Feng Qing Ye Sheng Hong Cha - Wild Tree Purple Black Tea

I received this sample as a gift from Derk, thank you!

The steeped tea smells of warm cinnamon bread, malt, stewed cherry and dates, with some nutty and umami overtones. Smooth and malty with an oat/rye quality, with some fruity orange notes and a sweet ’n sour sauce flavor that lingers on my tongue. A hint of Chinese black smokiness.

Very tasty! Thank you, Derk!

Kind of puzzled as to why western black tea blends were always so astringent to me. Is it that their brewing instructions say to use boiling water and steep for up to 5 minutes? Is the tea much lower quality? Is black tea just more suited to gong fu-style brewing?

Well, who knows, maybe I’ll experiment with that more now that I’m being turned around on black tea. Or am I just getting all the best black teas and everything else is still a disappointment? Questions, questions.

This one was so nice and creamy sweet. Dried fruit and cherry, wood, honey, some grapes and apricot, really a whole bunch of fruits, some malt, leather and tobacco throughout. Love the complexity from steeping to steeping. I envision this being a good one to start the day with as there’s so much to appreciate.

I’ve finally built up my caffeine tolerance to the point where I can make two cups of black tea right before bed and still sleep like a baby. Yesss.

Had a sticky rice pu’erh brewed gong fu style followed by this brewed in a basket last night. The sticky rice was something of a death pact with a few friends who had the same sample and were too apprehensive to try it by themselves, and this purple was to wash down the aggressive umami straw and mushroom flavors. This particular tea is one of those that smell so good when they’re dry that you have to spend a few moments huffing the aroma like a junkie. If I had to put it into words, I’d say funky Yunnan black tea aged in an oak barrel with blackcurrants and grape skins and an exceptionally smoky Bourbon vanilla pod.

The finished brew doesn’t disappoint in the least. The dominant note is grape skin and it lasts long, long after you’re finished swallowing. We’re talking 15 minutes later and you can still vividly taste the tea on your tongue. Gently astringent and fruity. The heart of it is juicy with blackcurrants and dark berries, there’s a tobacco and vintage leather kick, some woody fruit stem notes, and all of that is built on a foundation of the musky raisin-y flavor of a subtly fermented Yunnan spring flush.

God, that aftertaste, though. It actually makes it hard to finish a cup if you’re not paying attention. It always tastes like you just had a sip. No need to absent-mindedly reach for more when there’s plenty of flavor still bouncing around on your taste buds.

What a really nice tea I just experienced… Thank you Derk. :D

I’ve been wanting to try this given the good reviews on it. For one, it is exceptionally smooth. I always love teas that give off a comforting mouth and throat feel as it goes down.

The amber colored liquor had the aroma of stewed sweet fruits. It has very light malt notes and light sweet potatoes in the background but that’s where it ends for me comparing it to other black teas. It is nothing like any other black tea I’ve tried. The different fruits are the stars in this one. It’s one of those hard to describe type of teas and it’s wonderfully complex. There is some sugarcane and fruit sweetness, and then some tang of fruits. It is flavorful from steep to steep, full of fruit, and then there is a sweetness and aroma that is quite different… Like the sweetness of the smell of cannabis when you’re sitting at a Pink Floyd concert. The fruits I tasted were mainly of plums and grapes, muscatel, some berries. Really enjoyed this and will look out for it.

Bit of a bittersweet sipdown for me.

I had a large amount of the Spring 2018 harvest and put off drinking it because sometimes ye sheng can mess with me. Last summer, I was in the backseat of a taxi hurtling along the Caribbean coastline in Colombia, heading to the city of Barranquilla to fly back home the next day. I didn’t have cell reception the whole time I was there but suddenly on a fairly deserted stretch of road, I got a voicemail from an unknown number. I called them several times before I could connect for more than a few seconds. And when I was finally able to figure out who it was that kept cutting in and out, I heard from the cat sitter that the twin sister of my good old Sophia was found unconscious and breathing behind the bathroom door. She was on life support and I had to make an instant heartbreaking decision to let her go. I never saw Nyx again.

