Fengqing Dragon Pearl Black Tea

Thank you again Angel for this sample!

I put the whole packet into my new glass teapot that my mom got for me. I am not sure how many pearls there were… perhaps 5-8? It brewed a nice light-medium amber. It smelled warm and roasted. Delicious! It tastes like a yunnan black tea. Delicious! I love the slight nutty and chocolate undertones. It doesn’t need sugar or milk at all. This was so good!

Oh my goodness. This is divine! For being full bodied, I’m amazed at how silky this tea is! I love the rich chocolatey and malty tones and aroma. The fact that absolutely zero astringency is present just adds to the exquisiteness . And even though this is a very “elegant” tea, I could actually handle drinking this on a regular basis, which is not true of many of the other black/dessert teas I have tried. Everyone should experience this tea at least once. It’s something I’m going to have a hard time forgetting.

I’ve had a smaller rolled yunnan tea before (rolled a bit smaller than a pea), but I wanted to try these out because they seem a great serving size for a small vessel.

I went in expecting great things, because I do love yunnan tea. I did one pearl for my 100ml gaiwan. Meant to do about three to four minutes, went a little over… Would have been fine with a shorter steep, though.

Definitely more on the peppery side. There’s still an undertone with a bit of sweetness, though.

I brewed this gong fu style according to the directions on Teavivre’s website. I enjoyed it a lot, it’s not bitter and a little chocolaty. I find it similar to Laoshan Black by Verdant.

I’ve experimented with this a little to find my favorite steeping parameters, and I think 5 pieces is perfect. My favorite part is when it cools; the chocolate comes out a bit. If you like that flavor profile, you will probably like this tea. I didn’t find the cocoa notes very strong, but they were there. I like that this tea is not ‘in your face’. It’s a very pleasant tea to drink for that reason. Thank you Teavivre for the chance to try this tea! I’m very much enjoying finding black teas that I like!

Mmm thanks teavivre for the sample. Very neat looking tea pearls.
I used 4 pearls for the cup. Loved the slightly smokey toasty type flavour. Have enough pearls in my pack for one more small cup:)

Water: 8oz boiling

Leaves: Huge pearl

Steep: 2m 4-pearls with 1min rinse

Aroma: plain black tea aroma

Color: Dark brown

Taste: I didn’t like this tea at all it had a burnt taste.It also left an unpleasant after taste.

First of all, thank you so much Angel from Teavivre for the samples!

I have slowly begun to get into black tea but I am still new, so please be patient with me! This will be the first black I review.

The dry leaves were tightly wound large balls with a strong scent. I decided to do a rinse of these to loosen them up a little bit so I rinsed them for about 15 seconds.

I then gave them a 1 minute steep at about 212 degrees which unfurled a layer of the leaves partially. After the steep, the wet leaves produced a slight sweet molasses like sent. I have had a black tea that was described with a molasses taste and I did not like it, however, this was a way better smell to me. The tea was a medium gold, lighter than I was expecting and I could tell this was going to be different than I was thinking it would be like. The taste was an interesting warm flavor that carried a subtle dark chocolaty sweetness. This was a pleasant surprise! I had never taste a black quite like this one.

I decided to try to pull out more of the flavor and steeped this one for 2 minutes. This caused the last layer of leaves to unfurl completely, producing a dark gold liquid. This time the tea had more of the dry chocolate flavor with a slightly bitter after taste.

I wanted to play with the taste some more so I decided to steep it at 1:45 this time. This gave me the dark gold liquid again but more of the first steeps taste. This is definitely a tea that you can change the taste to your liking by managing the time and leaves well. I continued on to a 4th steep and could tell that it would resteep well at least one more time.

New to the Steepster community over and I figured now, when I just lost my computer and have taken over someone elses, would be a great time to post a thought here. I thoroughly dig the cocoa notes set forth by this grand black tea. And the length of the steep time does not bitter it up. A great morning tea!

Thanks to Teavivre for the sample.

I use seven pearls (a whole sample pack) per gong fu session with flash infusions. This is twice the amount suggested for gong fu brewing on Teavivre’s website, but I prefer my hongcha to be robust. The pearls are very well compacted and fairly consistent in size, but there are some that are much smaller than the others. A good amount of golden bud material can be seen in the layers of the pearl, much more so than those of Teavana.

I wasn’t expecting much from this tea, but as it turns out, it is actually pretty tasty and okay for lazy drinking. The liquor’s depth is nice, with a malty smoothness, and resounding “pure tea” flavor. The lengxiang (cold scent) in the empty cup is subtle, and has characteristics of roasted barley and cooked sugar. Infusions don’t move past five, though, and even that is pushing it. The aftertaste is weak and slightly drying. There is also a faint soapy flavor right on the opening sip and at the end of the finish and seems to be paired with a slightly oily texture, but it isn’t all that apparent unless focused on it.

Looking at the spent leaves, I notice that some seem over-processed. They are totally black, difficult to unroll, and have a “carbonized” look to them, similar to spent shu pu’ercha leaves.