Fengqing Dragon Pearl Black Tea

Oh man. I can’t even write a proper tasting note right now because I totally just asked out a guy that I met yesterday, and am pretty much freaking out about it… (Mostly that he won’t respond… but also that he will…. gah!!) This is new territory for me…

So, uh, anyhow…. I really think I should have stuck to a rooibos/herbal tonight since I’m already really wound up, but I had brought this tea and my sample of Bailin Gong Fu Black downstairs on Friday night to try, but didn’t get around to it, and really wanted to experience the chocolatiness that everyone else has been! Thank you to Teavivre for the opportunity to taste and review this tea!

I used 5 pearls in my infuser, and the temperature probably wasn’t as close to boiling as it should have been, but oh well. The aroma when I cut open the packet was incredibly chocolatey and delicious – kind of crazy (hey, matches my mood!)

The tea tastes malty and chocolatey, perhaps a little less chocolatey than expected, but still quite good. I’m getting almost a yeasty-ish, bready note that I don’t remember finding quite as strong in Verdant’s chocolatey blacks, but it’s not bothersome. The tea is a little weak though, in my opinion, and I’m not sure if that’s because I should have steeped it longer (I went with three minutes), used more pearls, or because I added a bit of cold water after it was done steeping to cool it down a bit so I could drink it sooner (I should say here that I steeped it in less than 8 oz. water to begin with by accident, and the addition wouldn’t have put it over that). I’d be very curious to compare it directly to the Laoshan Black, but I only have a cup’s worth of that one left and don’t want to waste it on a night of comparisons.

… (I so don’t even know what to do with myself right now!)

ETA: This tea held up to a second infusion quite well! Still chocolatey and pleasing. I’m not sure how long I steeped it, but it could have been slightly too long, as there’s a bit of astringency. Still good though.

ETA again: Third infusion, a couple(?) days later, still has enough flavour to be enjoyable, although I do admit I steeped it in a smaller volume of water. I can’t recall now if I went for 3 or 4 minutes, but there’s no astringency this time, just maltiness with flourishes of cocoa every now and again. Really quite pleasant. This tea has definitely made the short-list for teas to buy when my stash is a bit smaller! (And I haven’t checked the price, but I think it is affordable?)

Thank you Angel and Teavivre for this delicious Sample!

This morning I was relieved to find that the wind had scooped out the low fog-like smoke from the ground and I could breathe easier. I really wanted some tea in a big way! I felt so sick last night, nauseated from inhaling the dense soupy smoke out by my daughters house that ended up dropping down on my place 10 miles from her less than a half hour later.

I steeped these gorgeous Bronze Onyx Tea Pearls Western Style in a glass pot so that I could watch them unfurl. I wanted several cups of tea to cleanse my body from the soot I had inhaled last night from the Larimer County Fire.

This was THE perfect tea choice for this morning!

I had no idea that these little pearls would produce the most delightfully cocoa nib flavored tea of any tea I’ve ever had.
Other tea’s I’ve enjoyed had cocoa or chocolate flavor coupled with malt, yam, cinnamon. But this, was pure cocoa. Try as I would, I didn’t find malt, yam, potato or any distractor lurking in the shadows waiting to sneak out of hiding with an “aha, gotcha”.

I have a treasured little French Bakery as big as a shoebox in Oldtown Fort Collins. The sign outside the shop says ‘Only One Person at a Time Enter Please’ posted there because the shop is so small. Inside there is a glass case lined with pastries that are works of art. Buttery beauties and sugered sweeties. Best of all are the Macarons. Ohhhh the Chocolate Macarons (French spelling)…so light they would float on air. My Black Dragon Pearl Tea was like the Chocolate Macarons. So very Parisian. Smooth, light and cocoalicious.

I’ll buy some of this tea…it is really the best black cocoa tasting tea I’ve had. Now I have 2 Verdant favorite Black Tea’s and 2 Teavivre’s.

The Today Show was on while I was enjoying my cup and was showing the Larimer County Fire…right here. I saw a helicopter picking up some water. Hum, it looked like the little lake about 3 miles from my house.
I picked up my camera and walked to the end of the complex and was shocked to see the fire was right up my hill from me behind Horsetooth Reservoir. Yikes! My daughter called me and we set up a plan in case I have to get out of here. I walked to the end of the complex and took a picture.

http://flic.kr/p/cdCuDm

This sample was provided by Teavivre – thank you!

