"Drunk on Red" Sun-Dried Feng Qing Black Tea Mini Cake * Autumn 2012

Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Candy, Dried Fruit, Honey, Orchid, Plum, Resin, Apricot, Fruity, Malt, Caramel, Orange Zest, Cream
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Scharp
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 45 sec 4 g 28 oz / 834 ml

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7 Tasting Notes View all

  • “This was from JakeB quite a while ago – thanks so much!  Since this is a cake, I’m assuming these are supposed to be aged black/red teas?  YS has a black cake from 2014 listed on their site, so I’m...” Read full tasting note
    76
  • “This is my first review on Steepster, my first black tea of any proper lineage and my first close encounter with a tea cake. All that being said, I think I am capable of making at least a decent...” Read full tasting note
    75
  • “Drinking my second cake of this lovely tea now. Until now I have enjoyed every cup of this. This black tea really has its own personality, with a very distinct smell that I associate to dried...” Read full tasting note
    80
  • “Ok, I’m still very new to tea. This is my first whole compressed cake. I used about 5 grams with boiling water, so it was a bit strong in my 7oz teapot. Ok, I noticed some astringency and fruity...” Read full tasting note
    80

From Yunnan Sourcing

Second in our “Drunk on Red” series, this year’s production is composed of Autumn flush Feng Qing material. The tea is picked, wilted, fried, bruised by rolling, wet withered under the soon and then finally sun-dried completely. The resulting taste is smooth and sweet with expansive cha qi. Yunnan large leaf varietal sun-dried black tea can be aged for several years with subtle changes occuring every 3 to 6 months.

“Zui Hong” aka “Drunk on Red” is a fat little mini cake made by hydraulic press and wrapped 10 cakes per bamboo tong.

100 grams per cake (10 cakes per bamboo tong)

Autumn 2012 harvest

About Yunnan Sourcing View company

Company description not available.

7 Tasting Notes

76
4164 tasting notes

This was from JakeB quite a while ago – thanks so much!  Since this is a cake, I’m assuming these are supposed to be aged black/red teas?  YS has a black cake from 2014 listed on their site, so I’m assuming these cakes are supposed to age a bit.  One can dream anyway, for my aging cupboard. But since JakeB sent four cakes (have since rehomed one of the four) it would take me quite a while to get through these cakes!  The leaves in the cake are fairly compact.   The first steep’s flavor is very light and bland, probably because the water was too cool to properly unravel the compactedness of these leaves.  The second steep was VERY dark and deep and more of what I’m looking for in a black tea — the leaves had also fully unraveled by then.  I wonder where the “drunk” in the name comes from, because I could swear there was a boozy quality to this second steep, that I normally wouldn’t notice in black tea… This is fine, an the only black/reds I have within full cakes.  So I guess I will have to be content with that novelty, as it stands this just tastes like BLACK TEA to me at the moment.
Steep #1  //  20 minutes after boiling  // rinse// 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 2 minutes after boiling //  3 1/2 minute steep

tea-sipper

No really, someone please tell me if an eight year old black tea cake is intended to be enjoyed aged, like a puerh?

ashmanra

I wish I could answer with certainty! I know I have seen aged white and aged oolong cakes. Not sure about aged black but someone will know!

ashmanra

Ask and ye shall receive. Today’s email from Verdant is about aged black tea! If you go on their site or blog, you can probably find it. I don’t know how to link to an email…

tea-sipper

I usually get Verdant’s e-mails but don’t see this one yet! I will seek out the info on the site if the e-mail doesn’t show up soon, thanks ashmanra. :D

Martin Bednář

I think there is nothing bad with ageing black tea as long it is not some fannings, or some low quality material! This one was cake, so I think it was intended to age, maybe not that much though :)

mrmopar

I think this one will be fine to age. Being pressed into a bing cha type would suggest that it was made to age. I would just brew it in a way that you enjoy it and go from there.

tea-sipper

Martin – Yeah, aged “not that much” is what I was worried about. haha.
mrmopar – thanks for the reassurance!

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75
23 tasting notes

This is my first review on Steepster, my first black tea of any proper lineage and my first close encounter with a tea cake. All that being said, I think I am capable of making at least a decent story out of this.

