Superfine Tan Yang Gong Fu Black Tea

When I read the description I was a bit confused on the aroma of sweet potato, as I’d never perceived such a thing when brewing tea before. Well, now I understand.

Upon completion of steeping this tea’s initial aroma is very similar to boiled sweet potatoes, before fading to a more typical black tea aroma. It is a delicately sweet tea with no real bitterness and just a slight tug on my tongue from a light astringency. This is on my growing list of favorites.

Smells and tastes somewhat like a nice Dian Hong (Yunnan) tea to me. I am getting some sweet potato like notes, but it is also rich and malty. Usually I don’t like drinking tea with meals, but this tea was great with nachos…

Made the mistake this morning of being frugal and thinking I’d actually enjoy eating the stale end piece of a loaf of bread as my breakfast toast. I don’t. I really don’t. I recently signed up for Wildgrain so at least I can look forward to fresh bread tomorrow. It’ll be a great accompaniment to our Bonne Maman advent.

I’m still working through my sipdowns but it’s slowed down a great deal since I don’t have any single servings left in the tea cabinet (yay!). I don’t think I’m going to meet my goal for the year – I’m still 49 behind – but I feel good about the progress. There’s always next year! I’ve had a lot of fun with the prompts so graciously provided by Mastress Alita and they’ve really pushed me to drink some of the teas I don’t have regularly.

Today’s choice is a sipdown and it’s a tasty one, though I thought I might enjoy it more given the Steepster rating. It’s good, but it doesn’t knock my socks off or anything. I have others I think I’d reach for first, so I don’t think this will be a rebuy.

Another excellent tea from Teavivre. I’m down to my last couple of samples from them: a Dragonwell and this. Woke up to a beautiful snowstorm, everything looking like it had a ton of powdered sugar sprinkled over it, and decided that black tea would be fitting. Getting the notes of sweet potato, getting a little earthiness, and orange/citrus on the finish. It brewed exceptionally dark, and I was afraid I’d overleafed, but no, it was perfect. The second infusion was still great, a little lighter, but still flavorful. Damn, Teavivre has such great stuff!

This was another of my early 2020 sipdowns. It was actually the tea I finished immediately after the Bihar Doke Silver Needle I just reviewed. I received a sample of it in a 2019 order from Teavivre, but I can’t confidently say whether or not it was a free sample or one I purchased as part of that particular order. I can say that I had never tried a Tan Yang Gong Fu prior to trying this one. I found this tea to be very enjoyable, so hopefully I will enjoy other teas of this type when I eventually get around to trying some more.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse (about 5 seconds), I steeped 6 grams of loose tea buds in 4 fluid ounces of 185 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for each of these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea buds emitted aromas of malt, cedar, cocoa, smoke, straw, sweet potato, and molasses. After the rinse, I detected fresh aromas of butter, roasted almond, and roasted peanut. The first infusion introduced a baked bread aroma and fainter, less clearly defined scents of honey and sugarcane. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of malt, straw, smoke, molasses, sweet potato, honey, cedar, roasted almond, and roasted peanut that were balanced by subtler impressions of coffee, sugarcane, roasted hazelnut, baked bread, butter, and caramel. The majority of the subsequent infusions added aromas of cream, marshmallow, vanilla, pine, orange zest, roasted hazelnut, and caramel. Stronger and more immediately notable impressions of roasted hazelnut, butter, and caramel emerged in the mouth along with notes of cream, earth, minerals, pine, vanilla, orange zest, and marshmallow. Hints of tobacco, oats, raisin, and cocoa were also present. As the tea faded, the liquor continued to emphasize notes of minerals, cream, malt, marshmallow, orange zest, cedar, pine, roasted hazelnut, and sweet potato that were chased by hints of roasted almond, butter, straw, cocoa, earth, sugarcane, honey, caramel, molasses, and roasted peanut.

This was an earthy yet surprisingly balanced and refined black tea with a very appealing sweetness. It reminded me a bit of Wuyi Jin Jun Mei in some respects, but this seemed to be a more reserved and more carefully layered sort of tea. I enjoyed it tremendously. I could see people who are into subtle, sophisticated black teas being impressed by this tea.

Thank you, Teavivre, for the sample of this tea! I’m finally ready to try it! Black teas are my favorite, particularly in the morning when I need to shake the cobwebs off of my brain.