I wasn’t sure how many pearls to use, I have a mug that’s about 10 oz. and I used 4 pearls but it sounds like other people may have used more. The aroma of the wet leaf is fresh and malty with a touch of sweet tobacco.

The predominate notes I am picking up here are of malt, but it is definitely a lighter and sweeter sort of malt than one would find in an assam, for instance. The tea liquor is a clear reddish-brown. There are also subtle notes of chocolate present and I’m picking up on a bit of fruitiness. I maybe crazy but I am getting plantains… ha.

The tea does not have much astringency and is fairly sweet and pleasant. To me it’s a bit reminiscent of a golden monkey.

I did get a very respectable second steep out of this with a slightly longer steeping time (4-5 minutes).

Very much looking forward to this sample! Thankyou Angel and Teavivre for this generous sample

I used 4 pearls
Dry smell: like smoky hot chocolate
Appearance: golden amber
Smell wet leaf: almost like a malty milkshake

Taste: Delicious, malty, slightly sweet, smooth. Cocoa notes.
It leaves a wonderfully warm and comforting feeling throughout my body.
Delicious to have that cocoa taste but tastes so natural

2nd steep 1.5min—slight astringency in the aftertaste

I would re-steep some more but it is getting late in the day, I will have to save the leaf for tomorrow morning.

Edit: 3rd steeping from last night’s leaves, 3 minutes. This tea is starting to lose it’s sweetness a little bit but it is still delicious.

I would do more steepings, but I have so many other teas left to review!

Holy Hannah, these are huge. I expected pearls, not marbles – and I am in love. Taste and smell aside, these things are beautiful. I requested a sample of these a few months back and Teavivre graciously obliged…then they somehow ended up in a strange place and never got used. My bad. Teavivre, thanks again for the sample – I’m so in love with the look that as long as they taste halfway decent, I’ll be ordering more (and some Bailin Gongfu!).

I used 4 marbles and steeped them in nearly boiling water for 3 minutes (my standard black tea steep setup). The liquor is amber, but lighter than many black teas. The aroma is bold, reminds me of cigarettes/cigars. Typically that would be unpleasant, but this isn’t. It’s like the sweetness of tobacco mixed with something musty and rich. Old leather? There’s a hint of “ashtray” which I don’t like, but hopefully that’s just a smell.

First sips are rich, very rich. Like very dark chocolate, sans sweetness. There is a smokiness in the taste which probably explains the “ashtray” aroma I was getting earlier. It is mild, but very there. Reminiscent of a campfire with dark chocolate smores. Now, typically I don’t enjoy smoke or dark chocolate, but this is working for me. It’s very smooth, there is no bitterness, nothing with bite. It is very different from other black teas I’ve tried, but I think this is something I want in my cupboard. I don’t think of it as an every day tea, but I could totally get a hankering for this.

I’ll need to try it a few more times (and get the beau’s opinion too) but I think this is definitely something I should order. I’m running low on good plain black tea, so I should stock up. Right?! : )

I do love black pearls … OMG. It’s been a while since I’ve had some, and it’s kind of like meeting up with an old friend that I’ve not seen in a while. Lovely!

I brewed this in my gaiwan just so that I could watch the pearls unfurl … and I don’t know if it’s the brewing method or that these pearls are just awesome but, these taste even better than I remember (I’ve tasted the black pearls from thepuriTea and these are just as good if not better, red blossom tea company – these are just as good if not better and also the black pearls from teavana, and these are better than I remember those tasting)

Rich, malty, and very deliciously chocolatey! So very yum! I do love these pearls. Love LOVE love them!!!

I was excited when Angel said this one would be in my next round of samples because I’ve never had a black pearl tea before, but (not to sound like a broken record), since I am getting into Chinese black teas lately I really wanted to try them.

The pearls are so big! Compared to jasmine pearls, that is. They dark with lots of golden streaks and they smell kind of molasses-grainy, but also like hay. I kind of used my perfect teaspoon to dish them out (3 per scoop!) and ended up with 5 pearls for my 12 oz mug, which seems to be similar to what others have used and is in the middle of Teavivre’s brewing recommendations.

My pearls pretty much completely unraveled after two minutes, which I didn’t really expect! Brewed, I smell toasted semi-sweet chocolate, like when there are chocolate chips on the bottom or edge of the chocolate chip cookie and they get a tiny bit burnt. And maybe there’s a bit of that hay in the steeped aroma, too. I am sipping it while it is still too hot for me to taste much of the tea itself, but there is an incredible sweet aftertaste to it. Cooling, cooling… I just can’t help but keep coming back to it before it’s cool enough. Now I’m getting definite sweet chocolate flavors, actually incredibly sweet, which is funny because as I have been smelling the steeped tea I have decided it doesn’t smell sweet at all. But it tastes very sweet, and honeyed, which I love. There’s some other note there coming out now that seems familiar but I can’t place. There’s almost a savory note underneath the sweet note, oddly enough, and it works well.

