This was my morning tea at work today.
Thank you yyz for another interesting tea. I feel like I don’t have the knowledge or palate to really understand some of these teas. You’ve pushed me out of my comfort zone, and while I may not have “got” all the lessons – I really appreciate the experience and somehow I’m looking at some teas differently. Thank you!!
LOL this one confuses me. First off – I had a little argument in head about what this actually was. In my limited experience Jin Jun Mei is black, Wuyi Rock is oolong, milk is oolong. The leaves looked like a black tea, smelled like a black tea – the side of me that was voting for black finally won the argument and this got chosen for morning (I’m trying to drink black in the morning – oolong in the arvo).
Once I actually was drinking it (at this point there was no doubt it was a black – yay I got it right!!!), my confusion really set in. This has some of the characteristics of a malty, chocolatey Chinese black – that part of me is really happy – it has a really starchy mouth feel – that part of me not so happy (too starchy) – it has that really “high, acidic, white wine, up your nose” thing that I have no idea how to describe – but I don’t like it(ok this goes away as it cools some – that’s a good thing).
Way too many things going on for my poor newbie brain. I’m not sure that it’s that I don’t like this, I think it’s more I don’t understand this. Maybe if I understood the nuances, I could appreciate how they are playing off each other – but for now it just seems like a bunch of noise in my mouth. I think I would like to try this one again 6 months from now and see if I’ve “grown” into it.
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If you have enough try it in very short steeps. Like 5 s poured off slowly ,with boiling water. Not really what I usually do with Chinese blacks but it creates a thinner tea and the flavour is kind of like a cross between caramel and corn syrup. I have some blacks that seem odd and counterintuitive. One was labeled as a green black, but looks like a very tippy black tea and they mean it. Treat it to hot water and you get, those vitamin c like notes, brew it as a picky green and it’s chocolate. This one’s kind of opposite for some reason. I don’t know why they called this a rock tea either it is rolled. I’m used to a milk tea being one thats good to steep in milk. Though I’m not sure I’d do that with this tea. If you want some more to play with let me know, I’d be happy to send it to you:)
Very interesting review Dexter…I think you’ve managed to describe very well how it translated to you.
If you have enough try it in very short steeps. Like 5 s poured off slowly ,with boiling water. Not really what I usually do with Chinese blacks but it creates a thinner tea and the flavour is kind of like a cross between caramel and corn syrup. I have some blacks that seem odd and counterintuitive. One was labeled as a green black, but looks like a very tippy black tea and they mean it. Treat it to hot water and you get, those vitamin c like notes, brew it as a picky green and it’s chocolate. This one’s kind of opposite for some reason. I don’t know why they called this a rock tea either it is rolled. I’m used to a milk tea being one thats good to steep in milk. Though I’m not sure I’d do that with this tea. If you want some more to play with let me know, I’d be happy to send it to you:)
Very interesting review Dexter…I think you’ve managed to describe very well how it translated to you.