I finally caved and bought some with my last order, because the sample incident was going to haunt me until I tried this tea properly. And let me just say? It’s all I can do to stop myself glugging the heck out of this tea.
4 grams in a 4oz ceramic teapot. Very short infusions, only a few seconds each. Jumped up to 10 seconds by steep 5ish. Made it to 7 before I called it a night, but I will definitely continue when I wake up.
(Side note! Not very happy about the pour on my new little teapot. It was a cheapy buy, but I thought it might be handy for when I didn’t feel like getting burnt with my poor gaiwan skills. Well, note to self: expect a dribbly mess, and expect to count the long, slow pour into the steep time. That said, I discovered I like this tea on the longer side of steeping. So it’s not all bad! And it’s a cute, titchy little thing, and I like the way it holds the tea scent.)
Back to the tea! Tea liquor darker than last time, a nice burnt creme brulee colour. Tea leaves smell intensely of chocolate and malt after steeping. And the flavour is a full, delicious chocolate. The description suggests dark chocolate, but I say milk chocolate. I’m not much for dark chocolate, but I’m nuts about this tea. Really, really head over heels.
I have to admit something – I combined all the steeps and had it in two batches. I feel bad, but there’s always next time to do it properly, right? It’s impossibly hot in my apartment. Beautiful, outside. But my apartment building still has the heating on. I just didn’t feel like getting up multiple times. The gong fu gods surely scowl at me tonight.
