This is an older sample, I think it’s from my first box from Nicole… Oopsies! The name of this one confuses me, hah! I thought Shou Mei was a white tea? But apparently Fu Shou Mei is the name for this specific tea processed with red cane sugar. The only other Feng Qing tea I’ve had is the dragon pearl variety from TeaVivre, and I wasn’t terribly impressed with it. Good but not great!
Anyway, long story short, I didn’t really know what to expect from this tea! The leaves are black and spindly, and quite long for how thin they are. I didn’t get much of a dry scent from them, maybe a little touch of sweet and malt. Did my usual 3 minute steep.
Ooh, aroma! The brewed tea smells strongly of raisins or prunes, with an obvious caramelized brown sugar scent. There’s malt there too, of course. I confess, on my first sip, it was totally an eyes-rolling-back-into-my-head moment. I love the strength of the dried fruit flavor in this tea! It’s dark and rich, with lots of raisin/prune and maybe a touch of fig. There’s a dark grainy flavor, not quite bready, more like raw grain but in a rich sense. I wouldn’t describe this tea as “sweet”, but it has a lot of molasses flavor along with dark caramelized sugar. It’s weird to describe a sugar flavor as not being sweet, I guess it adds more of a richness and almost toasty flavor.
This tea is so delicious, I’m now sad that I waited so long to try it. I’m sorry, little baggie that got lost at the bottom of my sample pile! This is the tea I would reach for when I want something dark, rich, and comforting. Definitely a reorder, and I would love to try the autumn harvest too!
Flavors: Brown Sugar, Caramel, Dried Fruit, Grain, Malt, Molasses, Raisins
Preparation
Comments
I went to put this on my wishlist but I already tagged it! Haha! I guess someone else highly recommended this one. Must be good!
I went to put this on my wishlist but I already tagged it! Haha! I guess someone else highly recommended this one. Must be good!
Definitely a good one if you like darker teas with fruity notes. :D
One of my many faves fr YS. I didn’t have any bad tea fr them
boychik, I’ve liked every tea I’ve tried from them so far. :)
This sounds tasty. I was digging through my tea pantry looking for a specific tea, and I found a few that had fallen off the back of the shelf that I’d forgotten I had. Oops! It happens. I’ve moved mine to the front of the shelf so I can’t forget about them again.