Spring 2013 "Drunk on Red" Sun-Dried Feng Qing Black Tea mini cake

After my folks picked me up at the airport, we went to lunch at a place called TooJays.
Now I’m chillin’ out with my Parental Units, & having my first cup of tea here.
Halleluia! They got a new water purifier on the kitchen sink! Yay!!
No sulphur, no horrible water. I’ll enjoy drinking teas during my visit, Yay!
And it’s a good thing, because I brought a bunch of teas. I thought about bringing my fancy teas, but instead I brought teas that I need to polish off, so my visit with my folks might be a mini ship down extravaganza.

This one is not a sip down, at least not yet, but I’m getting close. It’s not one of my favorites from YS, but it’s not bad. The main flavor features, at least today, are leather & malt.

Free sample. Used a 180 yixing pot with 7g tea. My better half joined as well.

Rinsed quickly twice, then first steep 5 seconds, aroma of balsa wood and malt is what I smelled, with a smoky crisp creme brulee, buttery flavor. A bit of bitter that almost dropped my hubby out of the tasting, but he’s getting better with it since I’ve cook him bitter gourd.

Second steep 5 seconds had flavors of dried cherries, less bitter and a classic red tea profile. Slightly smokey. Smooth.

Third steep 10 seconds, just ripe banana came out as the fruit note with a noticeable dryness of a good Merlot.

Fourth steep 15 seconds and the sweetness is making a push through, the fruitiness is dissipating and the aftertaste is both dry and bitter on the tongue.

Fifth steep and we took a break with a few plain hot water sips to realign the buds. 20 seconds and the sweetness is forefront with a caramel hint. There is a noticeable chi starting to clear the throws of last nights slumber.

Sixth steep 25 seconds and the sugar is replaced by a slight sweet/sour you get from an unripe blueberry. The smokiness is also waning. Now it reminds me of standard red steeped teas. The color is still quite pronounced a clear burnt sienna.

Got a total of 10 steeps which made my day very pleasant, took hubby to the airport then off to flushing for more tea adventures.

This is an excellent tea. It is very good gongfu style. There is plenty of sweetbess and I get a strong lemon flavor. Lasts through many infusions.

I have had this sitting round for a few years now and thought I would see how it is developing. I decided to have a go at drinking it before breakfast as well to see if my taste-buds were more sensitive as another experiment. I brewed in a fairly leaf heavy (for red tea) way with lots of flash infusions, slowly increasing the time brewing.

The scent of the dry leaf before heating was quite hard to pick up, I think this is due to storage. The heated dry leaf mostly smelt like a medicinal roasted barley, which strangely was very inviting to me!

The wet leaf scent lost some of the barley but had more dark berry smell to it which from memory is similar to how this tea was when I first tried it in 2013. The initial brews were mostly quite fruity with a good bittersweet flavour and a lengthy finish with some returning sweetness. Later brews lent towards a malty assam characteristics and lost a bit of the fruity jam flavours in the early brew.

All round a very enjoyable start to a cold morning.

8g in a 200ml glass teapot with 195 degree F water

The taste is more reminiscent of a good Indian Assam than all of the chocolate heavy Yunnan blacks I have been drinking lately. Malty with a berry jammy quality that I keep going back to. I notice little astringency even with smaller broken bits that I bet would come out with higher temp and longer steep time.

I almost wish it wasn’t in cake form as its compressed tightly and I end up destroying a good bit of it when I break off some for a session.

Tastes oddly of chemicals. And kind of sour?

No.

Woodsy, malty, fruity, astringent, a little bit bitter. This tea was very tasty. A classic red tea flavor without the chocolate overtones I’ve experienced from several recent teas.

Glad I picked this one up, for sure.

This is a solid black tea. It certainly has a tangy raspberry note that everyone seems to mention. There is also a woodsy/slightly green flavor to it. Not vegetal but just an earthy green hint. Slight hint. Classic black tea flavor but with a little more complex twist to it. A decent little tea buzz as well.

Decent black (red) tea that has been pressed into 100g cakes. I like the size and design, and at about $6 after shipping, they’re a good value as a gift for the tea drinkers in your life.

The tea does not have the strong malty/chocolaty taste that many Yunnans have. Instead it has a taste I would call ‘matured spring’. While I certainly wouldn’t say it tastes like any particular fruit, it gives me the impression of late-spring black raspberries.

I definitely feel a relaxing ‘Cha qi’ that is supposedly from where this tea gets it’s name. I noticed that the wife was a bit more snuggly after her cup as well (and she thought it was very good, ‘very tasty’ – and went after another cup later on in the evening)

A 100 gram cake might not last as long as 100grams of loose tea might. Depends on how careful one is to use exact amounts when breaking it up.

Delicious! Tastes like raspberries and cream, with a hint of dark chocolate. So smooth. Mmm! This is the first unflavored black tea that tastes like raspberries to me. Usually fruity black teas taste like cherry or stone fruits. It’s also extremely affordable. You probably could get about 20 servings out if it for the cost of one fancy drink at Starbucks! I didn’t really notice a tea drunk effect…maybe I need to use more leaf. I’ll try that next time!