Orchid Aroma Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong Black Tea

(Spring 2023) Very pretty.

SIpdown. This wasn’t what i wanted it to be. A decent enough black but i’m still searching for the version of this tea from years ago that was everything. Spring 2023 for records sake in terms of which year in case i want to try again with a different harvest

Well, I was planning on going to bed after I posted my last review, but I can’t sleep, so I’m doing laundry and sneaking in another tea review. Insomnia sucks, by the way. Funny enough, it’s not caffeine related. I go through seasonal bouts of insomnia, and I have no clue why. Anyway, this was another of my late 2020 sipdowns. I noticed that previous reviews for this tea were kind of hit or miss, but I pretty much loved this one.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 fluid ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minutes 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of baked bread, orchid, malt, black cherry, honey, cinnamon, and pine. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of orange zest, roasted peanut, and roasted almond that were underscored by a subtle smoky aroma. The first infusion introduced aromas of cream, butter, and geranium. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of baked bread, malt, cream, butter, cinnamon, orchid, and roasted almond that were balanced by hints of smoke, honey, sugarcane, oats, black cherry, orange zest, pine, and pear. The majority of the subsequent infusions added pear, chocolate, red apple, plum, sugarcane, violet, and grape leaf aromas to the tea’s bouquet. Stronger and more immediately notable impressions of sugarcane, pine, oats, orange zest, and pear emerged in the mouth alongside notes of minerals, red apple, violet, roasted peanut, plum, grape leaf, caramel, and lemon zest. Subtler impressions of peach, anise, chocolate, red grape, and geranium were also present. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, orchid, malt, baked bread, sugarcane, violet, and orange zest that were balanced by lingering hints of butter, honey, red grape, red apple, plum, caramel, roasted almond, grape leaf, and lemon zest.

This was a very nice Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong. Its dominant syrupy, floral, and fruity characteristics made for a pleasant change of pace from the other Wuyi black teas that I was drinking at the time. While this was primarily a very sweet black tea, it was not unbalanced in any way, remaining drinkable and appealing over the entirety of the span of time I spent working my way through what I had of it. At this point, all I can really offer is that I thoroughly enjoyed this tea, but I can kind of understand why some people may not have been as into it. You would have to either be into sweeter teas or able and willing to overlook this tea’s dominant sweetness to appreciate the nuances it offered to find it enjoyable.

Very aromatic and floral black tea. I get a lot of cinnamon. I do think though that I won’t be byuing a lot of black tea from outside of Yunnan in the future. This just doesn’t have the body and substance and ‘feel’ of a good dianhong. Aromas feel more and more like a secondary thing for me. I need some of that Assamica punch in a black tea.

This is an interesting ZSXZ, which reminds me quite a bit of Mi Lan Xiang black teas, just a touch less floral. It is still a bit too floral to drink in place of classic black teas, but it deserves recognition for being unique and delicious at the same time. It has a good longevity, I got 200ml/g fairly easily out of it. Generally, I prefer to use slightly higher temperatures around 94°C.

The aromas also remind me of wild lapsang or wild Taiwanese blacks. When dry, I can smell mostly flowers and stonefruits, further complemented by notes of cactus and pine wood in a preheated gaiwan. On the other hand, wet leaves possess aromas of malt, maple syrup, baked bread and the ammonia scent that we know and love.

First infusions starts the session with a very sweet taste of red apple and hints of florals. Later on, the taste profile gets quite mineral with a nice woody bitterness and notes of carrot and other root vegetables. I’d say the texture is medium thick for the most part and the mouthfeel silky, bubbly with a little bit of lightness to it. Among the flavours lingering on post hoc, I picked up on honey and burnt food ones as the most prominent.

I’ve had this tea for awhile and never left a review. Strangely , now that everyone is discussing about what is to become of Steepster, I’ve suddenly been back on here a lot more lately. I tried a different group but I really like the idea of leaving tasting notes and none of them seem to have that.

Brewed this gongfu this morning and it’s heavenly. It is grown in the Wu Yi Mountains, Fujian Province. The leaves are long and spindly like an oolong.