Sui Ying Xiao Cha

EMPTY THAT B…eh, you know the drill at this point. I’m emptying the sample box and in general trying to drink the stash down. All the way down. Ish.

Therefore I have recently placed another Le Palais des Thes order. :D This one is just a stocking up on some favourites, though. The boyfriend has fallen head over heels for the Tigger Tea and had asked me a few times if I had ordered more yet as the pouch is close to empty. I hadn’t because technically I’m not allowed to buy anything until after the wedding. Plus, the whole drinking down thing. But I caved and got him some more Tigger, and while I was at it stocked up on the four red fruits, foret noir and toffee as well. The toffee is nearly gone too, and I’m not quite finished with that one yet. Only got one new thing and that was a rooibos in the spirit of flavoured rooibos exploration, so I thought that almost didn’t count.

Anyway, this doesn’t mean that we’re not still going to make some drastic reductions here.

So. This one came from Spoonvonstrup as well. It almost looks like a theme, but that’s because that package contained primarily black teas, and I’m just in a black tea sort of mood at the moment. Also, those are the easiest ones to drink for me, as it’s my preferred type.

The aroma is really nice. It’s grainy and cocoa-y and rather sweet. I don’t know squat about this tea, but it smells kind of Fujian-y. Now, that’s quite promising, indeed. There’s also something vaguely red berry-y about this aroma. I’m put in mind of currants and not too sweet cherries when I smell this, but it’s ever so vague.

Now, that was an odd flavour. Hmm. Strange. Unexpected. Kind of straw-like without being Yunnan-y. That’s new! It tastes brightly orange, this one, as in the colour, not the fruit. I think it’s that almost-straw that does it along with a touch of something a bit wood-y.

On closer inspection, I find a lot of that cocoa note in the flavour as well as a lot of grain. In spite of the above mysteriousness, it has totally retained that Fujian-ness in the flavour. That, in this case, isn’t particularly interesting though.

(!)

I know; I said it.

(!!!)

Yeah, I’m shocked too, Steepsterites.

But really, the intersting thing about this flavour in this particular tea, apart from having a lot of nommy Fujian-ness, is that note of red berry from the aroma. It’s still here! It’s tart and juicy and juuuuust underneath everything else. I think it’s more currrants than anything else at this point, though, but I’m totally associating it with biting a juicy berry.

Now Spoonvonstrup, if you can weigh in with an origin confirmation on this one, I should be grateful. Fujian or thereabouts is my immediate guess.