Yi Hong Jing Pin A

Another from my recent ‘Explore China’ TeaSpring order, and it’s from the Hu Bei province, which is in mid-China, just west of Anhui, which is where Keemun comes from.

This one is another one that comes with a LOT of expectations from me. Auggy has had this one and she was very impressed indeed, so that really raises the bar for me as well. Auggy hasn’t been around much in a while, so many of you might not be aware of this, and many who were might have forgotten, but the thing is that when it comes to black Chinese tea, we have discovered ourselves to be taste twins. Or as close to it as it’s possible to get. We like so many of the same ones, and we tend to appreciate pretty much the same qualities in them. So when Auggy gives this stuff 98 points? It seems that it must be almost impossibly good.

The aroma of the leaves were a good start. They were very chocolate-y and had some fruity, raisin-y undertones to them. Perhaps a little leather-y too. Mostly chocolate-y though.

After brewing it seems to be the other way around, with the fruity, raisin-y note in the foreground and the chocolate-y one somewhat in the background.

The flavour, however, is all chocolate-y and raisin-y again. I think it’s about half and half of the two, but the raisin-y bit is simply the one I notice first of the two. On top of it all there is a thin layer of something vaguely floral.

It’s a smooth cup this, and I suspect that the chocolate aspect with start standing out more against the raisin-y note as it continues to cool down.

Yes, Auggy… I can see what you mean.

I’ve discovered that I need to do some backlogging of my TeaSpring teas from my order a few months ago. Whoops! Sadly though, I only ordered a very small amount of most of the teas – 25g – which seemed like a good idea at the time, but obviously wasn’t.

Because this is so good. The dry leaves smell like cocoa. And the tea juice? It tastes like cocoa! It’s so smooth and sweet and cocoa-y with a little woodsy aftertaste. It’s fantastic! Slurping brings out fresh bread and maybe a hint of a light preserves – a bit like pineapple preserves in that it is fairly mild on the actual fruit-tasting front. But yeah, this is so tasty, it makes me want to get up and do a little dance.

Well, except for the fact that it is gone. That is not dance-worthy. And it went so fast, too! But this tea pretty much guarantees I’ll be placing another TeaSpring order before too long. And ordering much larger sizes.