Laoshan tea high-quality goods of China

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89

comparing this one to LB today just for funsies… dry, it looks VERY similar, curly black leaves with that aroma that says…hey! lookit me!

brewed, the aroma from the leaves takes on a bit of a taiwanese smell to it…slightly fruity but not overly so.

brewed…this time it’s less chocolatey than the first time i had it but it’s still very close to my beloved LB. i’d argue that if you were to add a bit of cacao to this, it would be nearly the same as LB with cacao. on the whole, i still can’t decide which i prefer…i suppose int he end LB would win because it’s a pretty consistent tea, while this has produced two slightly different cups for me – one being deep and dark and deliciously chocolately, and the other, fruitier than i like in an LB sort of tea. I suspect i’ll likely just end up ordering more of this in the future to give it a few more cups worth of playing with it :) thanks again YYZ for sharing this one with me….really enjoyable!

yyz

Thanks, its neat to see the comparison!

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89

sooooo this one is from YYZ…and i think i might have a problem. I have enough of this to do a comparison on the weekend against LB but this MIGHT be a little more chocolatey and roaster than recent harvest of LB. Why does that scare me? because aliexpress is like walking in to honest ed’s….uh or a giant tiger…or mace’s on balk friday. it’s chaotic and crazy and even though there are good deals to be found, i need someone to make it easy for me. lol soooo there’s a small part of me hoping that this ISN’T as tasty as it was today…and that it’s all in my head hahaha.

But let’s be honest….this was a fabulous cup of tea today. chocolatey and roast and delicious and even though the wet smell reminded me of some of the TTC teas that i’ve had, the taste was NOT that sweet taiwanese sort of taste. this was laoshan black…but more like that first time i died when i had it lol. soooo that’s my story. more to come on the weekend i think if i get a chance to do a comparison of sorts… is it all in my head? or not. we shall see… either way…thanks a bunch for this joy yyz

also..i want it noted that i totally got to 205 today…and then Bonny’s mail showed up lol

yyz

Yay! I’m glad you liked it. This is even Spring harvest which if I remember correctly is usually not your favourite. The good thing is Pens prices usually are pretty steep for the non Laoshan teas so you are not really tempted by something else. The tea I recommended to
Lynne tea comes in packets like the one I sent to you. If you contact Pen you may be able to negotiate on other shipping and packaging. As it is at 24.15 with shipping included it’s cheaper than Verdant’s. I haven’t done the comparison though tasty brew sent me some of verdant to try.

Sil

yeah…going to have to do some digging… once i do a full on compare..but man it was a happy place today

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My cold has turned into a sinus infection so my taste buds are literally worthless at this point. I’m hitting the doctor in a few minutes so I can finally get rid of this crud! For the last few days I’ve been living on various sources of Laoshan Black. Mostly this one though, since I have a bunch of it and I’d like to make a dent. Even though I can’t full taste or enjoy this, there is a enough richness in it to trigger my memories of its flavor to carry me through, ha ha.

Seriously, I’m soooooooooooooooooo tired of my face feeling like it’s going to explode. I can’t wait to get my buds back and try all the new teas I’ve gotten in the past 1 1/2 weeks. It’s been raining tea from my mailman and I haven’t tried any, cue tiny violin… or if Terri could play me something on the harp, ha ha.

Off to the doc for some drugs. Maybe next time herbal remedies, you failed me this time.

__Morgana__

Feel better!

caile

Hope you feel better soon!

Kamyria

Feel better!! :)

keychange

Yay for drugs that actually work! feel better!

OMGsrsly

Yikes! Feel better soon.

tea-sipper

I’m so sorry you feel terrible! :/

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Hmmmm – I was drinking this at work yesterday, and it was quite busy so I guess I didn’t log it. Surprised to still see it in my cupboard.
This was another one from yyz and it is fantastic. OK, honestly, I’m not sure that I could tell this apart from Verdant’s version. It is really, really good. If I had to be picky, I would say that this one is just a touch finicky with steep times (I was drinking it at work and it didn’t always get perfect steep times). Verdants I seem to be able to do anything to it and it always turns out. This one gets just a hint astringent if you over steep it. Just a little though, really not worth talking about.
This is a really nice, quality, black tea. I would be perfectly happy drinking this at any time. Thank you for including it.

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This was my introduction to Laoshan black teas and I am afraid I was rather spoiled! Not only did it introduce me to buying on aliexpress but it also introduced me to this wonderful seller, who is very enthusiastic about his product, willing to share his knowledge, willing to negotiate to help you buy what you want, and is a caring seller. He tracked my purchase and contacted me when he was worried it was taking too long ( stuck in customs).

The dry tea smells of chocolate and rye bread whereas the wet leaves reminds me of chocolate and raisins.