(NOTE: I did actually manage to screw things up. The search function sometimes doesn’t seem to produce this particular tea so I accidentally created a duplicate. Any help removing it will be appreciated!)

I got this one from my local supplier but managed to trace down its lineage as being a product of Yunnan Sourcing. (That’s 1UP for my local supplier!)

It is a warm sunny day here, but our indoors are cool. Left to my own devices for the afternoon, I set out to taste this tea, deliberately postponing lunch to see if it turns out true to its title.

Using a blunt little wine opener knife, I could easily follow the weaker points in the cake, taking out just enough larger pieces to complement the fannings already falling off. Using the lot in my 120ml (4oz) pre-heated gaiwan, having no strainer, I expected having to do a lot of teeth filtering, but no actual problems there. I used local tap water (~8.5 hardness degrees) right off the boil, but the water for steeps 3-6 was actually saved in an insulated stainless steel tea pot. To me, the dry leaves had no smell. My girlfriend, always the better nose, said it fondly reminded her of straw roofs.

First steep

I did not rinse. In retrospective it may have taken some of the initial dry woody astringency out, but I am not sure if I would have wanted that.

The wet smell after and before the brew was that of cherry sweets. Or strawberry sweets for all I care, but definitely an overpowering candy-like sweetness. Luckily I already knew from the other reviews that the taste would be in high contrast, so I wasn’t too surprised when it turned out to be a cured wood slash black tea astringency, with those resin and honey qualities I once used to search for in pipe tobacco. (These days I feel tempted to summarize resin + honey as ‘propolis’, but I’d have to re-check whether or not that’s accurate for this tea.)

Second steep

This brew produced a slight bit of oil on top. The candy sweetness mixed itself with a new smell to produce a dried plum experience. The flavour, initially just a lighter experience of the same, left me guessing for a bit before I recognized that bodily orchid quality that I previously made acquaintance with in Jade Tieguanyin; fuller and sweeter than the famous, perfumy Biluochun fragrance. Maybe that’s what I was already searching for when I wrote down ‘resin and honey’ earlier.

Subsequent steeps

At steep 3 the smell completely turned to orchids, but the flavour had already fallen back to a lighter version of its original resin-like astringency, which by steep 4 turned the experience into that of an ordinary, but still slightly more vibrant black tea.

So I decided to reboot the experience with fresh hot water. Annoyingly, from steep 5 onwards the leaves gave off more and more of their lovely sweet orchid fragrance, but the cup was already watered down. Finally around steep 8 the leaves toned down as well, or I would never have given up on them. Then again, I miss having my tea already. Maybe just one more wring yet…

Conclusions and learning points

Part of me used to think that you had to turn to raw pu’erh to find that combination of floral and dark fruit aroma’s, that it would somehow get lost during oxidation. Well, that turns out false.

Somehow I felt it was promising that this tea is also from Yunnan, and it might well have been helpful, but ‘ironically’ (get it?) I associate its most exciting aspect with a tea from the other side of the country. So in terms of geography and cultivars I still have some more homework to do.

At the first steep I already noticed this tea’s potential as an iced tea. I also think that this tea would serve well when totally exhausted in one single brew, for instance in a thermos or travel mug. Maybe then some of the orchid fragrance makes it into the brew.

As far as tea drunkenness is concerned, I have to confirm what others have already written. I will not say that this tea is completely without effects, but there is nothing really worthy of a description. In the end I just set out to have my lunch because it was getting late, and certainly not because I had to balance out my tea session.

Flavors: Candy, Dried Fruit, Honey, Orchid, Plum, Resin

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec 1 tsp 120 OZ / 3548 ML

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80
93 tasting notes

Drinking my second cake of this lovely tea now. Until now I have enjoyed every cup of this. This black tea really has its own personality, with a very distinct smell that I associate to dried fruits such as raisins or apricots. A strong smell for a black tea. It does not easily become bitter, and the cup is nicely full-bodied. This isn’t a ‘fancy’ tea really, it isn’t complex or very refined, but it’s just very enjoyable, every time. And the cake shape makes it a lot of fun!

