Black Dragon Pearls

I have the newer format, in teabags!…HUH, WHA, NOOOOOO, NOT TEABAGS! EEEGADS!…lol.

Aroma: Smooth, delicate, mild and sweet…a little caramel, a little chocolate and mild Sri Lanka tea.

Taste: It started out a little, excuse the pun, but a little “watery”…not much to it, a little too mild. The longer it steeped, the more the flavor profile shown through; it is actually really sweet with noticeable cocoa notes. Also, the region it hails from, Yunnan, China, you can detect in the flavor…a little earthiness, a little smokiness.

Aftertaste: The aftertaste is mostly the chocolate-y cocoa with a little of the earthiness lingering…different.

To me, this tea seems to be a good after dinner tea because of the prominent chocolate notes…tasty.

This is a good black tea. I’m afraid that just having a sample hasn’t allowed me to get the tea/water ratio right. The first batch was too weak because I used to few pearls. This second one is better, but it still tastes like a weaker Yunnan Jig from Adagio.

I don’t know why I didn’t review this the first time I drank this. But this is good :) I got this as a sample but it lasted a while! To me the flavor is a bit weak but it’s still enjoyable. Kind of earthy and sweet. Glad I got to try it but I think I will stick to my other company :)

When I think pearls, I think of jasmine dragon phoenix pearls (or some similarly-named variation that amounts to the same thing). I was a little on the surprised side when I opened up my sample pack of this tea to find these much, much larger pearls. Not that pearls can’t be this large, of course…I’m sure my wife would love to possess a necklace of pearls this size.

In any event, these pearls make tea, and I drink tea. I drank this tea, in fact. It was pretty good, definitely earthy and with mild astringency. Nice and bold, it seems like a relatively decent bet for breakfast, for me anyway.

I don’t like many black teas, but I’ve been widening my tastes lately, and what better to start off than dragon balls – sorry – pearls.

These are huge. If you’ve had green dragon pearls before, these are about three times the diameter. They smelled good, I dropped two in a mug, and steeped. I was surprised at how floaty the leaves were. It was hard not to swallow them too, unlike green dragon pearls. I think this was due to many stems in the cup.

The flavour was rich but not overwhelming. It had something in there I can’t quite describe, sort of a subtle fullness. Definitely going to drink again, maybe purchase!

Rich and robust and complex. Liquor isn’t real dark, more of an amber. Not as strong as some black tea, say an assam, but not as overwhelming, either. And more complex. This isn’t a tea that is going to punch you in the mouth, coffee style. Its more like a wine. You have to appreciate it and its depths.

Probably worth trying just for the unique shape. The curled balls (pellets?) of the tea are interesting to look at both in the jar and during the brewing process, as water bubbles spring forth from the orbs as they slowly unfurl.

I liked the pearls. This is a good black tea I steeped it for a a couple of minutes or more. I did not taste a huge amount of cocoa notes but I only used one pearl in my cup.

First of all, these are the infusion parameters I used this time:
4 balls, 2 cups boiling (212 degrees F) water, 5 minutes, first steep.

It was quite good. Not amazing, but good.

Quite smooth for a black tea. Everything seemed to blend well together (or I couldn’t distinguish any particular flavor, anyways). Not much in the way of bitterness either.

I didn’t really allow my cup to cool much while drinking, so I can’t say how it did as it cooled. Last time I had this with 3 balls/2 cups, I didn’t like it as it cooled down then (it was ok warm).

Will continue tweaking with parameters values as I use up my sample, but this time around it turned out quite good.

5 pearls

Funny, the “chocolate notes” in this tea were more enjoyable to me than the Chocolate tea from Adagio (that I only gave 15 points). Adagio recommends 2-3 pearls per cup so I tried 3. I could have used 2 and would have been perfectly happy with the flavor, which I would describe as “medium” as opposed to a weak or strong flavor. I tried it without sweetener and with, and think I could comfortably drink it either way.

Watching the pearls unfurl into a seaweed-looking mass of dark brown leaves was kinda fun- so much so that I forgot to take them out. This tea’s earthy flavor doesn’t need to be strong for me to enjoy it. Next time I’ll use 2 pearls and take the leaves out earlier.

UPDATE: I’ve discovered this to be the perfect work tea. I get involved in my work at times and have, a couple of times, steeped this tea longer than I intended to. I’ve discovered that no bitterness is caused by this.