Keemun Concerto

A sweet smoothness is the first impression that I notice on my first sip of this tea. Slightly earthy with a bit of a slight roasted mineral taste like a good wuyi. I’d call it a good everyday black tea overall that is cheap, not the best overall but one that is hard to top in its price range.

As I was digging through the ever so organized tea drawer this morning looking for ceylon, I found this instead. I was excited because I didn’t realize there was a keemun in there (my boyfriend had ordered it), so I definitely decided to have this tea instead of the ceylon, eagerly awaiting the keemun goodness I’ve come to love.

Well… I was a bit disappointed. It smelled very smokey and slightly woodsy. As I took a sip I was less excited. The powerful scent just doesn’t live up to the taste. It’s very flat tasting and watery thin. There isn’t much body to this tea and it has this odd tangy after taste to it.

First Steep

A hint pf a malty smell. Very full-bodied flavor too it, a bit too much so. A bit of a lingering aftertaste, but nothing too bad.

This is an incredibly dense tea – hard to handle on its own, really needs something mixed with it to bring it down.

I just found this site, so I thought I’d try to review a tea! This is the tea I’m drinking this morning. I’m almost all the way through the 3 oz I got from the black tea-of-the-month club from Adagio.

While this isn’t my favourite tea, I do like it enough to keep drinking it every day until it is gone. Considering I have at least 35 different types of tea on my desk at work and at least 10 at home, this is saying something. This tea is middling dark with a smokey flavour with a bit of tobacco and malt. I do add milk and a tiny bit of sugar so there is a sweetness to it that there might not be for those who drink without. A bit over a teaspoon of tea to 14 oz of water.

I usually steep twice and it holds the flavour pretty well. 3 minutes on the first steep and 4 minutes on the second.

So, I’m sad to say I haven’t written nearly enough reviews of this tea, not enough to match up to the actual amount I drink it.
I make it pretty regularly. It had a good caffeine kick (at least, I think so) that keeps me awake during classes.
Today I made this tea for my Argentinian photographer friend in a handmade teapot thrown by my ceramicist boyfriend. We drank out of two identical mugs which matched the teapot. (A small teapot, for sure, holds about 2 1/2-3 cups of tea, but that’s usually just enough for a friend and I).
I used the leftover tea leaves to brew it again and again, as I’m working on a large-scale watercolor drawing/painting, and I needed something to keep me going.

Interesting. A bit smoky for my tastes, but not too off-putting. I’ve been nursing a small pot for about three hours now… watching movies on my first Sunday off in almost 3 years.

Adagio CommuniTEA – April 24th, 2023

I find it interesting that Adagio included multiple of their core black teas in a single month of communiTEA. Maybe they repeat them often?

Anyway, this is a tasty Chinese black tea. I will say, it actually reminds me more of a Golden Monkey or other tippy Fujian hongcha. It’s very malty and smooth with starchy potato notes, a satisfyingly thick texture, and those hallmark caraway notes that always make me think “Fujian”. I would expect a Qimen to be more heavy, maybe a bit smokier or with those wine-like fruity notes.

Not a bad thing, still a yummy tea, just not what I expected.

Chocolate on the nose. Smoky, campfire up front, finish with chocolate covered fruit. A delight for the senses!

From Meowster! Thanks so much — I’m slowly trying to get to all the teas, but usually I go for sipdowns or favorite teas. This one is a quality, tasty keemun. If I was in a blind taste test, I’d definitely say this was a keemun, however this one is a puzzle when it comes to distinct flavor notes. The leaves are very huge and wiry, they seem to be an even mix of black and golden in color. The brew is a medium strength, with a hint of smokiness, but there is so much depth here — it is tough for me to describe. Maybe even notes of grapes, which I don’t usually notice in any teas. It’s funny that so many leaves are huge now, across the board from all tea shops and (I think) that means higher quality for the most part, but I also seem to love smaller leafed teas more… maybe not quite CTC size leaves, but a nice mid-size tea leaf seemed to always be my favorite years ago. Like most of the Teavivre black teas have such HUGE leaves now. This tea is satisfying anyway.
Steep #1 // 1 heaping teaspoon for a full mug // 15 minutes after boiling // 2 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 minute steep

I decided to try this in my gaiwan again with a lower temperature to see if I could get anything interesting from longer infusions. The result was interesting: unsweetened cocoa, malt, and grains with a stronger pine and smoke aroma. There’s only a hint of Keemun tang here. The longer steeps are thick, sticking to my throat in a way that makes me think of very dark chocolate. Now that the leaves have opened up completely, I realize I used a lot more leaves than I did the first couple times, so that probably has something to do with the drastic difference compared to what I’ve been tasting.

Shortening the brewing time to about 15 seconds, I was expecting to say it’s back to the usual tangy fruit and red wine, but it’s not. Apparently that comes out at higher temperatures. Lacking the smokiness of the longer brews, pine is the most obvious note in the aroma. The flavor is sweeter and lighter. There’s a fruity note I’m having trouble identifying, but it’s not tangy, and I’m not getting anything wine-like out of this.

Back up to boiling. I’m tasting some of the tang and spice of the first few times I brewed this, but it’s behind a very strong milk chocolate flavor. After this the flavor started fading and the mouthfeel thinned, so long infusions became necessary rather than experimental. I know what I want to try next time, at least: lots of leaves, boiling water, long steeps. And suddenly the taste of tropical fruit and caramel fills my mouth. Cheap black tea with a strong hui gan? That’s a first for me.