Big Snow Mountain of Mengku Black Tea Spring 2016

This was the second tea that came out of the sample box today. I like it. This is a nice black for me. A little sweet, a little malty, some fruit, not really chocolate but thick and sweet. Thanks Evol for sending this my way.

My head is feeling better tonight, but still icky in the throat and chest. I am not getting sick, I am not getting sick – (or at least I’m wishing it away) I’ve spent the majority of the day in front of the TV – I think that is going to be the plan for the rest of the night and most of tomorrow.

I enjoy this tea, refreshing , floral, sweet, malty.

For me it is a quality inexpensive tea which I keep a stock of in the cupboard.

Edit
Warmed my pot and added dry leaf then closed the lid for a few seconds. Sniff test…. wonderful scent of plums.

Thank you to Mackie for this sample, and also the wonderful brewing session yesterday! I really needed some strong blacks to get me through my very long day today; I’m glad I had this in my bag to brew between classes.

1.5 tsp in hot (but not boiling) water, ~650 mL water used. No idea how long it steeped, however long it took me to walk between classes, I suppose (maybe 4 minutes?)

The loose leaf smells wonderful: cocoa, milk, and fruit.

The brew also smells nice, but mostly of rich cocoa and petrichor. It smells like hot chocolate. :)

In terms of taste, this has plenty of flavor without being bitter or overly tannic. Most notably, the roasted cocoa or coffee bean flavor (dark bittersweet chocolate, roasted aromatic coffee beans), plenty of tannins, maybe a bit of milk (but not malty/grain). I would not describe this tea as fruity as others have, but it is definitely rich and aromatic.

I’m going to be buying this in my next Yunnan order for sure! I love the rich dark chocolate flavor.

Only brewed this up western style for a quick cup of tea. It is pretty tasty. It’s got a bit of a note of malt. It definitely has a fruity note to it. Not really sure which fruit best describes it though. I would definitely buy this again.

I steeped this one time in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 3 minutes.

Happy Labor Day everyone, I hope you are having a fantastic holiday weekend. I am not doing anything special, well Ben has off from work today so we might play some Magic, but other than that it is just a day without mail. I know one exciting thing I will be doing today, cooking! Making sure Ben has lunch for the week, it will be a grand event.

Today’s tea is another hong cha from Yunnan Sourcing, Big Snow Mountain of Mengku Black Tea * Spring 2016 in my ongoing quest to go all Pokemon with all the red teas. You know, there are a lot of tea blogs out there, and several of them are very single focused, usually on Puerh but also several on Greens and Oolongs, if I am not careful I could easily become a blog dedicated to the world of reds, so I have to limit myself a little…only a little though. So, first with the sniffing, and what good sniffing it is! It is both light and rich, not one of those red teas that smacks you in the face with a bar of chocolate and pile of malt, this is subtle caramel peanut brittle, gentle malt, subtle mineral notes, and a bit of a fresh woodsy quality, like someone snapped an oak twig next to my nose, but one that has gone dry rather than being green. Recently dry, not soggy and rotting.

Oh hey! A peppery red! It seems like the last couple of year’s Dian Hongs have been lacking in the pepper department, so it is nice to run into one with that note. Alongside the pepper is a stronger note of malt, some sweet molasses, and a nice undertone of peanuts. The aroma of the first steep is lovely, very ‘Dian Hong’ with notes of toasted peanuts, malt, molasses, and sweet caramel. I was a little surprised I could not detect any yammy goodness, but not all teas have the orange tuber as a note.

Well hello mouthfeel! This one is not so much smooth as it is slippery, like thinned down okra and that is super fun, it is like a slip and slide in my mouth but with tea! It starts with this smooth slippery quality, but by the time I have swallowed it the texture turns to a more familiar thickness. The taste is delightfully sweet, starting with honey and caramel and moving to malt and sweet potatoes with a finish of peanuts and a touch of very distant roses.

The second steep brings in a fascinating change, distant notes of patchouli and myrrh in the aroma along with the sweet caramel and molasses, I love when tea gets that resinous quality (though technically patchouli is leafy, but shh.) The slippery quality of the first steep is replaced by thick smoothness that sticks around the full steep. The taste has a tangy woody cocoa shell quality that blends really well with a sweet potato and molasses middle. The finish is gentle resinous myrrh and a lingering aftertaste of caramel coated peanuts, yum!

Did I go for a steep three? You betcha, I also went for a steep nine but I won’t bore you all with the details in the middle. This tea does not really change a lot between steep two and the inevitable finish, but this is not a bad thing since when it reaches its stride the stride tastes lovely. I really liked how it could be a solid daily drinker or a special occasion tea and plan on adding more to my collection.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/09/yunnan-sourcing-big-snow-mountain-of.html

Yup, still reviewing this tea about two years after my first two initial reviews. I have a habit of holding on to really great teas to try and stretch out their longevity. When I looked this morning, it seemed I had about 2 gongfu sessions left in it. And since I’m apparently in the mood to finish off old teas lately, here we are.

To set the mood, it is a cold winter day with a dusting of snow and ice. My 14 month old is eating toast and peanut butter in his high chair next to me and my older two kids are just getting up and around for breakfast, savoring sleeping in for the last few days of winter break.

The tea itself: Still smells nice upon a quick rinse. That nice, thick, malty scent that lets you know it is most likely a quality black tea. Upon sipping, I do think either a) I over leafed it, which I don’t think is the case. Or b) this tea being a few years old has finally started to loose some of its luster (flavor… I mean flavor). It’s not that it is a bad cup of tea just that it has lost some of that freshness that made it pop previously. Almost verging on stale. Kinda like it steeped with a few pieces of corrugated cardboard. But other than that flavor, it has some good citrusy brightness and a big dose of malt left to give.

But even old and faded, this tea still could beat out many other black teas which is a testament to the quality with which it started. I’m not going to knock its rating just because I can’t bring myself to finish this tea when it is fresh and at peak quality.

I found this tea to be very rich and floral. Sweet and highly drinkable. Smooth from the beginning, but becoming ever smoother and more mellow with later infusions. And it does do well with many infusions— the first few were much more robust, and then it tapers off and other flavors become more apparent. Brewed gong fu cha style, ten second wash then over ten infusions starting with 10 seconds and the longest being about 40 . . Yum!

The bag opens up with a strong distinct fruit smell – like walking in an apricot grove.

Tea is smooth, and goes down quickly and easily. A great summer tea.