Banyan Da Hong Pao

I’m finally getting to the end of my Zen Tea samples. I steeped 5 g of tea in a 120 ml teapot at 200F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

This is a toasty, nutty Da Hong Pao. I get toasted grain, honey, caramel, charcoal, walnuts and other nuts, and tobacco in the first to third steeps. It’s drying without being bitter, with a persistent nutty and charcoal aftertaste. The tea acquires a mineral taste by steep four, but otherwise remains consistent.

By steep seven, I find, like other reviewers, that this Da Hong Pao starts to peter out, with the nuts and grain becoming attenuated. This tea thins out into a charcoal and mineral finish around steep ten.

This Da Hong Pao had a promising beginning, but faded quickly. What there was of it was good, though. Still, I’ve had other DHP’s with more staying power and complexity.

I found this overly roasty and smokey/tobacco last time I tried it plain, so I decided to finish off my cup by making a soy milk latte. It is very good that way.

Hmm, this one didn’t quite do it for me. It had some good qualities, but it was really kind of just a “meh” tea. The leaf smelled a little bit roasty and chestnutty, maybe a bit of autumn leaf.

The flavor started out a little bit sour, which I would attribute to the roast most likely. Also some nutty, a bit of floral as well. After the sourness went out, around the third steep, a bit of a nice mineral note came in as well, along with just a smoother feeling in the mouth. Unfortunately, just as it was getting a little bit nicer, the flavor died…like it only went for around 5 or 6 steeps. I’m thinking this one wasn’t a huge fan of the boiling water that I hit it with, so I got some roughness and a shortened session.

The flavors for this one were much “higher” than other DHP that I’ve had. I think that could be part of why this one just didn’t seem to have the depth I was hoping for from it. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with Da Hong Pao or even Wuyi oolongs, but I would consider this a lower quality DHP than the others I have tried.

.. ugh Steepster crashed just as i was finishing off my review, so I’m gonna try to recreate it..
The first steep was wonderfully complex, with notes of earth and rock, as well as peach/mango notes. It tasted kinda like a black tea, with mild astringency. there were some fishy notes that I’m not sure how i feel about but it’s not overwhelming in any way, so I quite liked the first steep.

The second steep was a bit less of everything, and somehow the fishy notes became way more prominent. This kinda upset me, but I pushed through. As it cooled, the fish was replaced with peach, and the second half of this cup was delicious!

the package said it would go for 2-3 steeps, but i also put a bit less leaves in than it wanted me to so I guess it’s fair that the 3rd steep didnt really work out to all too much, it was pretty empty with a few of peach notes still lingering.

If you’ve got this tea and you’re planning to steep it western style, I’d recommend either doing the 2tsp/8oz that Zen tea recommends and then steeping for maybe a minute and then incrementing your steeps, or going for what i did at 1.5tsp/8oz and steeping maybe 90s → 120s.
I may update with a gong fu style review; overall a very enjoyable tea :)

Oh, yum. You know when a tea just really hits the spot? That was this tea for me, tonight. After sampling a whole bunch of straight black teas in a row, I wanted to try something different and decided on a roasted oolong. This is one from my Zen Tea order that I hadn’t had a chance to try yet. The scent of the dry leaf is sweet and floral and definitely roasted. The liquor is also roasty-toasty and sweet, with an underlying minerality as one would expect from a rock oolong. It’s like… toasted multigrain bread drizzled with honey. So far I’ve steeped it three times: 2min, 3min, and 7 min (I checked after 5min and it seemed light, so I gave it another couple). I’ll probably give it one more ultra-long steep via the “pour boiling water on and then forget about it” method to see if I can wring the last bit of flavour from these leaves. I’m drinking the 3rd steep right now, and it’s noticeably more mineral than the first two, but still very sweet. Nom nom nom.