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OK, that was an interesting tea. I mean, it looks interesting: nice little snails. Not much of an aroma though, and the taste is very mild and smooth. Some cherry, young green wood and bird-cherry. The flavor is quite distinct and it really…non-Keemunish. It also lingers nicely.

So, I don’t know. It was a sample and this tea really calls for being tried several times before a valid opinion can be formed. It certainly not a bold breakfast tea, but it also is not a tea for slow attentive sipping – the taste is not that complex. It is probably a drink for a special mood, and I do not know how often I will be in a mood for bird cherry or cherry.

It is not a great raw pu-erh but not a bad one either. Does not easily turn bitter, pleasantly floral and coppery sour. It takes well to mindless sipping. After the 4th infusion in a gaiwan the tea is somewhat losing the appeal of the first ones and the subsequent steepings are kind of forgettable.

I am sitting at work and drink this tea from a big teapot and I like it a lot. It smells like heaven and has a beguiling taste. Thats it, if you like roses. Luckily I do. The base is of a good quality, the taste is not awfully complex but present and STRONG. As a bonus, it resteeps well.

Looks like an ideal tea mindlessly sipping while typing something. there is no need to concentrate on the multiple elusive notes of fragrance and taste, instead it THERE – loud and clear. Oh, and it is quite forgiving with the temperature and steeping time.

I will certainly add it in my rotation.

Update: 100 grams later and I still like it but cooled off a bit: the taste is a bit one-dimensional and one needs to be very precise about the steeping time to hit the sweet spot to balance rose and tea flavors otherwise roses tend to overpower everything.

This is my fourth Keemun from Teavivre and, unfortunately, the first disappointment. The dry leaf has almost no fragrance sans for a faint general Keemunish smell. Which is quite ironic since it is called Superfine Keemun Fragrant. After a brief steep in a gaiwan with the recommended temperature (185C) it brew a smooth but really unexciting cup with some notes of baked bread, malt and berries. After I steeped the second infusion more aggressively, with boiling water, the bitterness took the front stage. Not good.

All in all, if you keep the temperature low you get a smooth cup of some stereotypical Keemun without much fragrance. So far all other Keemuns I tried from Teavivre have much more appeal and character (the second grade Keemun, Imperial , and Hao Ya). Given that I see no reason to buy this forgettable Keemun again, especially given its relatively high price compared to its siblings.

I had this tea right after trying Keemun 2 Grade by Teavivre and wow, what different teas they are. The Imperial has very showy, attractive dry leaves and one of the most heady fragrances I encountered with any tea. The aroma is very sweet and full of honey, tulips, some other flowers, pine needles and rich cake with frosting.

The taste is very smooth and sweet, the typical Keemuny notes are barely discernable. It tastes almost like an oolong. The tea resteeps well: even the fourth gaiwan infusion is sweet and memorable, although the roughness starts to increase after the first two steeps. Despite all of this honeyed sweetness the aftertaste is lingering and unmistakably Keemunish. The infusions need to be short to keep the complexity intact and in no way this brew should be adulterated by the addition of milk or sugar.

This is certainly an excellent desert tea: lazy, voluptuous and decadent. I can’t say it is better or worse than Grade 2 but it is certainly more complex. Just two excellent Keemuns for different moods and different situations. But, of course the Imperial costs three times as the Grade 2, which tells something about how leisure is valued much higher then work.

I probably will have to stock this tea for special occasions because it IS really special.

I like Keemuns and have been always confused by many kinds and names Hao Ya, Mao Feng… I decided to go through all Teavivre Keemuns (and a couple from other companies) to find the one that would become my go-to Keemun. And the package with them finally came today.

The Grade 2 Keemun… I ordered it with hesitation since I usually skip the cheapest options. And boy, was I surprised and rewarded. Robust is the word for this tea. It has the robust aroma and appearance and the taste to match. Malt, roast, leather, spices, and some berry-like sweetness. And the taste is not shy: it strong, persistent and stays for multiple gaiwan infusions. It is by no means refined but its major components come together very well. There is nothing second-grade about this tea.

This is certainly a tea for cold days, for times when you need a beam of energy, the tea that would go well with greasy food and take milk and sugar well. The Clydesdale of teas. I would keep it instead of personally disliked Assams.

All in all, a great find. Really curious to discover what other Keemuns from Teavivre are like.

P.S. Short steepings are key with this Keemun to keep the taste more complex.

Now, this one was a disappointment, which does not happen with Teavivre often in my experience. The appearance was cool and the aroma intriguing – grass, mushrooms, leather, spices. The taste, however, was quite meh, with astringency and copper predominating. No reason to order it again.

It came together with a several other mini-puerh tuos in a nondescript paper with a little picture of lips. It certainly smelled like a raw puerh but it took me some travel acrooss W2T to figure out it was the 2015 Smooch.

It has a very pleasant aroma for a raw puerh with the sourness augmented by some leafy and sweet notes. The taste is tricky: it is easy to oversteep and then it tastes a bit like vomit but in a good way. Since I am not a big fan of even a nicer tasting vomit I switched to very short infusions in a gaiwan (10-20 secs) and it revealed a powerful puerh sourness together with some notes of black currant leaves, raspberry, grasses, orange and spices.

It is way more complex than typical low-cost raw puerhs I used to get from Upton Tea. You can get many resteeps out of it and a long, long lingering aftertaste. So far it has been the best raw puerh I tasted.

I am drinking it now. The ingredients look good on paper but in reality this tea is quite meh. The aroma is underwhelming and in the taste profile cloves predominate. Just not a very interesting tea with not a lot of going on.

Unless someone is a big fan of cloves (and I am not!) I would pass on this one.

This is the rooibos blend that has been slowly growing on me. Apple, oranges and cinnamon flavor blend well with the rooibos and enhance it quite a bit. I am drinking it now in a cold office and it does cheer me up . It is a good alternative to decafs with a bold, in-your-face flavor profile.

If you are watching the daily caffeine intake this blend is a welcome addition to your arsenal.