TÊTÊ Golden Tea

This is a very sad sipdown – because it was completely wasted.

I’m doing some work right now in an office (on-site self-employed contractor, long story). where there are storage lockers where people can store their things. As you can predict, lovely Steepster-folk, I was storing tea in mine.

However, the lockers are all connected, and there are air vents between the walls of the lockers. I didn’t notice this until Monday, though, when my locker started smelling funny. I traced it back to the locker next to mine, which was filled with an overwhelmingly strong fruit/flower/baby powder smell. I think someone’s goddamned PERFUME BOTTLE broke in there. It’s the only way to describe the strength of the smell.

My poor lovelies, guess what happened to my tea? It still smells like fucking perfume 2 days later, even though I switched lockers! And now, the new locker smells like the old one did because my belongings transferred the smell over!

It permeated the disposeable filters I brought with me, and the cups that I’ve had since taste like this perfume. So this tea was used up in equipment that ruined its fine flavour. So sad.

I think I’ll stick to keeping the filters in my backpack, which I take home with me every day. The rest of the tea in my locker is more heavily sealed and strongly flavoured anyway, but I don’t plan on bringing my more delicate stuff to work until I can air things out.

I brewed this up both gongfu and western brewing.

The dry leaf smells of dry wood and black currant. The leaves are really pretty. They consist of long black and fuzzy gold tendrils. I placed them in my warmed gaiwan and gave em a shake. The scent of freshly baked bread and malt came from my gaiwan. The washed them once and prepared for brewing. The steeped fuzzies had the scent of deep malt and mahogany, and they became a deep rusted red color. The liquor was a brilliant ruby red which was pretty cool. However, the flavor was lacking. It was a dry subtle wood tone. There were no heavy chocolate or baked bread tones. In the later steepings, I could taste malt, but otherwise it was just dry wood. I recommended brewing this western.

The western brewing methods (3g for about 2-3min) yielded a dark red liquor. The flavor was deep baked bread and soothing light chocolate tones. This was a lot better and hearty than the gongfu counterpart. I will definitely use these parameters from now on.

The brewing parameters listed are for gongfu

https://instagram.com/p/4B8uZETGaZ/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

My favorite so far out of TETE’s line up. The black is cherry woodsy, chocolate malt and amber. It doesn’t get too rich or thick and has a clean taste. Later infusions has a nice amber incense note and honey sweetness.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/nepal-teas-from-tete-tea-review/ TETE black is photogenic!

This is a tea from Nepal. I sampled it before I heard of the loss of life and utter devastation from the earthquake. I have not seen the news yet but my heart goes out to the people of Nepal.

TETE has printed in tiny letters across the front of the resealable bag the word “Simplify”. They sell exactly three teas – black, green, and white. This is their Himalayan full leaf premium tea otherwise known as Black. Their website says the teas are sourced from remote farms and are intended to make life simpler for those of us who sometimes don’t pay full attention to time and temperature.

I have to be honest, I wasn’t expecting this to be so good. The aroma of the leaf is malt, and grain, grape and floral. Really it smells awesome. The leaf itself is complete full leaves and buds. The buds are golden and the leaves dark brown. Beautiful. The liquor is bright and clear, ruby red and orange in color. The taste is a bit malt with nice notes of grape and floral. The aftertaste is sweet, floral, and lingering. This is a smooth cup. I don’t catch any bitterness. The dryness is fairly minimal for a black tea, though I notice some cheek tingle. I am catching a light bite that I like.

I am very impressed by this one and can’t wait to try out the green and white tea.