Lapsang Souchong Wild Black Tea

Have you ever tried a tea so bad that it traumatized you for the entire variety and you thought you’d never drink one again?

I felt that way about Lapsand Souchong until I tried this one.

Unlike every other one I’ve tried, “smokey” is not the first word that comes to mind. Instead, it reminds me rather of the smell of boiling wort (beer being made before it becomes alcohol): yeast, molasses, malt, and a hint of something slightly earthy and infinitely pleasant.

The flavor hits the front of my tongue with a smooth, coating sense of buttery-ness, turning to the sweet flavor of warm molasses as it hits the middle. By the back, I get a mild astringency and loam-y scent and flavor.

From being horrified by lapsangs in general, this tea has totally turned me around! I’d be happy to have it on my shelves.

22nd day, not much left of my Advent calendar!

I am told this is the best of Sara’s calendar. Based on the smell already, wow. It smells like honey.

Whoa. I remember thinking lapsang souchong tastes like sipping black tea around a campfire while the wind blows smoke directly into your face. Thankfully someone thought to put out the campfire.

It’s very honey-tasting. There’s a strong black tea flavor, but not very astringent. There are notes of raisins, maple syrup, and chocolate too. Oh and malt near the end of the sip. How can this much flavor be in a pure tea? It boggles the mind. I wish it had come up sooner, would have ordered some as a present for my son and daughter in law. Heck, I might still. Wow, Sara, I can see why you love this tea. Wow.

Edit: I have ordered some.

Lately I’ve been trying to finish off some of my samples, and avoid buying tons of new tea for a little while, but I’ll definitely get this when the opportunity appears. I’m finding I really love teas from the Fuijan region, because they seem to have that chocolatey/sweet profile I like so much. I expected this one to be smokey, since I think I’ve only ever had smoked lapsang souchong, but it’s instead a soft, toasty flavor. I loved it utterly.

If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought this was a Laoshan Black Tea. It tastes of chocolate and malt. I was surprised at how small the leaves are given that it is a wild grown tea. It is quite tasty.

What an interesting tea. I got it as a free sample from Teavivre. It cannot be farther away from the smoked version. The dry leaf has an intense sweet smell of blackberry, raspberry and malt. After steeping it for 45 secs in a gaiwan it developed a nice amber color and an incredibly sweet taste of forest berries, malt, spices and honey. Both the taste and the smell are quite complex, well balanced, and powerful.

I do not remember having anything like that before. It is probably the sweetest tea I ever tasted, with the long spicy and bitter aftertaste. This tea grabs your attention from the very beginning – as soon as you put it in a Cha He – and keeps it well after you finished the cup. It is a great tea to have a conversation over, as well as being a “lift me up” cuppa.

With the repeated infusions (starting with the 4th) the taste profile becomes simpler and less balanced: bread, biscuit and malt come forward, while berries and honey disappear. It also becomes sourish. So, you can get 3-4 good steeps and that’s that but those steeps are totally worth it.

I will most certainly order it again and put it into a heavy rotation. This is the tea that you offer to your Lipton teabag friends to demonstrate what they are missing, to recruit and convert.

I wasn’t expecting much from this inexpensive sample but the taste and aroma of this tea really caught me by surprise. Out of the bag, an explosion of dark chocolate and molasses hits your nose. Placed in a heated pot, the dry leaves emit aromas of ovaltine and s’mores. The steeped tea has a complex and wonderful chocolatey flavor that reminds me of Laoshan black tea. But there’s so much more to it than just chocolate. I also detected hints of rose, berries, and a little sweet potato earthiness in the finish. Normally I don’t care for the sweet potatoey note found in Dian Hongs however here’s it’s subtle and balanced. There’s no smokiness to this Lapsang at all, just a lingering caramel like sweetness.

The flavor does fade quicker than I’d like. By the fourth steep most of the flavor had been drained. Nevertheless, this is really an exceptional tea for the price and one that I will definitely repurchase.

This tea has a nice bready aroma. It is rich and sweet with flavors of raisin bran cereal, molasses, and maple syrup. I really enjoy the flavor of this tea. It has a nice balance to it and a pleasing aftertaste.

Teavivre makes a really lovely smokey Lapsang Souchong, one of my favorites, and although I know that all Lapsangs aren’t smokey, I kind of assumed this one would be.
It is not smokey, but it is delicious!
I dumped the 7G sample into a 16oz teapot and steeped 3 min, resteeped 5min.
The aroma of the leaf is sweet, bready, fruity, and a little floral.
The tea is essentially the same: honey, molasses, malt, stone fruit, and roses (in the 2nd steeping). I’ll have to remember to add some of this to my next Teavivre order.

Here’s Hoping TTB

I was surprised to find this in the “unflavored blacks” section of the TTB instead of in the “smoky tea” bag. Turns out, it was filed correctly. This is a lovely smooth, malty black tea with a warm honeyed sweet potato flavor and not even a hint of smoke. Quite delicious!

I got a sample of this somewhere and the other day it came up in my attempt to drink down my non-puerh stash. After looking at the leaves, I decided I would western this instead of trying to gongfu it. I used about 3.5g in my 12oz kysusu with water at 200F. It had some nice chocolatey notes, maybe a bit of maltiness, and was totally bomb-proof. I oversteeped brutally almost every time, because I’m easily distracted. After getting around 3 or 4 steeps, I just decided I’d toss the other half of the sample in there with the spent leaves and do a second session that way. Still wasn’t bitter or astringent or anything. A good one to drink if you’re distracted for sure. Pretty tasty, and I’m glad it wasn’t a smoked Lapsang.