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I got this tea a few days ago. The first thing I did was stick my nose right into it and the smell knocked my socks off; it was a gorgeous stableyard smell comprising warm, sweet comforting hay and mellow horse manure smells. The aroma was just perfect and had me so excited that I wanted to just dive straight into it then and there. Yes, ok, I’m weird. The horsey smell reminds me of good times and is one I love, and that is what this reminded me of. So, excited as I was, I still took time to carve up the beeng and store it for a few days so that it could sort itself out. When I picked it apart, I found that the leaves came away fairly easily and were quite large. They ranged from dark chocolatey brown to a very pale beige colour, giving the whole beeng a most pleasing visual aesthetic.

I have a cold at the moment so I needed some comfort today. Time to try my new tea. Unfortunately, the state of my nose will probably have affected how I view this tea, and you will need to allow for this in reading the following. I sat down with my trusty 140ml gaiwan, a cup and measured out 4g of tea. The Canton Tea Co website suggests 3-4g in a small teapot, brewed at 95 degrees for 20 seconds. I did what they suggested to get a feel for the tea. The liquor was yellow with a hint of green to it on the first infusion. It became darker with the third and fourth infusions and then became a little paler from infusions eight onwards. I kept the brewing time to 20 seconds for the first half dozen brews and then increased it to 30 seconds for the next few, and so on, increasing it a little every so often.

The brew was sweet with every infusion, ending with a note of astringency and a bittersweet aftertaste. It exuded an aroma of flower meadows in every cup and has turned out to be a fantastic comfort brew. This is one of the few teas where the tasting notes have largely conformed to my own experience of the tea. I shall certainly buy more of this with a view to aging some and drinking the rest.