Yun Nan Dian Hong Black Tea

THis is a sample that I thought I had tried but apparently neglected. Luckily it was still sealed so when I opened it up I got a POW of aroma. The leaves are not whole but are in decent shape for an affordable yunnan and there are some golden ones in there. The aroma is richly cocoa, very bold and present, with a sense of bitterness and maybe some malt.

Steeped, the aroma remains as strong with the bitter malty notes over-riding the cocoa. I would like to have a cinnamon note here but I do not. I’m a little intimidated by the aroma, I tend to like my blacks a little gentler but smells can be deceiving. First sips reveal that I have been deceived. I’m getting some earthiness, some hay, some barn-like flavour that reminds me of a puerh. It’s not unpleasant and it is all supported by a sweet note but I can sense that this will build up in bitterness as I sip/the cup cools.

I think it’s the sweetness mixed with the earth that makes me think of fresh hay in a barn, and it’s really surprising for me. I’m not used to this in a yunnan, like I said above it is more of a puerh quality. I am pleasantly surprised by the flavour and feel it is much more complex than the initial aroma led me to believe. I am starting to get a sense of cocoa morphing into the back of the sip which is nice and more what I am used to. While I don’t think can take quite the same beating as my beloved Wild Black Yunnan from Davids, this one is a very nice offering. It also happens to be about $6 less per 50 grams than the Wild Black Yunnan which is a nice selling point. I think that next time I do a Teavivre order I may pick up more of this, or perhaps try out the next grade up in their Yunnan set (the full-leaf which contains more buds. For this price, I might pick up both of them!

I’m definitely digging this one – bold and rich but not bitter, that shows a good quality tea. I have a coworker who is super into Indian teas for their strength and not so much liking the Chinese blacks – maybe this one could help pull her over to my side! :)

This one surprised me. It’s rich and malty. There was a hint of dry hay like I get with Bai Mu Dan. I did find it to be a tad bit smokey. The hay and smoke were totally unexpected but they did work rather well. If I couldn’t find some thing like tarantula tea I would probably pick this one. It’s totally different but it really has a lot of character.

Experience buying from Teavivre http://steepster.com/places/2857-teavivre-online—

Date of Purchase/Date of Steeping: Received in the fall of 2011 as a free sample (Thank you Angel!), steeped up March 2012.

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: Very aromatic, woodsy, earthy, and like other Yunnan read teas I’ve had; mostly small dark leaves, with a few golden colored ones here and there.

Brewing guidelines: Glass Bodum pot, leaf free to roam; stevia added; used my standard Chinese red tea steeping times and temperatures; I did five steepings.

Color and Aroma of tea liquor: light coppery color, smells very aromatic and like any other Yunnan red tea.

Flavor of tea liquor: Very sweet and malty; it had good flavor up through the third steeping, and even some mild flavor on the fifth (at boiling, 10 minutes).

Appearance and Aroma of wet leaf: evenly colored, brown, medium-to-high grade CTC type leaves; << no notes on the aroma >>

Value: This is where this tea stands out: it is a great value $6.90 / 100grams (3.5 OZ) which is less than $2/OZ!

Overall: I am surprised there are so many reviews on the higher quality Yunnans from Teavivre but not on this one. Granted, Yunnans are one of my favorite black/red teas, still, I really liked the flavor of this one; I did not know this was a Yunnan until after tasting it, as ‘Yunnan’ was not in the name, and the leaves were darker that the other Yunnans I have seen (oh, how funny … I just looked at the first part of the name ‘Yun Nan’ humm Now I see it … Yeah, I’m an ‘airheard’!). I highly recommend this tea for those that love Yunnans and are looking for a very affordable everyday tea. I generally don’t include the value of the tea when I rate it (I typically rate it on merit alone), but if I were rate it simply on value, I’d give it a 5/5!

When TeaVivre offered their latest round of very generous samples, I asked for this one specifically. This is the lowest priced level of the 3 Dian Hong black teas they sell. Even at the low cost this is still a quality loose leaf tea with a fair amount of golden tips mixed in with darker leaf. The dry leaf is a bit malty and has some tobacco leaf scent. I used about 3g (a healthy spoon) and just below boiling water, steeping for 3 minutes in my French press. The liquor is a dark and clear caramel. The wet leaf scent reminds me of brownies. Like baked caramelized sugar and chocolate. (yeah, I know – Yum! Right?)

Comparing this to Golden Tips or Sun Moon Lake is unfair, but I can’t help it as I just tasted tested the latter. So let me get this out of my system – This does not have the wonderful sweet potato notes of the Golden Tips, and it does not have the amazing honey and mint of the Sun Moon Lake. So in this unfair comparison it starts off sounding a little bland. Yet it is $6.90/100g compared to $16.90 and $29.00 respectively. This is a really good tea on its own strengths. It is smooth and malty. I don’t know how this is processed and fired but I detect a light amount of smoke in the cup. That adds character and depth. The cooler the cup gets the more the flavor pops.

At the price point of this tea, having a nice Dian Hong for everyday would be enough. Yet, I haven’t even gotten to the reason I requested this sample. I had a hunch about this tea that I just had to try. I brewed the second cup and poured it over ice. As I suspected, this made a refreshing light glass of iced tea. Where as the mighty Golden Tips faltered over ice, this frugal version took it in stride. No sweetener or lemon required. There was one problem with it – my glass emptied way too fast :)

One last thing, I steeped this 3 times and it was still going strong. Let’s see Twinings do that.

