ashmanra Send Message

This tea was a gift from the wonderful derk!

Yesterday I tried this western. The aroma is so powerful! I was hit smack in the face with rich, toasty aromas, nuts, a little honey, rich rye bread…so i was surprised at how light the color of the liquor was.

For the powerful scents, it was much more muted in taste and had a rather thin texture rather than the full and robust body I expected from the aroma. It was quite good, just not what I anticipated.

Today I had my first gong fu session in quite a while, sitting in the bow window watching the birds and the rabbits play. (We have had pet rabbits living at our end of the street for a few years now and everyone pitches in and takes care of them. They escaped from a breeder who didn’t care to recapture them. The adult couple was captured and neutered and the babies were given to good homes and to some of my students who we knew would be very good to them. They can not interbreed with our indigenous cottontails so no danger of hybridization.)

This is the best way to enjoy this tea. My first steep was pretty long for gong fu. I began with 30 seconds and detected no bitterness, so I added 15 seconds for each subsequent steep. The aroma is really toasty, almost burnt toasty like some DHP but not quite. How about rich, brown toasted rye bread? Body is a little thicker this way, and there was just a touch of toasted walnut, honey, and something floral – not a lot and more osmanthus or magnolia. I am leaning toward magnolia.

(Bird bath thus far – tufted titmouse, grey squirrel, Eastern bluebird, mockingbird, female cardinal, various sparrows, yellow pine warbler, and a brown headed nuthatch.)

Thank you, derk! I loved the two Huang Jin Gui oolongs I had tried, and it was a real treat to have a black huang jin gui!