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Tea sample provided by Teavivre for review

For anyone that has watched my steeping habits, you know that I love to resteep tea. So I was excited to see that on Teavivre’s webpage for Yunnan Dian Hong that you can resteep it 12 times! To ensure the best results, I contacted their representative on Steepster for the steeping parameters. For the short steep method, I should start with a 3 second rinse, and then steep for 30 to 45 seconds, followed by 10 to 15 seconds for each resteep.

So for today’s tasting session I chose to start with 30 seconds and then add 10 s for each resteep.

Moving on to describing the tea; inside the tea pouch I noticed very fuzzy black tea buds that have a caramel aroma.

After the quick rinse and steeping, I tasted the first cup. It was a touch sweet like honey, spicy, earthy and overall light bodied.

More familiar flavours presented themselves in the second cup. The third cup sort of “blossomed” into what I consider typical flavour for this type of tea. Very smooth and comforting Yunnan black tea goodness.

The fourth steep was remarkably sweeter than the rest, and I am definitely picking up on the initial caramel notes I sniffed in the bag. After this cup I sniffed the gaiwan before continuing on with the resteeps. For some reason the scent reminded me of banana bread and grains.

Moving on, the fifth and sixth steeps seemed a bit more floral, both in taste and aroma. These were hearty, heavy bodied, full flavoured brews. The sixth gave me a wonderful resonating feeling.

Seven and eight started progressively getting lighter, but with the sweetness staying pretty consistent. The eight steep felt somewhat different on my tongue, I can’t quite describe it but it’s not a bad feeling.

Nine to eleven were dominated by sweetness. I can still taste the familiar flavour of this type, but it is not in full force.

Finishing off with the twelfth steep, I can start to taste the flavour of my water. With hints of black tea, sweet, earthyness. Is this still black tea? Well it still tastes like it, but obviously after this many steeps it is like a distant memory of tea.

I highly recommend this tea for those of you that enjoy resteeping. It’s a very tasty, smooth, black tea that works hard to please your senses. Like most of the teas Teavivre carries, they are an excellent price to flavour ratio. :) And a final note, I’m very impressed with these steeping parameters for the gaiwan, and I can’t wait to try it again with my other excellent black teas.

100ml gaiwan, 2 tsps, 12 steeps (rinse, :30s, +:10s resteeps)