CharlotteZero select Send Message

I was not expecting to like these at all, but I was pleasantly surprised. Someone said that they tasted a bit like Cadbury mini eggs. I’d have to agree, but I’d add that they taste “dusty”. I’m not usually a fan of jasmine teas. I think that might be because I’ve had too many terrible jasmine teas in cheap Chinese restaurants…But I’ll never turn down a cup of tea. There isn’t enough tea flavor happening to make this something I’d drink regularly, but it was good.

This is definitely my favorite Dian Hong, but I think the previous harvest I tasted was a bit better than this batch (this batch was ordered perhaps a year ago). I ordered more recently because no other Dian Hong comes close to this. This tea is amazingly sweet and smooth and complex. Yum. :-)

I picked this up during their Black Friday sale. It’s already one of my favorite Yunnan black teas.

This was not as good as I was hoping it would be. This will be a tea I have with food from now on.

I made this one gong fu style tonight. I like it quite well, although I don’t get the “cocoa undertones” so much. Very nice anyhow.

I’ve been holding on to this sample of tea for too long! Friday night I finally got around to brewing it, and it lasted me over three days, and when I finally decided to move on to another tea, I believed it could have still been brewed more. I made this gong fu style, and I didn’t make tasting notes. The flavors/aromas/sensations were very much like what is described on the website (peppercorn, sparkling, linen, apple [didn’t really get so much of this], cedar). Through later steepings it begins to get more earthy and the spice notes go from being light and peppery to more of a cinnamon or allspice (although neither of those I think are quite it). In much later steepings it became very mineral-y. This was a great tea, and it inspired me to make a last-minute Verdant purchase before their sale ended. This has also really piqued my curiosity as to what an aged version of this would be like.

I’m brewing this to Mariage Frères’ instructions for this morning in my new teapot: http://www.redblossomtea.com/teaware/xdj-teapot-iron-spot-1017.html. I may have over leafed it. It’s been so long since I’ve attempted to use an recommended amount of tea that I have misplaced my tea scale…That’s embarrassing.

Ugh. I really didn’t think there was anything special about this tea. It was incredibly smooth and, but just didn’t have enough going on. Oh well. I have a lot of this, so hopefully my next steeping will be better.

Well, I’m back…Sort of. Allergy season kicked my ass this year, then I had a cold, and on top of all that I am still on a medication that has the potential to affect my sense of smell (but only for two more months).

I decided to delete my (bad) rating on this one. I recently tried another of Mandarin Tea Room’s teas, and it had to have been one of the best if not the very best tea I’ve ever had. I now trust that when I tasted this, there was something wrong with my palate and not the tea! I also wish I’d had the patience to brew this gong fu style, but I was just starting to drink tea again after having months with an impaired sense of smell.