Keemun Congfu

This was a tasty keemun. It had some smoke, some fruit, and some caramel. Pretty good. The smoke lasted throughout several infusions. I probably would have preferred it to change a bit more, but overall, it was good.

Delicious!

Grabbed it with a bunch of my other blacks and put it near my bedside table near my tea/hot water maker as part of moving all meds and comfort items nearby because I am fighting a cold that could win at any moment… And last night was feeling like it may have. Happily this morning I’m back to fight-off symptom levels.

Grabbed this one to make out of just random, really… Looking over the packages gauging when I’d had this or that last, that sort of thing, and decided to go with this.

I’ve twice now at the Coffee & Tea NYC festival bought things from them and enjoyed, grabbed this with 2 last-year ones I liked.

So, on waking this morning I prepped and turned on my Breville with it and am having it.

First mouthful was an actual “yum!” thought in my head, the word. I’ll not go into all the colors and details this review as I know I’ll have it again and can then add more, but right now: molasses, orange color in back of tongue but not throat area, moderate brown richness on mid-tongue, and lots of little finer notes that will add. It’s a medium strength black.

Absolutely a buy again.

2.25g/6oz

Another sample from the amazingly awesome Scribbles!

On first smell of the dry tea, I get strong vanilla and cake/pastry notes. Which I found odd for a keemun but I am keen to continue.

When the hot water first hit the tea, the smokiness of the keemun wafted up. It was sweet, slightly smokey.

In order, the first flavour notes I got from this tea were: malt, smoke, tobacco. Delicious. There are definitely light undertones of vanilla cake. The smokey flavour was quite light. There was a very natural sweetness to this tea, that complemented the smoke flavour. The tea liquor was thick, it was moderately bold, there was no astringency which was quite nice (and also a surprise).

My all time favourite teas are Assams, but keemuns do come in a close second.

Think this is also my last sample from QueenOfTarts! Took me a while to get to this one since I wasn’t really sure about Keemum, but figured today seemed like a good day to try it finally.
I had a feeling it was gonna be really earthy, and I was right! XD
It’s super earthy…with slight, ever so slight hints of malt.
But that’s really all I’m getting :/ So not really disappointed since I didn’t have really high hopes for this one anyway, but didn’t really surprise me or anything.
Not for me!

Time for another lazy note because I was distracted by gaming! This is the last of the Joseph Wesley samples generously provided by scribbles. The leaves are small, thin, black, like most Keemuns I’ve seen. Dry scent was musty hay, maybe some grain. I did my usual black tea steep.

Yum, this one is very creamy with bread and oat flavors. There’s also some honey and maybe the slightest touch of cinnamon? Also some slight vegetal notes near the beginning of the sip, maybe greens? A fairly simple, but tasty, tea. :)

The scent of this tea isn’t as interesting as other black teas I’ve had in that I can’t really pick out layers. It does smell very comforting and brings back memories of having black tea and milk with friends. I pick up on something that resembles lemon, as if someone has placed a slice of it on the side of the cup.

Sipping… this is a very nice, crisp tea. It’s got a lovely citrus brightness to it, but also remains true to it’s “black tea” flavor. I can see this being a nice morning cup of tea. It’s brisk enough to wake you up, but not so heavy and alarming as some other teas can be. So far, not my favorite from Joseph Wesley, but definitely a lovely and bright tea.

I’m skipping the queue with this one because THE TIME HAS COME! I have opened the tin. I have sniffled it. Happy birthday to me! (I thought that would be an auspicious day to try it, don’t you?)

I should make some preliminary introductions to this one and tell why it’s so extremely special to me that I had to have it, shipping fees be damned. This tin right here was the very thing that made me order from JW at all. Everything else that I got to taste from the company was purely coincidental and taking advantage of the fact that I would be paying shipping charges anyway. I’ve been looking at the unopened tin of it for weeks now, simply just enjoying that fact that I had it. Petting it now and then and enjoying looking forward to it while waiting for the right time to taste it for the first time.

