Rhythm 21 Organic Taiwan Black Tea - Spring 2016

Just finished the last of my Rhythm 21. Brewed at 200˚F and it was probably the perfect temperature. Just on the edge of bitter, with a lot of astringency (due to the last dregs in the bag) but full-flavoured with the malted sugar aroma mixed with earthy funkiness reminiscent of a Yunnan black tea like Fengqing Dian Hong.

Beautiful long unbroken leaf, it looks good. Fragrant whiffs of dried plum, it smells good. Deep bronze hued brew, it feels good. Flavors of cocoa, plum, graham cracker, malt and prune, it tastes good. Ah but there’s a rub.
I have really enjoyed all the teas from this company. I like that they offer, a wide range of teas and consider there descriptors most honest and helpful when selecting. This tea though as good as I have stated above just does its mojo with the first 2-3 steeps. After that I get a gentle sourness that I have only tasted before in Darjeelings. I have brewed this many a times and no matter that sour note comes through. Will it distract me from enjoying the first few steeps, heck no?

Insanely fragrant with tons of fruity and floral aromas. The notes of fruit are particularly prominent, reminiscent of cherries, plums, black grapes, or maybe pears. But the fruit tone is intermingled with the floral top notes as well, making this one very complex black tea. The body is substantial and the flavor carries the tiniest bit of smooth malt character, making it clear that this is in fact a black tea, and not some hyperfragrant oolong. The flavor also is slightly acidic (citric? malic?) also making it clear this is a Taiwanese black tea. Damn, this is really impressive.

This is an excellent and I think high quality black tea from Taiwan Sourcing. I was expecting to western brew this today before work, but I couldn’t sleep this morning so I got out of bed and had a gongfu session with this tea. There were two main notes to this tea, both on the lighter side, malt and chocolate. There may have been a third note but I really didn’t pick up on it. I bought 150g of this tea so I’m glad it’s good. I suspect that in the future this will get western brewed before work when I normally don’t have time for gongfu but I am glad to have gongfu brewed this at least once. I didn’t really notice much qi off of this tea. It may have some but I’m not feeling it. This is an excellent tea. It’s nice that both flavors work well together, neither is too strong. I should also note that I really didn’t find any bitterness to this tea.

I brewed this twelve times in a 120ml gaiwan with 7.4g leaf and boiling water. I steeped it for 10 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. The leaves were not quite done. I could have gotten a couple more steeps out of them.