Brewed western style, the tea brews to a bright copper colour and smells of honey, malt, chocolate, and raisin.
The flavour is of malt, cocoa almost ovaltine and brownies. There is a hint of floral in early sips that disappears, and a hint of honey. It tastes smooth with just a mild hint of astringency. The tea leaves a clean taste in the mouth with the aftertaste of honey and brownies. The second steep is honey, caramel and cocoa with hints of malt. I can get many steeps out of this tea often over six when brewed western style.

When brewed gonfu style the tea is more a pretty amber shade, that is kind of a brown touched gold colour.

With shorter steeps I find that the tea smells of chocolate, brownies, grain, ovaltine, and honey.

The tea feels kind of silky in the mouth with tastes of rich, dark cocoa, ovaltine with honey, and richer notes hinting at molasses and brownies, malted milk. Later steeps bring out tones of caramel, and a touch of vanilla. Honey and cocoa linger in the aftertaste.

This tea is lovely! Rich and deep with notes of malt, cocoa, caramel and honey that work together to remind me of the taste of brownies.

The one I purchased under the black tea category came packed in individual packages that usually allow me three to four different sessions of tea. Which is great as it is easy to travel with and helps to keep the tea fresh. http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/qingdao-laoshan-Black-Tea-flavored-black-tea-organizer/619772_789569691.html.

Fjellrev

Ooh, I’ll have to pay extra attention for the raisin note next time.

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100

I have a scary story to tell you. It even took place on Halloween! I was out trick or treating with the wee ones while the teenagers stayed home to watch movies. When I arrived home, my mom, told me the teenagers had come down and “gone through” my tea stash (Um, yeah, that was scary on it’s own), but when I looked, all was still in order…

The next day I was cleaning up from the nights festivities and noticed that my brand new yixing tea mug (the one I posted about here: http://tastybrewtea.blogspot.com/2013/10/crazy-cute-new-yixing-mug.html) was missing. Literally, my heart was in my throat. I had only used it once and loved every tiny detail of it. I looked all over and then remembered those teenagers. I went upstairs and found it on the floor, full of hibiscus tea. HOLY $%^&(&^%^&*(!!!!!! So many things wrong with this:

1) Teenager knew it was my new special mug and to NOT touch it.
2) It was left on the floor of a bonus room
3) it was filled with HIBISCUS tea!!!! The worst strongest grossest flavor I would ever want my yixing cup to absorb.

Anyway, after much panic and restrained anger, I cleaned out the mug and put a bunch of scoops of Laoshan Black in it and let it sit all day. Then I did it again yesterday.

Today I’m finally brave enough to see if my mug will insert hibiscus flavor into everything. I chose a strong Laoshan Black to test with and am quite pleased to say I think I avoided a near catastrophe.

Seriously. Teenagers. Argh!

Fjellrev

Wow, of all things, hibiscus too! I’m glad the crisis was averted.

TastyBrew

Yeah, seriously, I think rooibos would even be preferable to hibiscus. And the tea was called “Big Hibiscus” too, from steven smith. I enacted a, ‘you don’t go near any of my tea stuff if I’m not here’ rule for the time being. I like that she’s getting interested in tea so I in no why want to stifle that, but… c’mon… hibiscus tea sitting overnight in my yixing mug? I

mrs.stenhouse12

Oh my goodness, happy to hear it was okay! I probably would have flipped out lol, especially because it was hibiscus! At least they didn’t steal it though!

TastyBrew

Yeah, at first I thought it had gotten broken and then just thrown away. So at least it was still in one piece!

Terri HarpLady

geez, I think that’s scarier than the Zombie movie I just watched!

Nicole

That is one seriously cute mug. So glad it survived.

mpierce87

Eek, hibiscus shudders
I’m glad everything worked out for you though.

Sil

how does this tea compare to verdant’s? (and i’m glad the tea mug survived!)

ifjuly

Ack! Glad it worked out.

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100

I found this tea awhile back when Verdant’s Laoshan Black tea was sold out and I was desperate for some more. I did some googling and landed on Aliexpress.com. At first I was a little hesitant, but then I figured it was worth trying out. I’ve bought several different grades of LB from this seller. This one is his highest. He normally retails for something ridiculous, like $130/50g, but one day he had everything reduced 80% so I grabbed 50g of this for about 25 bucks. Still pricey, but I was curious why this one was so much more expensive. Having tasted it, I know. Maybe not $130 worth, but definitely a high end tea. The chocolate and malt is pretty insane. And it keeps its deep, rich flavor through about 5 steeps. It is definitely my favorite LB. And since it’s my birthday, I get to have one of my splurge teas :-)

Fjellrev

Wow, good snag! Sounds incredible.

Fjellrev

And happy birthday!

ifjuly

That sounds good! I’ve contemplated ordering from Aliexpress a couple times but have always lost my nerve. Maybe I should go ahead and try it!

Terri HarpLady

Awesome!!! Happy Birthday!!

ashmanra

Happy happy birthday!

yyz

Happy Birthday!

QueenOfTarts

Happy Birthday! Sounds like a delicious tea!

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