Continuing on the quest to get through some lapsangs, I decided to crack open this sample.
This is a backlog from two days ago while the site was down.
The aroma of the dry tea in the packet is more resiny than smokey. It’s a charred wood aroma. The smoke is balanced with a woody smell.
The liquor is medium copper colored and clear.
How I feel about this tea is quite similar to how I felt about another Black Dragon. When I was a kid growing up in Houston, there was an amusement park called Astroworld across from the Astrodome. It later became a Six Flags and I have no idea whether it’s still there now, but be that as it may, when it first opened everyone was excited about one ride in particular called the Black Dragon. There’s a photo of it in the link below.
https://thebuzzmagazines.com/sites/default/files/article-photos/2015/10/amusement4_nov15.jpg
As a kid, I was scared of the ride. Well, more apprehensive than scared. When I was very small I was prone to motion sickness and I’d gotten sick at an amusement park once. Since I hate vomiting more than anything in the world, I was always apprehensive of anything that might make me sick — and I worried that the Black Dragon ride would make me sick. I grew out of the motion sickness (except on boats) and eventually became very into roller coasters. But I digress.
It was the anticipation that made me apprehensive, but once I got on the actual ride, it wasn’t scary and it didn’t make me sick. It was just kind of fun.
It’s the same with this tea. I was apprehensive about it. I thought it would be tarry and ashy and too much for me. But it wasn’t. It’s not a sweet finish Lapsang like the Kusmi. It has a sour note at the end of the sip, but one that isn’t unpleasant in its sourness.
Nor is it too ashy. It’s not even horribly smoky. It’s like sucking on a piece of charred green wood, which weirdly, it turns out, isn’t a bad thing. It’s like sitting next to a fireplace rather than a campfire. There’s no smoked meat taste, and no bothersome saltiness.
It’s a nice Lapsang, but given my current ambivalence toward them, I am going to try to get through what I have before I make any decisions about whether to reorder any of them.
Flavors: Char, Fireplace, Resin, Smoke, Wood
