Keemun

quick notes on this one from this morning – trying to get back on top of my tea logs and notes. I pulled this one out as it’s nearly done but will take more than just 2-3 cups before it’ll be a sipdown. This tea + maple syrup = happy sil. Especially on a day like today with issue after issue. It might be what saved me from taking anyone’s head off today haha :) Like this keemun a bunch but i have grown to understand that assams>keemuns for me since i first picked this up.

I really love a lot of different teas! There’s an old song from when I was young, “Love the One Your With”, LOL. That’s my relationship with tea. That’s not to say that I absolutely love every tea I drink. There are teas that I don’t care for. This is NOT one of them! I enjoy enjoy Keemun, & I can easily understand why the British were so in love with it. Gently smokey, with a hint of brown sugar sweetness, & although I usually drink mine straight, occasionally I’ll spike it with stevia & french vanilla coconut milk creamer. Today I’m drinking it plain. It’s just what I needed.

One of the things I love about tea trades here on Steepster is getting to sample a ton of new teas from companies I’ve never ordered from. Another thing I love is getting to share awesome teas with people who’ve never tried them. The very best part of tea trades is getting to know the person you’re trading with a little bit!!
I got this tea sample from Sil, & I’m really grateful for our recent trade! So many teas to sample! Yeah! Thanks Sil!

I love a good Keemun and I try to always keep one around. I’ve found my perfect favourite Keemun not too long ago, but I’m not so married to it that I’m going out of my way to make sure it’s that particular Keemun that is always in the cupboard. Any Keemun is fine really. I’m loosening up in the same way with other types, I’ve noticed. I have my favourites, my most beloved, and I make sure I won’t forget where it came from when I find Perfection, but it’s only my various flavoured favourites, where I’m truly brand loyal. But the flavoured tea is a completely different beast as well.

Sil shared this particular Keemun with me, and it’s from a company that I’ve previously had some very good teas from. I remember fondly the Heritage Aijiao Oolong. Wombatgirl once sent me a whole pouch of that one as a gift. (I miss her. I wish she was still around.) I wrote a (bad) ode to that one, for crying out loud! I believe I must have a tried one or two others from that company as well. So Red Blossom is a company that immediately raises my expectations of the tea I’m about to drink.

Very pleasant aroma on this one. Lightly smoky and with grainy notes underneath. Just how I like’em. There’s a smidge of something floral to it as well, but it smells like it’s in balance with the note of smoke. I prefer that. I’ve long believed that the smoky note in some Keemuns and the floral note in others are actually the same aspect, but coming across in different ways. Seems to me that this depends on the leaf grade. Higher leaf grades are usually more floral than smoky, where lower grades are more smoky than floral. I tend to prefer sort of the lower end of the middle here.

The flavour is quite strong, and it has an initial prickly feeling of smoke with a floral character. After that it’s just completely smooth. The note of grain seems to be a tad thin though. That initial flavour is just so big, it’s like the grain can’t quite keep up with it.

As it cools a little further, however, this is adjusted as the grainy note seems to expand more, becoming thicker and smoother.

There is also quite a nutty flavour to this one, which is a new note to me. Strangely though it doesn’t feel like it’s anything new in that this tea doesn’t strike me as hugely different from other teas of its kind. It’s just that this nutty note is like something that was always there but which I’ve only just become aware of. Slightly toasted hazelnuts. It’s a very small note in all this, which is probably why I’ve never really identified it before even though I feel like I’ve been aware of it being there. Does any of this even make sense?

Anyway, as it cools a little further, I’m nearing the end of the cup here, that nutty note mellows out again and all but disappears. That supports my suspicion that it’s a note that was there in Keemuns all along, but difficult to identify. Apparently you only get a small window of ideal temperature to do it in.

Many Keemuns seem to have the ability to develop caramel-y notes, but I haven’t really found any of that in this one. Mind you I’ve never had a Keemun that went all out on the caramel yet either but I’ve had several that tasted like they could have. This one is really just the smoky/floral start, the grainy middle and the briefly nutty finish. I wouldn’t have minded a smidge of caramel in there as well.

This was my tea first cup of the day.
I oversteeped it stupidely as I get distracted by a phone call.
I had to add a splash of milk to drink it because it took a taste too strong for me, a kind of earthy taste.
I didn’t get the typical mellowness I normally detect immediatly in keemuns.But may be due to the oversteep.
With milk it was really pleasant. I have enough to try a second cup thanks to the sample kindly sent by Sil

Thanks SIL
A little ‘bitter-crusty’ like toast with a bit of smoke which I like! A natural berry note as well as cocoa type aroma and end sip on to the aftertaste. This is fairly strong and I like it! I should have started my day with this one!

Cheers!

Another “thanks to sil” tasting note! Had a few too-stupid-to-brew-cuppa days there, which had me avoiding trying this, but today I was up to the challenge. (Totally sarcastic, both about the challenge and about being up to anything.) Anyway, I brewed this according to Red Blossom’s instructions – though I simply had to taste the rinse water, like the big child I am. (It was mildly pool-water tasting, I thought, so they were probably right to say discard it.) But then I was dutiful and did as I was supposed to.

I’m going to have to leave it rather vaguely as not as much to my taste as the Pure Aroma Teas Keemun Spruce, but a nice cup all the same. There was a bit less silky smoothness to the smokiness compared to the PAT one, which left it ever so slightly tasting of burnt wood, to me. Well, obviously, smoke comes from burnt wood but it doesn’t mean the tea tastes like the wood itself. Yes, this tasting note is FULL OF SMART. I could get slight sweet notes – a hint of cocoa/chocolate and maybe a hint of raisin, but they weren’t quite as strong as the burnt notes. Which weren’t strongly burnt, but still dominant.

Thanks again for the sample, sil. It’s great to have had the chance to try this Keemun!

From sil…had this with my brunch this morning with hubby since he prefers straight black teas with milk and sugar, English style. Even used my two English bone china tea cups (thrift store finds).

Anyway, about the tea. The first think I noticed was a light smoky taste. I’m not typically a fan of smoky teas, but this one seems ok, and probably the edge of my smoky tea comfort zone. There was a slight smoky smell to the dry leaf, as well as a sort of thickness. I didn’t find the brew to look thick, but on the tongue, it was a bit thick. Next taste was probably a bit grainy, followed by a hint of floral, though not sure WHICH floral.

All in all I would say this is a nice straight black tea that I got multiple steeps out of. I think though, that I’d like to try out other keemuns and see if I can find one a little less smoky. This one is pretty good though, but I think I like my Teavivre blacks a little more. I might have to do a side by side with those. I have a few places in town I can get this kind of tea from, so I might explore that option too.

As big a fan I am of this delightful tea company, I was quite disappointed in the Keemun. I am not a fan of the smoky note, and this has it. Unfortunately, once I pick that up, it cancels out any other notes for me. If you like whiffs of smoke in your tea, then you might want to give this inexpensive Keemun a try. It has a nice deep body that I look for and could be a good everyday tea. For someone else, that is.

Very good simple black tea. Great full flavored breakfast tea.

This is an excellent Keemun—as they will explain to you in their store, it is very strong, and not for the faint of heart. I found it to be very agreeable.