I opened the silver rectangular sample package and was greeted with brown and golden brown leaves. The aroma was malty and like bread.

I steeped the leaves for three minutes at approximately 185 degrees as recommended on the package. The brewed color was a bright amber. The aroma was faintly sweet and malty.

The taste of this tea was mild and smooth. There also was a sweetness to malty and bread flavor attributes. The aftertaste was gentle and lingered for a few minutes.

Although I prefer to be jolted with bolder flavors in the morning to defibrillate my brain, I found this selection tasty enough to help me face the workday ahead. I liked it!

Not sure if I wrote a review on this. I’ve had this a couple of times and will order it again in the future. Maybe I passed since it has lots of reviews already. Don’t remember. I’m getting old. :)

Preparation: Gaiwan, 5g, 185℉, 110 ml, 6 steeps: rinse, 5s, 10s, 10s, 15s, 20s, 30s.

Dark and gold twisted strips. Smelled of cherries, yams, lightly floral, maybe some sweet tobacco pipe aroma. The liquor was a beautiful bright, clear, orange-reddish color and on the subsequent infusions, it became more of a bronze color and had the aroma of yams, fruit. The wet leaf smelled of caramel, hay and dried fruit.

Malty, fruity, sweet yams, a bit of dark cocoa, and toasted caramel notes. Somewhere in the middle, I got some roasted nuts, honey. It’s a light, smooth cup of tea but the aftertaste is powerful. The lingering sweetness, the desert feeling of satisfaction. Baked bread, a wee bit of smoke as some others mentioned, molasses and raisins.

I’ll probably put it back on my wishlist to remind me to get more and write about it again lol (forgetting if I wrote about it or not hehe).

Hope you’re all having a great Sunday. <3

2018- dry leaf smells of yellow mustard. Wash is mustard and rotten stone fruit//// 1st brew tastes of avocado, over ripe rotten /// malty, rotten, bitter/// malty fruit

This tea has a great appearance with a superabundance of long, curly golden tips. The aroma is strong even in the dry leaf. The wet leaf has a very unique smell that so far I encountered for the first time: a strong fragrance of ripe dark berries (blackberry, black currant) and overripe dark cherry…maybe, some kiwi in the mix also. The aroma is very strong and pleasant aroma despite not having many undertones to it.

The taste follows the smell: you almost have to double check that there is no berries smuggled in your cup. The aftertaste consists of the same dark berries, it is lingering and verrrry pleasant. If you steep it in a gaiwan for 30-45 secs it is a medium-bodied tea, if you increase to 1.30-1.45 a more typical foundation of caffeine and tannin emerges (similar to keemuns).

Oh, and it also fantastic cold, and I suppose as iced tea. Must come as a flavor-loaded bomb on the hot summer day. Inj a good way, you now.

All in all, it is a very good, unique tea. I will keep it in my collection for specific moods.

P.S. I logged in again after having a second cup and with shaking hands, I am upping its rating to the highest among the teas I have reviewed so far. Oh my…

Oh my goodness, this is heavenly with half and half. It tasted even breadier and more raisiny than when enjoying it alone. I’d make another mug but I’ve already been horrible today with my calorie consumption. Does anyone ever run into a problem where you buy a bunch of ingredients you normally don’t have for a recipe and then feel obligated to use them up, so you’re led down this long path of making different foods? That’s my issue with buttermilk. First time buying it, as I bought some after buying five pounds of blueberries for a great price and thought I’d make blueberry oatmeal muffins for the first time which required buttermilk. Not to mention, I made lavender violet blueberry tarts. Leftover buttermilk led me to buy cheddar cheese to finally make the Red Lobster Cheddar Bay biscuit dupe recipe I’ve been meaning to try for literally eight years. Still having buttermilk and extra cheese (oh, and butter too), that led me to buy cornmeal to finally try making jalapeño cheddar corn muffins since I’ve also been meaning to try to make something cornbread-related for many years.

Then yesterday for breakfast, I used the last of the cheese to make cheesy grits for the first time (and no, not going to get into a redundant linguistics argument over the usage of the term ‘grits’ when hominy isn’t involved).

So finally, today, I used up the rest of the buttermilk and cornmeal to make heart-shaped cornmeal waffles, and with that, I used them in place of sandwich bread to make a honey garlic chicken sandwich.

Seriously, isn’t that nuts? Reason #244 why I avoid buying ingredients I normally don’t use.