Tea provided by Teavivre for review
Trying the third black tea from a sample pack that Teavivre sent me recently. Yet again, I’m using short steeps as suggested on their website to taste test it. Black tea is often prepared western style with long steeps. I prefer to short steep black tea, especially if it’s of good quality because it will yield many good short infusions to taste.
Straight from the first sip, this tea blew me away. The flavours are far from what I expected. Just glancing at the name of the tea I figured, ‘oh ok, here is another yummy Yunnan Dian Hong tea to try’. Sipping the tea and smelling the cup, there is a distinct umami aroma. I’ve yet to try a tea I’d consider to be savory. There is also a very enjoyable woodsy, floral and roasted flavour. Also a bit of earthy, and mild sweetness in the background. The tea base mixed the savory flavour makes for a very bold first cup of tea.
On the third steep, there was more of an almost sour and tart flavour. It wasn’t strong enough to make my face pucker, but because it’s unusual to taste in tea it tastes strong to my senses. As I resteeped all the way to a seventh cup, the tea maintained a consistent bold flavour. It tasted a bit weaker on the sixth and seventh steeps, but the flavour and liquour colour is much stronger and darker than I anticipated.
Overall I was very pleased with this tea. I’d like to use the recommend option on Steepster for this one, but it brings such bold and unique flavours that I know that would be off putting for some people.
I’m used the word bold a lot to describe this tea, and even that doesn’t really fully describe the sensations it brings. It has a balance of potent flavours (roasted, woodsy, earthy, savory, floral, sweetness, spice, and tartness) that you usually don’t taste in tea. Usually if a tea is bold/potent it’s in a bad way, such as being off balanced, bitter, or too pungent (the opposite of what a well balanced, delicate tea would be). If I had to compare this tea with any other, it would be similar in sensation to a strong Sun Moon Lake black tea. Both of them have bold flavours, but still maintain a good balance and are not recommended for tea lovers that want a subtle tea.
On recommendations, I think the savory nature of the tea makes it a good one to sip during winter. Where I live it has been brutally cold the past couple of months. The bold savory characteristics gave me a pleasant feeling of cozy warmth, similar to what I feel when I drink strong chai or Lapsang Souchong.
Short steeping as suggested by Teavivre’s website: rinse, 15s, 25s, 35s, 45s, 60s, 75s, 90s
Flavors: Earth, Floral, Roasted, Tart, Umami, Wood