Love it, love it, love it. I also love that I know that Teavivre has such great prices and quality that I don’t need to shop around for other black pearls. In the end this would probably just be my favorite anyway. Thanks so much for the sample, Angel!

I used 4 “balls”. and eventho the product description says ‘slight chocolate’ I picked up a whole bunch of chocolate-malty-goodness in this! Incredible!

I’m going to do another infusion after this as well.

This is just what I need at the moment, just want I crave! I really like this! A LOT!

SUPER YUM!

Thanks to Angel & Teavivre for this generous sample

First off, I love Teavana’s Black Dragon Pearls. That’s actually one of the only teas I buy from them, & the convenience of being able to zip over to the mall & get some is pretty nice. It’s a yummy malty breakfast tea that I enjoy. SO I thought I would brew a cup of that alongside Teavivre’s Fengqing Dragon Pearls, just to see if there was really any difference.

Dry, the difference was noticeable. The Fengqings were smaller, but more aromatic, with a little more of a malty smell. I used 6 of the teavana pearls in one 8 oz cup, and 8 of the Teavivre in another. The main difference I noticed in taste was that the Fengqing had a bit of a berry flavor, & then I realized that I had ruined the taste test. Damn!

You see, last night I made a cup of decaf blackberry vanilla black from some local tea company. It was a gift from one of my students a few years ago, & I was really just trying to use it up to get it out of my cupboard. I ended up dumping it out, it just wasn’t really a tea that I enjoyed. I swear I washed my tea strainer well! But somehow that flavor stuck, & ended up in the morning’s cup.

SO…the taste comparison was ruined! Luckily, there was enough tea left for another sample, & although I’m not doing another comparison test, I will say that this is a very tasty, malty, satisfying cup of tea, with chocolate croissant undertones, just the way I like it. It is delicious & smooth plain, & also quite tasty with stevia! Yum!

This tea is fun to watch steep. Not as fun as flowering teas, but close.

This tea is really sweet and chocolatey. It actually kind of reminds me of a mocha. It’s a bit malty too. I’m not getting much of other notes than that. That’s not to say it’s boring. It’s super smooth, and the flavor is really enjoyable.

I imagine this will be good for a couple resteeps since the pearls didn’t entirely come apart. I think this would be really good to have in the morning too! I’m hoping it’ll get me back to working on my paper but I had so much tea arrive today I just want to try it all. A cup of something new per page, perhaps?

I love black dragon pearls! So sweet and cocoa tasting. The notes of chocolate are on the dark chocolate spectrum of cocoa flavors which is wonderful, but there is also this sweet, roast, almost marshmallow like flavor as well. Add to that a baked flavor goodness this tea reminds me of smores!
A staple for sure.
I am enjoying this cup SO much that I am finding it difficult to allow it to cool down much – burns be darned I will sip this tea boiling hot! lol beware!
I will need to pour a second cup to let it cool a bit as we find new flavors when a tea cools a bit … so … be right back … ohhhh mmmmmm nummy.
Yes I realize my review is not flowering with eloquent words here and in no way can my words match the goodiness of this tea but it is transporting that is for sure.
This is not only a tea that can perk you up but also unwind you depending on what it is you need in the moment. There is this slightly smoky flavor coming through as it cools but nothing like a lapsang souchong by any means just this nice toasty flavor that is very understated.
I do pick up a subtle yam flavor in here as well but I LOVE yams so that is alright with me!
This was a free sample from Angle at Teavivre and I want to give her a big thank you for it! Now I have to get some ordered! So delicious!

So I heard lots of good things about this tea. Sadly, I don’t find it all that tasty. Did I brew this wrong? It was kind of sour. I do some of those chocolate flavors people are talking about but it’s also kind of bitter. I think I’ll use a lower temp next time. I find the boiling water never really works out for me unless it’s an herbal. I suppose I’m sensitive to the stuff the boiling water brings out of teas. And there’s a lot of caffeine in this. Holy cow.

I’ll try this again before I rate it.

