Mi Xian Black

I used to be an employee at Teaopia – and towards the end of my time there, I fell in love with two particular teas they carried: the ‘Honey Sweet’ black tea and the ‘Red Dragon’, which was categorized as an oolong but tasted nearly identical to the Honey Sweet (but lighter.) Those were the first plain, unflavoured black teas I truly enjoyed. I’m not a fan of any of the usual – Assam, Darjeeling, Ceylon, English breakfast, etc. They’re all too malty for my tastes.

So ever since Teaopia was bought out by Teavana, I’ve been on the hunt for a black tea with a similar flavour profile. After reading the description for the Mi Xian I knew I had to try it and see if it matched my beloved Honey Sweet/Red Dragon teas!

Upon opening the bag I immediately fell in love with the aroma. The scent is absolutely beautiful! Smells like honey and something else I can’t quite place. On my first sip, I could tell right away that it was very similar to the HS/RD in that it is smooth with that honey-like flavour and no astringency – just how I like it! However this tea has a sort of cocoa note to it that the HS/RD teas did not have. I did a second steep at around 5 minutes. I was surprised how much flavour was still in it.

I think I’m still on the hunt for teas more similar to the Honey Sweet/Red Dragon, but the Mi Xian is the closest I’ve come to matching them, and is a delicious tea regardless!

Smells like honey and lemon while it is steeping. Faintly smells like fresh incense too. Taste is pretty much the same, I get notes that are mostly reminiscent of honey and lemon…maybe a little fruity? Pretty unique in a good way. I shared it with someone, and their verdict? “I REALLY like it!”

I just had some leftover and made it iced. Cold and sweetened seems to bring out that lemony flavor I got even more.

Peach, malt, and honey make up the flavors of this smooth and mellow tea, which ends will a vanilla-like creaminess.

wow! It’s amazing. Thanks to steepster for introducing such a delicious tea.
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Nothing bad to say. I only like best things to say. Haha. Try it but don’t leave for too long or bitter. My son drink but he don’t like but I like a lot.

Sip-down!
I’ve been up today since 9 and since I’m writing a lot currently I’ve been neglecting this loose leaf bukti tea. But since I’m such a blockhead and keep hot water at the ready for speeding up my mr.coffee I just did a pour over onto these mi Xian and let it steep in the yo xing gai wan for three minutes. I then decided to procrastinate my project just to write about dat, sorry for this then , the infusion is pretty pretty dark, almost like xiaoshing fish sauce, yeah! So anyways hey there, very Puckery and slightly sour tea, that’s really inoffensive to my palette even with the incorrect brew times, mm, perhaps I should try this at a quicker brew brew speed? Keep surrenderin 2 tea and make it serendiptea’z! Peace

I love this tea. Very smooth and sweet. I only added a little honey

So, after achieving a good number of sipdowns this week, I decided to spend the last day of my holiday drinking teas I’ve been holding back on. I brought out the “I Love Leafhoppers” sampler I got a while back, and this was the first one I tried! From the very first sip, I can see why this one gets so much love on here.

For my first cup, I followed the recommended parameters on the pouch , and gave 2tsp of leaf 4 minutes in boiling water. The most difficult thing was measuring a teaspoon — the leaves are so big they don’t really fit that measure particularly well. In appearance, this reminds me of other taiwanese blacks — the leaves are a very dark brown, almost black, and are very long and twisty.

Brewed, the liquor is a medium golden brown, and the scent is sweet with an edge of malt. The first sip is sweet too, and I can detect flavours of honey and a light fruitiness. This develops into quite rich, grapey flavour with the tiniest hint of high-cocoa chocolate. It lingers sweetly on the tongue, and has a sliky smooth, almost creamy mouthfeel.

I really am starting to love plain blacks, now that I have some tea experience, and feel better able to judge the flavours. This is a lovely one — not quite my favourite of those I’ve tried so far, but definitely up there! I can see many a happy hours before me with this tea.

I have probably only tried this tea once since I first ordered it. It’s been so long I can’t even remember. Here lately I’ve been revisiting old teas with a fresh perspective, hoping to find something I couldn’t see before…

For this tea I used 3tsp of leaf to 10oz of water, just under boiling. A 10-second rinse brought out heady scents of peach, honey, and lychee! I used my nose to decide when to end the first steep. It was right at two minutes, which fits my normal brewing parameters for black teas.

The initial flavor was peach accompanied by a tart, full juiciness. The sip then turned to cream…sweetness…dark honey. An intoxicating brew. Malt and caramel followed soon after. I noticed that as it cooled, it became more vegetal and grapey like a Darjeeling. It was still honey-sweet but it seemed to sit more lightly on the tongue.

The second steep was 3min 30. I got peaches and cream with a hint of floral background. The finish was slightly drying. Rich caramel-chocolate flavors stayed long after each sip. Despite the dark, heavy flavors at the end the tea was actually very mellow. It’s something I would save for an after-dinner cup.

Hmm…It’s interesting how much my tastes have changed just over the past year. I wasn’t picking up on all of the subtleties before. I’m glad I came back to this tea! And I still have a decent amount left to enjoy, too. (:

From “Another Traveling Tea Box” – there was just a tiny bit of this in there, but since it was Butiki I had to try it. I am not very good at picking out flavors, so I was sitting there going…what does this taste like? Then I looked it up here and it was so obvious, honey! Really strong, yummy honey. Not so much on the resteep, but the first cup was really lovely.