
I have to say I botched the steeping slightly because I wasn’t using the timer and it went slightly over the time I had expected it to end up at, but I can inform you that the leaves didn’t care. It’s not bitter, it’s not astringent, and it doesn’t even taste particularly strong.
There’s a slightly woody flavour to it, which somehow comes across as a more mature sort of that hay flavour that I normally associate this region with.
It’s also rather more cocoa-y than it was in the aroma and less of the other types of sweets I mentioned. The malt is still there though, just a little bit, and the grain-y aspect is a little less obvious.
I had this tea yesterday as well, three steeps of it. I have to say the third steep wasn’t really all that worth the effort, as it was quite thin in flavour, but it was still fairly nice. I’m quite pleased with this purchase.
And if anybody can explain to me what it is that makes such a huge difference between this Yunnan black (or those dragon balls for that matter) and those other golden ones, the ones that I don’t care for, please do.
