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This is a sample from a giveaway Teavivre hosted this spring. I haven’t had many of their black teas, so I was eager to try this one. I steeped 5 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot according to the website’s instructions: 185F for 10, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40 seconds. I then prolonged the session with steeps of 60, 90, and 240 seconds because the tea was so good.

First of all, the dry aroma from these gorgeous tight, fuzzy golden curls is floral, malty, and faintly spicy. . The first steep, which disappeared in under a minute, is a wonderful balance of malt, sweet potato, and cocoa. The body is slightly velvety from all the trichomes. The second steep, which was also for 10 seconds, has a bit of earthy Yunnan astringency, but it, too, vanished in record time.

The third and fourth steeps have even more intense notes of malt, sweet potato, caramel, baked bread, wood, and earth. The aftertaste is now fairly drying and astringent, but there’s a lovely sweet potato aroma left at the bottom of the cup. The sweet potato fades a bit into a smooth, earthy, caramel Yunnan black in the next couple steeps, and though the astringency gets stronger in my “bonus” rounds, it’s still a darn good tea.

Given that I find many Yunnan black teas too malty and tend to use them for morning fuel, I’m surprised how much I enjoyed this sample. If Teavivre’s other black teas are like this one, I’ll have to try more of them.