Red Jade

Got this one as one of my free samples from Origins Tea. It’s a very nice hong – and quite interesting as well. The leaves looked pretty impressive, long and spindly and black. The dry leaves had a slightly sour raisin/dry fruit smell along with the normal hong maltiness. The wet leaf had an interesting aroma to it – still some raisin, a bit of cocoa…and Play-Doh. It took me so long to figure out what the hell I was smelling, probably because I haven’t smelled it in over a decade, but once it came back to me, it was quite distinct. Not a bad smell – like not dirty/gross kid-hands smelling Play-Doh, but the fresh stuff. I guess one could also say it smells kind of like clay.

The tea started out with a nice malty steep which also had non-sour raisin character.

The second steep was a bit more subdued and complex – there was a muddy/earthy clay flavor, with maybe a hint of cocoa. It sounds awfully unpleasant, but it was actually pretty enjoyable. There was also a blueberry aftertaste to this one. It went on in much the same way for the next couple steeps, with some maltiness added in along with the earthy taste. The earthiness also made it feel like this tea had a bit of muddy thickness to it. I keep feeling bad about saying muddy, because it sounds so negative, but really it was good. The blueberry aftertaste never really came back, though there were still hints of dark fruit in there.

After the fifth steep, the tea started to get a little bit weaker, with the fruit and earthy notes starting to fade and leaving more of a generic malty-sweet hong taste. I called the session after the 8th or 9th steep I believe.

Very interesting black tea, this one. I’ve never had a Ruby #18 black tea before, so I’ll have to make an effort to try some more of them at some point and see if they all smell like Play-Doh and taste like tasty mud and stuff :)

This is a subtle tea. It has a light malt body, reminiscent of a hong but smoother, with a cooling tingle of red fruits and a silky suggestion of cocoa. This lightness probably wasn’t helped by my underleafing it (4g to 100 ml as opposed to the recommended 5g), but there were 7g in the sample bag, so, my being unwilling to figure out what to do with 2g leftover or to do dump the whole thing in, I decided to do the incredibly wishy washy thing, as usual.

It is lightly astringent, and the malt is the most obvious flavor, but it has a bit of sweetness to the depth and the aroma hints at the subtle layering of delicate flavors within. Best brewed with a light hand to pick those flavors apart and to minimize astringency, but don’t underleaf if you do.

I don’t know if I’m just an idiot and brewed this all wrong and didn’t pay attention to the right notes or whatever but this just tasted like oxidation to me. Like a plain black tea. The first 5-6 steeps were like this. The brewing instructions provided were very odd so I ignored them (for gongfu style it recommends 5g of tea in a 500ml pot!?). I brewed it like I brew any oolong, ~200F with a rinse and then steeps starting at 5s and going up about 5s each time, 7g in a ~150ml pot. The steeps beyond 5 or 6 were a little more interesting but it was just kind of a generic oolong flavor. This one was not for me. Maybe I just don’t have the palate to taste beyond the oxidation since I don’t drink many black teas.

I have a Chaos problem, specifically a Khorne problem. A while ago Ben bought me the Age of Sigmar boxed set, with a starter army of Khorne and Stormcast Eternals, and I know exactly how I want to paint the Eternals (or Sigmarines as I call them) but I am still not sure what to do the with forces of Chaos. I thought about going really weird and making them look like Husks from Mass Effect, but I am not sure it will look right, but that might be because I can’t think of Khorne in any color but red and gore. I also have this dislike of painting things to look like the house colors and box art so I need to come up with something else.

Today I am looking at a tea from a brand new company, freshly opened today, Origins Tea, specializing in Taiwanese goodness. I love Taiwanese tea, this is no secret, nor is it a secret how I am obsessed with Hongcha (aka black tea) from Taiwan, and my favorite is Red Jade. That tea of many names (Ruby #18, Sun Moon Lake Black, Hong Yu…) and many interpretations of peculiar flavor notes. I have said it the many times I have looked at this type of tea, it is by far the most uniquely varied while still being easily identifiable as ‘Red Jade’ tea I have run into, with some having notes of menthol, or tomatoes, or cinnamon, or cloves, or sassafras…it just keeps going. So let us see how this one differs from others I have tried! Sticking my nose into the long and lovely leaves, seriously these are some big leaves, there are notes of stewed plums, dried cherries, sassafras, tomato, a brisk woodiness, and cocoa. There are also notes of plumeria and orange blossom, making this the only floral Red Jade I have experienced, the aroma actually reminds me a little of an Oriental Beauty, but black and with definite notes of Red Jade, it is peculiar and smells delicious!

Into my gaiwan the tea goes, I decided to use my serpentinite gaiwan because fancy teas deserve a solid stone gaiwan! The leaves, now soaked and steeped, have a malty, tomato, sassafrass front notes with a slightly brisk woody note, dried cherries, cocoa, and a touch of plumeria at the finish. The aroma of wet leaves is surprisingly sweet, not cloying, but fruity and nectar like. The liquid is very rich! Notes of cocoa, sassafras, strong honey drizzled plums and cherries, and a lingering flowery note of plumeria. It is so sweet and smells very good, my mouth was watering while sniffing it!

So, when I took a sip of this tea, I was talking with Ben about…something…don’t remember what, but it is safe to say that the conversation was immediately ended by my wild flailing and inarticulate squealing. This tea from the first sip blew my mind, it is so sweet and so intense! Starting with notes of apricots and sassafras, plumeria and chocolate. Then it moves to persimmons, menthol, and cloves with a finish of cherries and menthol that lasts long into the aftertaste. One thing I find very enjoyable about this tea is the cooling sensation in the finish, it is not as intense as some young Shengs can be (like drinking icy hot) it is a soothing coolness, like having just sipped a cup of water, and I do love my cooling teas.

Somehow the second steep manages to be even more intense in both aroma and taste! The fruity notes in the aroma have increased, along with the sassafras, it takes on a real dessert quality that I find very appealing. Oh man, that taste, it is almost beyond words good! Taking the familiar sassafras, clove, sweet potato, teaberry, tomato, and cherry notes of a Red Jade and blending them with orange blossom, plums, plumeria, persimmon, and apricot jam which reminds me of an OB or Gui Fei Oolong. It is the sweetest Red Jade I have ever experienced, and the aftertaste of teaberry and apricot lingers forever, it was such an intense experience. I was nice and shared some with Ben and he could only handle a small cup since in his words ‘this is a treat that needs savoring, it is too intense to drink more than a little’ which is the first time I have ever heard him do this. More for me, though!

The packaging said I could get seven steeps out of this tea, and you can bet that I did, seven solid steeps and two that were faded but I didn’t care because I wanted every bit of this tea’s amazing flavor I could get. I don’t say this lightly, but of all the Red Jades I have had (read: a lot) this one is my new favorite. I adored how it had easy to identify as Red Jade notes but also had this wonderfully intense floral and fruity sweetness that made it incredibly unique. I cannot sing this tea’s praises enough, it was love at first sip!

Blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/11/origins-tea-red-jade-tea-review.html