Wildcrafted Dian Hong

Another one from this morning. Always need a straight tea to get me going in the morning. One more week to reach my sipdown goal for february so i need to pay attention to my smaller quantities of teas as well. It’s looking good though since i’ve been good at not really ordering any teas or just picking up enough for a cup or two.

Bought two ounces of this with my order. It is quite good. Getting some malt but not very much. This is a good thing because I don’t really like notes of malt. Getting some notes of chocolate in there too. Can’t really say about sweet notes because I added sugar.

I brewed this once in a Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 min.

Absolutely delicious.
Full review, here: http://www.createwritedrink.com/2015/12/tea-review-tuesday-review-whispering.html

Ok, so I actually followed the brewing recommendations on this one today. The leaves o this were pretty spread out, so the 4.5 teaspoons isn’t quite as much tea as I keep thinking it is. At least for the first steep. It smells like this beautiful malted chocolate in the cup. It reminds me a little of the Horlicks/Bournvita I drank growing up as a kid.

The first sip takes that away, since I don’t have the sweetness from those blends, but I’m pretty sure some milk and sugar would transform this to a near taste-alike, if not an exact match. But I shouldn’t do that, or I’ll be drinking this late at night and not be able to sleep.

This is still pleasant, though, with only the lightest touch of bitterness, even brewed at 205 degrees. It’s mostly an unsweet chocolate malt to me. I can glean some of the citrus in this, but only if I look really hard. I’m already thinking of trying to do the second infusion today, if I can finish this first cup quickly enough. I want to see how it works with the milk and sugar.

Second steep: This was brewed between 195 and 200 degrees, for 5 minutes (didn’t quite manage to hit the exact temperature with the microwave this time). I also added milk and sugar this time. It was nice, but the milk and sugar kind of muffled the taste notes. Rather than the malted hot chocolate taste I was hoping for, it just like simple black tea, with a little bit of malt powder in it. Maybe I’ll try it again with half as much sugar and milk, but I think so far, I prefer this one without them. They just tend to drown the flavor out a lot more than I’d like.

Drinking this one western-style today, and I’m impressed by how sweet it is. Malty, earthy, faint notes of spice and citrus, but mostly a mouth-coating sweetness reminiscent of honey or brown sugar. Delicious.

What a smart idea… gift a wild dianhong to the guy who drank the Imperial Gold Bud in Tokyo this year and wanted more but it was out of stock… that guy was also nice enough to not purchase 10oz like planned so others could have some.
Anyways, this is like a mini-me of the dianhong… aka it doesn’t hit as hard but it still has the resemblance of the good good. In this picture it’s the dark one :p https://instagram.com/p/5sktHzxYEc/

Picked up some of this with my last order (which was spurred by the return of Art of Darkness!) This has beautiful leaves and tastes like sweet potato drizzled with honey. So yummy! It’s probably the first potato black tea that really tastes sweet potato-like to me…maybe because it’s sweet!