"Drunk on Red" Sun-Dried Feng Qing Black Tea Mini Cake * Autumn 2012

This was from JakeB quite a while ago – thanks so much!  Since this is a cake, I’m assuming these are supposed to be aged black/red teas?  YS has a black cake from 2014 listed on their site, so I’m assuming these cakes are supposed to age a bit.  One can dream anyway, for my aging cupboard. But since JakeB sent four cakes (have since rehomed one of the four) it would take me quite a while to get through these cakes!  The leaves in the cake are fairly compact.   The first steep’s flavor is very light and bland, probably because the water was too cool to properly unravel the compactedness of these leaves.  The second steep was VERY dark and deep and more of what I’m looking for in a black tea — the leaves had also fully unraveled by then.  I wonder where the “drunk” in the name comes from, because I could swear there was a boozy quality to this second steep, that I normally wouldn’t notice in black tea… This is fine, an the only black/reds I have within full cakes.  So I guess I will have to be content with that novelty, as it stands this just tastes like BLACK TEA to me at the moment.
Steep #1  //  20 minutes after boiling  // rinse// 2 minute steep
Steep #2  // 2 minutes after boiling //  3 1/2 minute steep

This is my first review on Steepster, my first black tea of any proper lineage and my first close encounter with a tea cake. All that being said, I think I am capable of making at least a decent story out of this.

(NOTE: I did actually manage to screw things up. The search function sometimes doesn’t seem to produce this particular tea so I accidentally created a duplicate. Any help removing it will be appreciated!)

I got this one from my local supplier but managed to trace down its lineage as being a product of Yunnan Sourcing. (That’s 1UP for my local supplier!)

It is a warm sunny day here, but our indoors are cool. Left to my own devices for the afternoon, I set out to taste this tea, deliberately postponing lunch to see if it turns out true to its title.

Using a blunt little wine opener knife, I could easily follow the weaker points in the cake, taking out just enough larger pieces to complement the fannings already falling off. Using the lot in my 120ml (4oz) pre-heated gaiwan, having no strainer, I expected having to do a lot of teeth filtering, but no actual problems there. I used local tap water (~8.5 hardness degrees) right off the boil, but the water for steeps 3-6 was actually saved in an insulated stainless steel tea pot. To me, the dry leaves had no smell. My girlfriend, always the better nose, said it fondly reminded her of straw roofs.

First steep

I did not rinse. In retrospective it may have taken some of the initial dry woody astringency out, but I am not sure if I would have wanted that.

The wet smell after and before the brew was that of cherry sweets. Or strawberry sweets for all I care, but definitely an overpowering candy-like sweetness. Luckily I already knew from the other reviews that the taste would be in high contrast, so I wasn’t too surprised when it turned out to be a cured wood slash black tea astringency, with those resin and honey qualities I once used to search for in pipe tobacco. (These days I feel tempted to summarize resin + honey as ‘propolis’, but I’d have to re-check whether or not that’s accurate for this tea.)

Second steep

This brew produced a slight bit of oil on top. The candy sweetness mixed itself with a new smell to produce a dried plum experience. The flavour, initially just a lighter experience of the same, left me guessing for a bit before I recognized that bodily orchid quality that I previously made acquaintance with in Jade Tieguanyin; fuller and sweeter than the famous, perfumy Biluochun fragrance. Maybe that’s what I was already searching for when I wrote down ‘resin and honey’ earlier.

Subsequent steeps

At steep 3 the smell completely turned to orchids, but the flavour had already fallen back to a lighter version of its original resin-like astringency, which by steep 4 turned the experience into that of an ordinary, but still slightly more vibrant black tea.

So I decided to reboot the experience with fresh hot water. Annoyingly, from steep 5 onwards the leaves gave off more and more of their lovely sweet orchid fragrance, but the cup was already watered down. Finally around steep 8 the leaves toned down as well, or I would never have given up on them. Then again, I miss having my tea already. Maybe just one more wring yet…

Conclusions and learning points

Part of me used to think that you had to turn to raw pu’erh to find that combination of floral and dark fruit aroma’s, that it would somehow get lost during oxidation. Well, that turns out false.

