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This tea makes me happy. It reminds me very much of one of my favourite JJM’s that I bought from a now closed aliexpress store. While that tea was a little sweeter and more resilient this tea shares with it the good balance of tart fruit and malt, cereal notes, and cocoa which make it a great all day tea.

The dry leaf is quite pretty although it does not look quite as tippy as the picture and smells strongly of malt and cocoa.

My first steep was in the lower 90°C range for around 45s which resulted in a Maple coloured brew. Later steeps were short steeps at boiling which brought out more of the red tones in this tea. My steeping times were (45, 10, 12, 20s, 2min and 7minutes).

The tea smelled of hints of the upper tones of malt, cocoa, honey, plums, and cream.

I captured flavour notes of a smooth, slightly tart mix of malt, oatmeal, barley, and cocoa, with longan, plum and faint citrus notes, honey with cream, and hints of a slightly green floral note with bits of cinnamon in the first steep. Honey lingered in the aftertaste.

Subsequent steeps added notes of lychee, cream, sugar, cucumber water, cocoa butter, and mineral notes to the above. The early steeps at boiling had more assertive flavours and were more astringent. Throughout the steeps the tea maintained a medium density. Altogether a very nice all day tea.
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