Bohea

I got a surprise in the mail yesterday! K S so generously sent me this tea and several others to try! Thank you!

Since this is one that is supposed to resteep well, I decided to gong fu steep it today. As soon as I smelled that first steep, I knew I had to call youngest in to try it with me. This is exactly the kind of tea she loves! I still find it astounding that my youngest child loves smokey tea and strong cheese!

I believe this is only my second Bohea ever; the first one, if I recall correctly, was a sample sent by TeaEqualsBliss on my very first ever steepster swap! I wanted to try Bohea because of its history, but I love its taste now that I am over my fear of smokey tea. It took about six months of sniffing Lapsangs at the tea shop before I had the courage to try one!

This tea has a thinner body or texture than Baker Street, a similar level of smoke, and it is oh so sweet! This is delicious! I would say this is just a hint less smokey than the Teavivre Lapsang. We had two good, strong steeps, and now a third that is much lighter but still tasty and still has a sweet smoke. But something strange is happening to the texture…good strange! I think of Baker Street as being CHEWY because of how much body it has, and this one was not chewy. Now however, the third steep, while lighter in flavor, seems to be coating my lips and mouth with a buttery smooth taste that I can only liken to a later steep of Mengku Palace Ripened Godlen Buds Puerh, which I have compared to old beams polished with Murphy’s Oil Soap. Would someone please express that better for me? LOL! I really like it, but my description does not sound appealing even though it IS!

So…thank you, K S, for this morning’s tea adventure and for this delicious tea!

My how my tastes have changed. I asked for this one not knowing what it was. The name just sounded interesting and it was thrown overboard in the Boston harbor :) I opened the tin and could smell smoke. Uh oh. So I take 1 scoop of leaf and steep 3 minutes (the instructions said 4-5, but I was afraid), Last fall my first Keemun threw me. I didn’t know if I liked it or what to make of it. So here I go again. Wow, it doesn’t taste like an ashtray. There is a woodsy kind of smoky thing going on. This tea is sweet. The smoke and sweetness linger long after the cup is gone. There is no bitterness. No astringency. This is really good. No one is more surprised than me. I had three cups. Go me!