As I was brewing this, husband walked by and said, “I was looking for some tea this morning and I noticed that you have way too much!” He doesn’t touch my stash usually. He has no real idea how much tea I have. There’s more hidden under my desk. muahaha

Thanks so much to Angel and Teavivre for these samples! They took a little while to get here, but in perfect condition. Teavivre is, in my opinion, well worth the wait.

I’ve never had a black pearl tea – the only pearls I’ve ever had are the small jasmine ones. I went for that little sample packet first. Upon opening it, I was surprised by how large the pearls are, and how tightly packed. They’re mostly a dark mahogany color with little striations of a lighter yellow, sort of like pine. I suppose trees are on my mind today – it was Red Pine Forest day with my preschoolers at camp. They very much enjoyed building “mouse houses” in the dips between the tree roots!

Tea! The dry leaf smell immediately conjures up something musty and dark. There’s almost a hazelnut to it, but there’s something more than that. It sort of reminds me of walking through a darkened barn, with the scents of hay and leather hanging thickly in the air, the rustle of horses and cows as they shift about and flick their tails to ward off the flies.

Never having had a black dragon pearl this big before, I think I overdid it – I put three pearls in my little tasting cup and steeped for around 15 seconds the first time. The wet leaves have such a distinctive smell – it’s the same scent as of the dry leaf, but sharper, finer, more present. It’s not as muted. I read recently that the human nose works best in warm, damp conditions… I can definitely see that here! I don’t smell so much of the hazelnut connection as I do something burnt… not badly burnt, but deliberately charred. I can’t think of what, though. Chestnuts at Christmas? Macadamia nuts? There’s more than a little bit of dark chocolate in here too, and some notes of currant. Chocolate covered nuts? It’s bothering me that I can’t put my finger on it, especially because it’s so distinctive and I just know that there’s a name for it.

The liquor of the first steep is a warm golden-red in the white porcelain tasting bowl. I notice immediately how smooth the mouthfeel is. There’s almost no astringency or drying, and it leaves a sweet aftertaste on the tongue. The scent I identified in the scent is extraordinarily present in the taste. Usually I have a hard time distinguishing exactly what something is going to taste like based on the smell, especially straight teas (It’s much easier for me to approximate the flavors of spicy chais or fruity herbals) but there’s a direct link to the taste of the tea all the way back to the smell of the dry leaf.

Second steep, and as I pour the water into the cup it immediately blossoms a deep red. The pearls have mostly unrolled and are like spider legs climbing up the side of the cup. The liquor is a deep red-brown color. Definitely overdid it with the pearls – the first thing that hits my tongue is a strong astringency. It actually helps define the flavors I was missing earlier – it almost reminds me of a graham cracker. That coupled with the chocolate notes and the astringency in this steep – it’s like a warm summer night, all your friends sitting around a firepit, roasting marshmallows on sticks, the smoke blowing through the breeze and stinging your eyes when it’s aimed in your direction.

Possibly the best black tea I’ve ever tried!

Edit:

I’m steeping three pearls now, Western Style for three minutes. It’s just as good, and I’m even getting notes of butter in the middle of it. Incredible! This tea just keeps on giving!

Tea of the afternoon……

I bought this one without sampling from TeaVivre in my last order. I love black pearl teas. They are so fun. This one is very similar to my Red Dragon Pearl from thepuriTea, but at a much more reasonable price. If you are buying a pound, they are close, but if you want smaller amounts, thepuriTea charges quite a bit more per ounce and their price per ounce decreases siginificantly with the increase in amount purchased. Also, TeaVivre makes it much easier to get to the level of free shipping which is always a bonus, and usually means I will order more often. It might take a little longer to get a package from China than California for me, but I can usually wait.

The tea is great. I used 6 pearls in my ForLife Tall Tea mug and it came out perfect. The liquid is a dark amber, there are notes of chocolate and malt, and this is just begging for a resteep. Very good, and I am very happy that I just ordered 100 grams, rather than sampling first.

(I did sample a few others, and just to let you know what the packaging looks like….since the samples for sale on the website are 10 grams, they came in 2 small pouches that are well labelled but not resealable. The small pouches are similar to the size of their other samples that come in 5 gram amounts, but the packaging is silver with the TeaVivre logo on it, rather than the individual packs from the tea packer. I also got a free sample of Da Hong Pao.)

Thank you Teavivre for this great sample!

Pure chocolate-y goodness! Malty, thick and smooth, along with a tiny amount of good astringency.

The recommended time to steep was 1-2 minutes, of which I choose to go a little longer. The liquid was still much tamer than a bolder Assam, and had a medium brown appearance.

