kuanyin Send Message

100

kuanyin drank ZY84: Yunnan Rare Grade by Upton Tea Imports

38 tasting notes

This is another perfect tea in my book. Just deep and dark enough for the morning, but good anytime really. When I opened the bag and sniffed, it was a delightful sensory confusion. Fruitcake? I finally settled on apricot or maybe even ripe persimmon, although it has been so long since I had a persimmon that I can’t be sure of that. There is more, but it is elusive to me. Brewed, it looses the fruitiness and again is hard to describe, I guess cookie is a good description of the flavor. Maybe an old fashioned sugar cookie? I would love to hear other thoughts on this one, the reviews on Upton are as confused as mine. I got 160 grams/5.6 ounces and I was not willing to review this until I ordered it again. So within a week I placed a second order for 320 grams. It is that good.

Preparation

Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

I Like This

5 likes

1 comments

Uniquity
Delete

Sounds good…one to consider when I am back in the market for some black teas.

People who liked this

Comments

Uniquity
Delete

Sounds good…one to consider when I am back in the market for some black teas.

Profile

Bio

I live in Kansas City Mo and am currently obsessed with black tea. I’ve been going through phases. I liked keemun and now I don’t. I’m trying to use them up by adding some golden Yunnan needle to cut the smoke quality. I quit drinking coffee because it affected my blood sugar too much and I’m finding that the really stout teas do too. So Assams and some of the blends are tricky. Right now the Chinese red (black) teas are my current passion. After worrying over the perfect timing for each tea, I have found that I love black tea added generously, brewed at boiling for three minutes for the first infusion and five for the second. Life is so much simpler now and I am enjoying the resulting tea much more than when I was brewing it longer. I do add sweetener, usually Teavana’s German rock crystals, sometimes palm sugar or other experimental alternatives. For my black tea in the morning, I use an infuser basket and an iron teapot. It may not be ideal to basket the leaves, but morning is not the time to be fussy and labor intensive.

Oolong is pretty wonderful too. Especially in the evening. I have some Yixing pots for my evenings, that I really enjoy. One for greener oolongs, one for darker oolongs and one for black teas. Teapots are another obsession, can one have too many? I have a paper porcelain that is perfect for green teas and just got a wabi sabi teapot for flavored teas. I have some larger teapots that I’m finding I just don’t use because I’m the only one in the house that drinks it, so I’m concentrating on smaller ones now. Especially for evening, I like to brew a serving at a time and I prefer a small teapot that with a strainer spot. Then, if I don’t reinfuse, I haven’t wasted as much.

Some of this background helps understand the reviews, I think.

Location

Kansas City MO

Moderator Tools

Mark as Spammer