Flavors: Apricot, Fruity, Malt

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 0 sec 2 g 7 OZ / 200 ML

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80
31 tasting notes

Ok, I’m still very new to tea. This is my first whole compressed cake. I used about 5 grams with boiling water, so it was a bit strong in my 7oz teapot. Ok, I noticed some astringency and fruity notes on the citrus side. I think I brewed it too strong so as taboo as it is I added a splash of light agave nectar and it was yummy. this tea reminded me of the typical teas you get in a Chinese restaurant. I like it but again I don’t have much to compare it to, I’m still a tea newb. I will try again in a few months and since I have two cakes think I will try making it iced. I think it would be good iced. It’s a good tea but not uber fantastic. Smoke notes and fruit with high tannins for the most part. Brewed 30seconds then added more time with each infusion, lost it’s umph around infusion 5

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 5 g 7 OZ / 207 ML

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68
89 tasting notes

I got this in the mail today and it smelled like black tea.

It was tightly compressed so it took me a good minute to break off a good chunk of it. After brewing it, I got a nice malt/caramel taste from it. The only thing I didn’t like about this tea is that it seemed to be a bit zesty – something I’m not a fan of in unflavored tea.

I think you get your moneys worth out of this tea considering it’s $5.30 a cake. Despite the fact I wasn’t a fan of it, I’ll give it a good rating because it’s good for what you get.

Flavors: Caramel, Malt, Orange Zest

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 3 OZ / 97 ML

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1113 tasting notes

Here’s another black tea I am unable to swallow once it hits my tongue.

Tried brewing it six different ways.

Anyone want a solid 50g+ of this?

curlygc

I’ll let you know when I get the sample you sent me!

mrmopar

Oh gosh, I liked the one I have. Maybe green is better for you?.

Liquid Proust

I think the green scale is more my thing… but a really good shou or dianhong is sometimes the best of tea. Overall, oolongs are my favorite; however, I do not enjoy oriental beauty. My favorite teas suggest that black are not something I avoid actually. Maybe I just have really picky taste when it comes to black tea. I literally cannot stand astringency which makes my Darjeeling purchases really expensive because they tend to be first flush :/

tea-junkie

I am definitely interested in this if it’s still available. I’ve actually had my eye on this for a while.

mtchyg

Do you happen to have any of this left?

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257 tasting notes

5/14/14
I had fun and tried a little bit of this today. The leaves are very tightly compressed into the cake so I was very gentle in chiseling some off with my pick.
Used about a teaspoon and a half in my little 4 ounce gong fu pot. Using 205F water.
1. 15" rinse
2. 15" smells very good, a light malt, bit of orange cream,,,liquor is a golden sun-orange color.
3. 30" tastes like nice black tea. no bitterness or astringency,,,very tasty.
4. 30" light orange cream flavor, bit of malt,,not so much layered flavor yet but very mild and delish. Leaves have completely opened up now and are a muddy brown color.
Very good and I like mini cakes,,,they are cute ;) lol
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7/11/14
Chiseled off some tea from this cake this morning. I rinsed the chunks and leaves that I was going to brew with room temp purified water. Then brewed Western style with about 2 heaping tsp tea in a 2 cup pot. 195F water for 3 minutes.
Liquor is a nice deep auburn red color and smells malty. I like this tea, has no bitter or astringency and just good old cream, malt, and a touch of orange flavor. Well-balanced easy drinking tea in a fun little cake.
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8/2/14
Chiseled off a bit of this today for a couple of cups. Brewed Western style in 8oz cup size pots. Did an immediate rinse with room temp water then brewed in 190F water for 3 minutes. The tea is so tightly compressed that the leaves come off in some chunks and some dust so the tea changes flavors because of this. I brewed one cup with more chunk pieces and one cup with smaller pieces and flakes. Right now I am drinking the cup that was more chunky and it is good with flavors of orange zest and subtle malt and cream. The cup with smaller pieces actually has more depth and gives off more cream notes on the nose. Both examples are good black tea with no astringency or bitterness, only a note of orange zest with a nice balance.

Flavors: Cream, Malt, Orange Zest

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec 1 tsp 4 OZ / 118 ML

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