Gunpowder

Again, giving this a try for work “training guide” purposes. I have until the end of the month to complete my tea and coffee workbooks so I am tasting at breakneck speed! For a little while (until next weekend or so, when I’m planning on getting something more interesting) it’ll be this standard Whittard range of loose-leaf tea.

(I have to say, Ysaurella’s Dammann Freres posts make me want to go back to France and try something delicious…)

Onwards! Just a plain and simple tasting like the Sencha the other day. I’ve brewed this Gunpowder several times, at work, and at Tea Society at uni and each time it’s been a marvel to see just how large the leaves unfurl to be in the teapot. They are big! It’s really a great quality gunpowder, and just over a level teaspoon gives this lovely dark gold-hinting-at-orange colour in the cup. Smells a little smoky, too.

It’s smooth, a little fruity, teeny bit floral with just the bare minimum of astringency following the first sip. There’s half of that grassiness that comes with green teas like sencha but thankfully it’s not nearly as strong as that, stopping just to slope off into this mild, again, slightly smoky flavour. I know gunpowder isn’t named after the taste but I have to wonder if this is intentional, sometimes!

All in all, it’s a pleasant gunpowder. Always feel like it should be a staple in anyone’s collection…

My standard green tea. It’s hard for me to write a note about it because I compare all other green teas to gunpowder. This has slightly more tightly wrapped gunpowder balls than the last gunpowder I had. It’s still delicious though. I expect that when I’m old and grey, I will have some gunpowder tea sitting in my cupboard, it just wouldn’t be the same without it.

This time I might have made it with the water a little bit too hot. I am feeling impatient but the more I sip at a cup when it’s this hot, the more I am going to burn myself, and I’ll regret it in the morning (they always say that “you’ll regret it in the morning” about drinking too quickly, not usually about tea…)

A friend sent me a sampler box of tea bags, and this is one of the teas included. I was originally a little put off by how smoky the tea smells, but it doesn’t taste nearly as smoky as it smells. A real treat!

Brewed it a little longer and drank it accompanying a light meal of cheese, cold cuts and pate on crackers. Marvelous fit.