Somehow I felt it was promising that this tea is also from Yunnan, and it might well have been helpful, but ‘ironically’ (get it?) I associate its most exciting aspect with a tea from the other side of the country. So in terms of geography and cultivars I still have some more homework to do.

At the first steep I already noticed this tea’s potential as an iced tea. I also think that this tea would serve well when totally exhausted in one single brew, for instance in a thermos or travel mug. Maybe then some of the orchid fragrance makes it into the brew.

As far as tea drunkenness is concerned, I have to confirm what others have already written. I will not say that this tea is completely without effects, but there is nothing really worthy of a description. In the end I just set out to have my lunch because it was getting late, and certainly not because I had to balance out my tea session.

Drinking my second cake of this lovely tea now. Until now I have enjoyed every cup of this. This black tea really has its own personality, with a very distinct smell that I associate to dried fruits such as raisins or apricots. A strong smell for a black tea. It does not easily become bitter, and the cup is nicely full-bodied. This isn’t a ‘fancy’ tea really, it isn’t complex or very refined, but it’s just very enjoyable, every time. And the cake shape makes it a lot of fun!

Ok, I’m still very new to tea. This is my first whole compressed cake. I used about 5 grams with boiling water, so it was a bit strong in my 7oz teapot. Ok, I noticed some astringency and fruity notes on the citrus side. I think I brewed it too strong so as taboo as it is I added a splash of light agave nectar and it was yummy. this tea reminded me of the typical teas you get in a Chinese restaurant. I like it but again I don’t have much to compare it to, I’m still a tea newb. I will try again in a few months and since I have two cakes think I will try making it iced. I think it would be good iced. It’s a good tea but not uber fantastic. Smoke notes and fruit with high tannins for the most part. Brewed 30seconds then added more time with each infusion, lost it’s umph around infusion 5

I got this in the mail today and it smelled like black tea.

It was tightly compressed so it took me a good minute to break off a good chunk of it. After brewing it, I got a nice malt/caramel taste from it. The only thing I didn’t like about this tea is that it seemed to be a bit zesty – something I’m not a fan of in unflavored tea.

I think you get your moneys worth out of this tea considering it’s $5.30 a cake. Despite the fact I wasn’t a fan of it, I’ll give it a good rating because it’s good for what you get.

Here’s another black tea I am unable to swallow once it hits my tongue.

Tried brewing it six different ways.

Anyone want a solid 50g+ of this?

5/14/14
I had fun and tried a little bit of this today. The leaves are very tightly compressed into the cake so I was very gentle in chiseling some off with my pick.
Used about a teaspoon and a half in my little 4 ounce gong fu pot. Using 205F water.
1. 15" rinse
2. 15" smells very good, a light malt, bit of orange cream,,,liquor is a golden sun-orange color.
3. 30" tastes like nice black tea. no bitterness or astringency,,,very tasty.
4. 30" light orange cream flavor, bit of malt,,not so much layered flavor yet but very mild and delish. Leaves have completely opened up now and are a muddy brown color.
Very good and I like mini cakes,,,they are cute ;) lol
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7/11/14
Chiseled off some tea from this cake this morning. I rinsed the chunks and leaves that I was going to brew with room temp purified water. Then brewed Western style with about 2 heaping tsp tea in a 2 cup pot. 195F water for 3 minutes.
Liquor is a nice deep auburn red color and smells malty. I like this tea, has no bitter or astringency and just good old cream, malt, and a touch of orange flavor. Well-balanced easy drinking tea in a fun little cake.
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8/2/14
Chiseled off a bit of this today for a couple of cups. Brewed Western style in 8oz cup size pots. Did an immediate rinse with room temp water then brewed in 190F water for 3 minutes. The tea is so tightly compressed that the leaves come off in some chunks and some dust so the tea changes flavors because of this. I brewed one cup with more chunk pieces and one cup with smaller pieces and flakes. Right now I am drinking the cup that was more chunky and it is good with flavors of orange zest and subtle malt and cream. The cup with smaller pieces actually has more depth and gives off more cream notes on the nose. Both examples are good black tea with no astringency or bitterness, only a note of orange zest with a nice balance.