I felt terrible for the cat sitter having come across my girl in that state. As a token of appreciation for rushing Nyx to the vet, after finding out the cat sitter was a loose leaf black tea drinker, I bagged up most of what I had of this tea for her. I hadn’t tried it yet but based on the great reviews I was hoping she’d like it!

I can say I did. Though it does get me amped up in different ways depending on when I last ate and my mood. I had some earlier this week that I brewed western and poured in my thermos. I had slept restlessly the night before and didn’t eat breakfast. This tea saved my day. And at one point it had me really appreciating the view on my way home from class, like some weak psychedelics. Hm, yes.

Then I made a pot for me and the mechanic. It got me so physically amped up I spent hours tearing down an English ivy tree that had no business growing in the corner of the back yard. Once I clear out all that debris, I get to hack away at its subterranean remnants. Curse you, ivy.

I brewed the last of this tea today in my small gaiwan, 4g for 60mL. I’m amped up. And the flavor and aroma are just wonderful. Cherry wood, malt, black cherries, blueberries, blackberries, concord grapes, red grapes, musk, something herbaceous… cannabis? Later some chocolate comes in. Smooth and sweet. The muskiness is more animal based than a Darjeeling grapey muscatel. Whew. This tea is magical. I wonder what the cat sitter thought of it.

A farewell to Feng Qing, San Francisco and Nyx.

Well, a loose leaf sample from Derk. Thank you again.

5 grams, gaiwan 85 ml, steeps 15/30/45/60/75/90 seconds

Trying to describe it somehow, but maybe my brain is working on standby yet (7 am), or it is so complex? Oh, by the way, this is spring 2018 origin.

Anyway, colour is wonderful, clear, dark golden. Really lovely!
Aroma: dried fruits, maybe bit smoky, bit tobacco (but very nice), bit sweet, floral, of course really smooth.
Palate: here it is going even harder than in aromas :D – fruits, malt, lingers for very, very long. Bit woody, spicy (3rd). Maybe bit like Darjeelings? I do not know again. Ah, I think I know now (4th) – grapes! Probably red ones. I did not noticed any chocolate notes, nor alcohol. But it is completely okay.

I like it!

This tea quickly became my daily drinker when craving some hong cha.

Very comforting and easy drinking tea. Although when focusing on the taste it has some great fruit and chocolate flavors. It leaves a nice sweetness in the mouth lasting an hour or so. I can get it to last 8 or 9 infusions pushing it pretty long in power steeps for the last couple ones. Little to no astringency, and whatever bitterness is in there transforms to a lasting sweetness.

This is quickly becoming one of my favourite teas, very aromatic with some similarities with both darker darjeelings and oolongs. I found it to be quite complex, both in the smell and taste.

In particular, the smell is kind of hard to identifyr, although fairly pungent. I noticed some musk, sugarcane (maybe rum?) and malt. Some prunes and floral notes are present too.

The taste starts off with some nutmeg spiciness and brandy impression. Soon, some heavier fruity notes appear, I identified red grapes and plums for instance. It is mostly a mix of controlled sweet and sour tastes, with the spiciness reappearing in the aftertaste to complement the acidity of balsamic vinegar. One other thing I noticed once the tea has cooled down is a little bit of seaweed savouriness.

As for the effects, I feel this tea is fairly warming with decently strong cha qi.

All in all, a very exciting tea, highly recommended.

While I found this tea a bit one dimensional, it has some very nice flavors.
Nose; strawberries, peaches, floral — plumeria, nice " round " aroma.
Palate; Peaches, sugar, nectarine, slight ginger, slight sweet orange.

Delicious, creamy, berrylicious tea with high energy akin to the best raw shengs. I find myself drinking Yunnan Sourcing black teas most of the time. There’s something untamed about their teas that makes me feel like I’m drinking some magic potion.