As you all know (or ought to know at this point!) I’m partial to a Chinese black, and if it comes from Fujian, it simply cannot go wrong. Fujian is my most favouritest tea growing area in the world and has been for a number of years now. My very very favourite tea is Tan Yang. It is the benchmark of fabulousness to which all other black teas must measure up. Another favourite type is Keemun, usually grown in Anhui. Life-giving and delivering a solid cup of tea every single time.

What we now have here in this tin is both a Keemun and a Tan Yang, and it is not a blend. It was grown near the Tan Yang village in Fujian, but the bushes are the Keemun variety transplanted there from Anhui. The very idea of this awesome on an epic scale!

The leaf smells both Keemun-y and Fujian-y. It has the Fujian cocoa note and the Keemun-y grain. Mind you Fujian usually also has a lot of grain in it, but I tend to find it more prominent in Keemuns. There’s something else in here that reminds me vaguely of some kind of tart berry or something. Perhaps one which has been dried. Like dried cranberry, I think, but not nearly as sweet as those are. If I take a little leaf in my hand and breathe on it before sniffing, I get a strong note that reminds me of when Husband makes beer, just at the point where he puts the hops in.

Okay that it, I can’t wait for Husband to start cooking breakfast (full English, yay!). I need to make a pot of this NOW!

After steeping it doesn’t smell so beer-y, but rather more like freshly baked rye bread. Courtney understands this note fully. I suspect Marzipan does as well. It’s grain-y and dark and also somewhat sweet. There is some of the Fujian cocoa notes there as well, but they are under the grain and so I have to really look for them.

I’ve started sipping way too soon. It’s far too hot still and I can barely taste anything. I did, however, pick up the fact that it’s a strong tea we’ve got here. It even seems to have a rather smoky note to it, which ♥♥♥♥♥

I can sip a bit more now. It’s quite cocoa-y with grainy notes underneath and a fairly large amount of smoke and then finally quite sweet on the swallow. I can definitely see the characteristics of both types in this. It’s like the best qualities of one combined with the best qualities of the other. It’s hard for me to even come up with anything to write at this point.

Oh yes.

Mind = blown.

kisses tin

I was super interested to try this after SimplyJenW’s review. I would not really call myself a Chinese tea connoisseur however and keemuns are one I have tended to shy away from in the past.

I know I could have gong fu’d this but I didn’t see any particular instructions on the website so I decided to steep it Western style. The tea liquor brews up to be a clear reddish brown and the aroma is that of roasted chocolate.

As far as flavor is concerned this is a very interesting tea. I’m getting a tiny bit of smoke along with notes of roasted grains. There is a faint bitterness here and something of pipe tobacco with cocoa. hmmm. Don’t know about keemuns, I keep trying to make myself like them but I’ve only had a few that I really love. I liked this better with milk than plain but it still seems a bit “winey” to me. Might need to gong fu the remainder of this sample before making a decision but it’s more something I am forcing myself to drink than it is a pleasant experience. Must be my tastebuds.

Tea of the morning……

Wow. I was honestly not expecting much from this one. It looks pretty much like any other Keemun I have tasted. (There are little windows to see inside the sample tins.) I was pretty sure it was going to be the one tea out of four that I was seriously interested in trying from Joseph Wesley, that I could easily eliminate from my list. Well, I was completely wrong. Reading the description, it comes from the region of my favorite Tanyangs. So the opinion that this tea falls somewhere in taste between my beloved Tan Yang Te Ji from TeaSpring, and a high quality Keemun makes sense.

Ever so slight hint of floral, but this totally works. The sip is smooth, with a classic Keemun flavor (super light on the smoke, but it is there, more of a chocolate note than cocoa, and an earthiness). The mouthfeel is heavy. I have tried other Keemuns that leaned more floral in the past, and for some reason, they did not appeal at all. This one definitely makes it work, and work well. Yeah, I need some of this.

(Darn you, Joseph Wesley! As an avid Chinese black tea drinker I was almost sure you could not surprise me, but really, you are 2 for 2!)

Usual mug method.

PS Be sure to read the comments where Joseph Wesley explains the origin of this tea a little more.