My rating is higher than the others based on the iced tea option.

Thank you very much to Teavivre for this lovely (huge!) sample.
I finally have a chance to sit down and review a tea. It’s been crazy lately and so I am very very happy to have the chance to try this amazing tea.
Dry: Leaves are very soft.. not crunchy. They smell like umami and cocoa. Yumm I am in for a treat!
Liquor: 5.0 grams, 5 oz just boiled water, 5 seconds reveals a cup of light amber/ orange broth. Its smell reminds me of mushrooms. The taste is mineral with a little malty smokiness thrown in there. I pick up a bit of an odd spiciness too. I can’t place it…
2nd: 25 seconds revealed a brew that reminds me of cocoa. The color has a chocolate tone to it. The smell is screaming umami and cocoa.. saltiness too? The more it cools, the better the malty/cocoa/umami/smokey flavours come out. Very good.

Overall I am enjoying this tea, but I do think I like the BGB by Teavivre more as the flavours are more intense I feel. Still a really nice drinking tea.

Continuing on with Teavivre Black Tea today… Yunnan! It’s like we’re taking a tour of Chinese tea, ha!

I did order a sample of basically every black tea they had at the time (they’ve added two since). It’s great of them to offer samples so you can get a good sweeping view of their product line.

This is the Black Tea, the most economically priced yunnan black they have, at a little less than $2 an ounce. The flavor is bold and malty, with a hint of smokiness to it. Not a lapsang, and probably not as strong as the keemun I tried from Teavivre, but there’s definitely smokiness to it (which surprised me a bit).

Compared to the yunnan full leaf that Missy brewed next to this one, there are striking differences. This tea is bold and malty, where the full leaf is refined and mellow. It is definitely an interesting comparison.

We brewed these both a little on the strong side (7g for 16 oz). Made the flavor pop out good and strong for comparison ;)

Oh, the winner? Hrmm… hard to say. They’re just different.

So I requested samples of all three of the Yun Nan Dian Hong and unintentionally started with the most affordable. As such I won’t give this a numerical rating until I’ve tried the full leaf and the golden tips, which hopefully will be today.

However initial observations are that while this is a very good value and has decent leaf, it is not well suited to short steep times, which is fine as I am looking for a Yunnan for my husband who prefers western brewing anyway and I will prepare it for him in that matter. At the moment I am just trying to educate myself on this variety, I’m very curious how my taste buds will react to more tea buds.

This third steep at around a minute is really quite delicious and has much more flavor that the two previous at 15 and 30 secs. I unfortunately have a sore throat today, but this is quite soothing. This is the sweetest of the infusions and it also has some initial spice that smooths out later in the cup. Thank you Angel and Teavivre, I will add more are I do a side by side brewing this weekend with the husband.

I’ve been wanting a cheap Yunnan black tea so I purchased this. I figured, even if it doesn’t taste good it’s very cheap. ;)

Looking inside the tea pouch, the leaves look more complete than I imagined. There are some golden leaves, and while the leaves are broken they do not resemble specks of pepper (no tea dust).

The scent of the tea leaves is also encouraging. My senses immediately made the connection to Yunnan black tea.

Onto drinking the stuff;

Sipping from my tea mug, I’m tasting a nice full black tea body, familiar earthy Yunnan flavour, maltyness, and no bitterness (I brewed it to 5 minutes to check this).

Where I live, it is hard to buy any tea that isn’t absolutely rubbish for $7/100g locally. So for the price, it’s an amazing fresh black tea I can drink whenever and not feel guilty about the price.
Even though this tea is not comprised of golden buds, it doesn’t suffer much in the flavour department. Perhaps it’s not a terrific short steeper, but I’ve only met a handful of black teas I can slap that label on anyway.

500ml glass tea mug, 2 generous tsps, 1 steep

I’m at work, gulping down a glassful of this tea.

Pleasant. Malty. Slight fruitiness present, could be more. Thinnish.
This works fairly well brewn in a glass grandpa style.
Colour is beautiful golden brown, as it should be. Leaves are shorter than I would have expected from Dian Hong-

This isn’t very interesting. Not particularly intense, not complex, no notable qi, npt strikingly harmonious.
This is a good, pleasant, casual Dian Hong.

decided to place an order with teavivre a few weeks ago. mainly wanted to try out their bailin gongfu and figured i would pick up samples of other black teas while i was at it, i ended up buying this tea in a larger quantity because the value seemed very good and it was well reviewed here at steepster.

few notes on the teavivre packaging, everything came in bags(generic like most companys) but teavivre only puts 3.5oz into each bag and has the teas inside the zip bag in another bag, superior packaging imo.

the tea itself when you open the bag it smells sweet even spicy; a really pleasant aroma. taste wise it reminds me a lot of an earl gray at first…. just a really subtleness of the same flavor. the sweetness/mild spicyness comes through pretty well to the taste, also has a nice heavy mouthfeel

at first i wasnt sure if i was going to like it, was interesting but reminded me of earl gray too much(wasnt fond of); after a week-two of drinking ive taken a liking to it(complex teas take a while for me to get acclimated to.. had this experience with a fujian in the past)

overall so far this outshines the bailin gonfu for me, really glad i picked up more than a sample size of this…. great value tea, good tasting especially to those of you who prefer sweeter teas(blacks)