These nice sized pearls were delightful to watch unfurl. They seemed more to explode in slow motion, than unwind. There is a ton of great looking leaves in each of these balls.

The tea is definitely quality enough to steep a couple different times. The second steeping was very pleasing as well!

This one is great, very nice and malty with lots of cocoa/chocolatey flavors that i really wasnt expecting, I WAS expecting the cocoa notes because i’ve had this type tea from other companys but this one was by far the best, I wasnt expecting to actually taste chocolate but i almost did this in this one and that is just perfect to me, I like this one alot better than…well other companys version of it, Also of course its always lovery to watch any tea unfurl when its rolled into a ball so thats a plus too. This tea can take you away if you let it so Let It!! :)

I was excited to try this new tea from Teavivre. Teavivre’s products are consistently great in taste and value. The little unbrewed leaf balls, which I assume are hand-rolled, are also a fun concept.

I followed the recommendations on the package and brewed it for two minutes. There was no suggested tea amount listed so I filled my official tea spoon as I normally do with loose leaf. This came out to about four balls per eight-ounce cup. When the steeping process had completed, a brew with a rich amber color appeared.

At first sip, I could detect a little sweetness and the familiar woodsy taste that accompanies most of Teavivre’s black teas. In the beginning I was a little disappointed with the flavor power. However, the taste seemed to amplify and become more pronounced with each sip. By my sixth swig, I was really enjoying the blend and thinking that THIS is what I’ve come to love and expect from Teavivre.

I can’t say that I noticed a chocolate taste as some reviewers noted. To me, the sweetness was more like honey. Of course, you can’t go wrong with either flavor.

This tea is a great new addition to the Teavivre collection. It most likely will be on my order list the next time my Teavivre supply diminishes…soon!

My new samples from Teavivre arrived today! Hooray! Since my tea party guest loves black tea, I thought this would be a great one to include today. Youngest made all the tea, and I had instructed her to use nine pearls for the pot and go the maximum listed 2 minutes.

The liquor was of a medium amber/orange color. The aroma has a sweet high note that reminds me of honey as well as a hint of sweet potato aroma with a wee bit of maltiness. The overall taste is really elegant. I would consider this to be an afternoon tea, and would have no problem serving it by itself or with really nice daintiest to eat. My guest was really taken with this one, but all three of today’s teas were declared winners! I expect this will go on my next Teavivre order.

I haven’t tried resteeping it yet, but we saved the pearls and I will make another pot soon, I also want to try a longer steep and see if it results in a heartier breakfast style tea.

Excellent! Thank you, Teavivre, for sending this one for me to try!

Once again I am behind on tasting notes! I was so absorbed with tasting out my Red Leaf matcha samples and making sure I have sufficient notes for each that I’ve had about 7 other teas so far that I have yet to log, all of them new. Sigh! Well, I’ll start with this, which I am drinking right now. I made my dad Teavivre’s Yunnan Golden Tip earlier today and the smell had me really craving a Chinese black. I got a sample of these in my recent order and they seemed like just the thing.

I love how these look! They’re my first pearl-type tea that wasn’t a Jasmine, which are generally pretty smaller. These are big and chunky, I used 4 for a big cup and they unfurl into so much tea! It’s fun to watch, they start dissolving as soon as you pour water over them. And among all the black tea leaves was one stray green one—wonder how it got there?

This is a strong, malty tea with heavenly cocoa notes. It’s a bit astringent but in a pleasing way, in fact it reminds me of an Assam but lighter and with less body. It brews up a surprisingly light amber color, very pleasing, and has a light flavor to match. Not bad light, just less heavy than I expected from the heady, yeasty cocoa smell. However, it’s the most chocolatey black I’ve tried, so scrumptious! Reminds me of a bakery shop, which I think most Chinese blacks do… or maybe I just really like pastries and associate everything with them!

Thank you Angel for the sample. I actually forgot I had this and some other samples to try until last night when I was looking for something to drink before bed. I was thrilled to see this in the samples as I do love Black Dragon Pearl (see the note from yesterday).

The dry leaf smells slightly malty. Actually smells the same as the other companies tea I was drinking yesterday. But what about the taste? MALTY CHOCOLATE goodness!! Now I see and taste what all the talk was about. This is mighty good tea! I’m going to need to place an order when I get low on the other tea I have like this. Def. one for the perm. collection.

I also wanted to add there seems to be a sweetness on the end like honey or something. I don’t know what it is, but I love it! I also love that a few pearls will probably get me a few more steeps today. :)