Well, I bought a big bag of this some 8 yr ago, in early 2017, and didn’t care for it as much as I liked other TTES #18 teas, so it has been sitting in my tea cupboard ever since. Now that I am re-exploring this variety from Taiwan (also known as Hong Yu, Red Jade, and Ruby 18), I’m giving it another shot. There is still experimentation going on in Taiwan as far as what to do with this variety of tea, which (according to Teapedia) is a large-leaf “cross between Taiwanese wild tea tree (B-607) and a Burmese assamica (B-729)”. Some will make a delicious dark black tea, others a heavily oxidized oolong (“Brandy 18”), and still others will process it as an awful white tea in cake form, hinting that it could be aged like a pu-erh. Some will encourage leafhoppers to feed on the plants as hey do for certain Oriental Beauty oolongs higher in the mountains, and call it “Honey Black”, whilst others will do the same in the Sun Moon Lake vicinity, all with varying success from year to year.
What I’m reviewing now are large, spindly black dry leaves that unfurl to milk-chocolate brown colored leaves after the second steeping, labeled as “organic” but with nothing about leafhoppers. Tealyra doesn’t list it anymore on their site but, thankfully, user eastkyteaguy captured their description when making the entry for it here on Steepster. The same product was also listed here under the company’s former name of Tealuxe, with a somewhat more detailed description captured by user Jason, along with additional reviews. There is concurrence that it is a Sun Moon Lake area product.
I used about 3g in a stainless infusion basket with 8 oz boiling spring water for 2-3 min in both steepings. I got a strong flavor of honey, with notes of apricot, malt, dates and floral fragrances. The dry leaf had little fragrance. I find it good, but not as satisfying as Brandy Oolong 18 by the same company. I’ll give it a rating of 78.
Flavors: Apricot, Dates, Floral, Honey, Malt
