Organic Dian Hong Yunnan Black Tea

I found this one in the cabinet. I’ve had it unopened for about a year, but it seems to have kept well. A whole leaf Orthodox. Lots of yellow tips. Traces of caramel in a sweet smelling deep reddish liquor. I like this a lot!

Great smell and taste of Malt, Chocolate, Honey, Roasted, Butterscotch, Caramel.
But it does not last for so many steeps ….

It was crazy windy last night, waking us up in the wee hours with potted plants being flung about outside, and then rainy all morning, so the mail arrived rather late today … with guess what nice surprise, just in time for my afternoon tea pick me up? Yes, this dandy Dian Hong. How perfect. It’s a nice, strong, dark cup, smooth and richly flavored. Just the thing! I over steeped my first go a bit, between 3-4 minutes while I was tending to something else, but 2-2.5 minutes is probably best for the first (western style) infusion. It was still delicious (on my third infusion now), and would have been pretty perfect with a bit of milk. I was tempted, but wanted to try it black first, and it does not disappoint.

I would put this in “breakfast tea” category, which, for me, is actually late afternoon tea, when I want a fine, confident, strapping black tea, no added flavorings or gloss. Give me Kings and Queens and all their fancy moods in the morning, shapeshifting magical Wizards, Sorceresses, and Fools in the night, but a doughty, dependable Knight for the win in the afternoon!

I’d been drinking this all week at work and while it’s a really good everyday black – I didn’t think it was anything special. (What I was drinking I bought Nov15)
And then there was a sample of it in the box that Sil sent to me. That’s what I’m drinking today. Not sure when she picked it up – but this is totally different than my package – or it’s totally different steeped at home vs work.
I just find it interesting that this is really good – nice and dark, malty, bready. Could be the love from a friend theory – it could be home vs work – it could be a different harvest. What ever it is – I’m very happy to be drinking this today. Thanks Sil for sharing. :)

Mmmm, big thank you to Anlina for giving me a sample of this to try. :) I admit, I remembered the “omg chocolate-covered raisins!” description while steeping this, so I was probably a bit primed to taste that, but yeah, this is a very raisin-y tea! It’s also smooth, rich, malty, full-bodied, with some of that classic yunnan black earthiness and a lingering sweetness. Tasty. :)

Drinking this again – I had to share some with my sweetie. They literally yelled and scared the crap out of me on their first sip. It was a good yell of surprise, at how much this tea tastes exactly like liquid Glossette Raisins. Sweet, milk chocolate and raisin flavours. So gooood.

dear god. I need to pick this tea up. It’s on my wishlist now. I’ve been sitting puttering on the computer and i kept smelling caramel…like the caramel that tea gschwewerjoe…makes…which was strange because i only brewed two straight teas this morning. Finally took a sip of this tea and it’s the tea! God. i’m in love with this. Another tea that cookies shared…it seriously reminds me of tea g’s caramel tea (which i love) but it’s not flavoured! the flavouring isn’t intensely caramel but this is for sure the only tea i’ve had where it’s this strong. usually i just get hints of it.
oh man…just got lost on the store…this might just push me in to my first aliexpress order…

This sample is from cookies. She was very impressed with it and offered to send samples, which of course I took her up on. Hooray swaps! The leaves of this tea are somewhat long and quite twisty, and they’re mostly black with some medium brown places. The package smells a bit like lychee from the lychee tea that was also in the swap, but I’m not complaining. Smells yummy! :P

Steeped, this tea smells quite rich. It definitely has wheat bread notes, but there are also smoked meat and dark caramel scents. Hm, this is a very savory tea for me. It’s quite malty with strong bread and smoked meats flavors, as well as some sort of roasty presence. It has that thick mouthfeel that I find to be fairly typical of Yunnan teas, and just the smallest hint of stonefruits and honey. There’s a little touch of some sort of savory spice or herb that I can’t quite identify, but it seems to be somewhere between dill and something else. Overall, tasty, thanks cookies!

Wow this is really good! Thank you cookies for the sample!!!

There is a sweet/savory thing going on here that brings to mind salted caramels. Not quite like anything I’ve ever tasted before! It is rich and malty like a good Yunnan black should be. Very nice, I would definitely drink more of this, and the fact that it is organic is icing on the delicious cake :)

Bumping the rating a bit. This tea is so rich I really can’t get enough of it. It leaves a beautiful heavy caramel aftertaste in your mouth that borders on decadent. I’ve been re-steeping at 4 minutes and it’s holding up really well. Less heavy but the fruit notes come out more. I may or may not already be ordering more even though I’ve only had 3 pots…