Premium Keemun Hao Ya Black Tea

The pots I brewed with the 2 methods listed on the tea website tasted too strongly of leather for my taste. So, I brewed a final pot using the one method I’ve found so far that toned down the leather flavor of the Teavivre black teas, the “Chinese Gongfu Way” for the Golden Monkey tea (4s rinse, 10s brew, not quite boiling water).

My very first Keemun tea……

Uh.

I am not really noticing much smoke, but perhaps I should’ve steeped for 2 min rather than 3, because this cup is super bitter and hurts my teeth :/

Sour.

Blech.

I will have to try a resteep for 2 min to see what happens.
Not an awesome first experience so far!

ETA resteep for two min @ 95 degrees wasn’t as bitter by far :)

I haven’t had this tea in a while. It smells mostly like sweet potatoes. There is also a scent of chocolate, and some caramel notes. The flavour is yam, and generally sweet.

Very good. Thanks to Teavivre for the sample.

The Leaf: short, tight, slightly curled, and uniform in size. The color is black to dark brown with only a slight tinge of bronze here and there. The scent is deep and dark with strong malty and peppery overtones.

The Brew: The liquor is a dark golden brown; clear with a medium quantity of visible fuzz. The aroma is deep and malty, similar to a rich Assam. It seems to have some undertones of chocolate and pepper. The taste is strong with a unique slight bitterness. I detect a slight cedar character as well, which might be associated with the peppery aroma. The mouthfeel is fairly dry, and the aftertaste lasts for a long time leaving a roasted maltiness character throughout the mouth.

I drink all of my teas cold.

Today was my husband’s birthday, so we decided to try this sample from Angel of Teavivre with our pancakes. It was a great pair-up, and it’s unapologetic brisk, maltiness complimented the meal nicely. Jake loved it! I tend to lean a little more towards blends, and could easily see myself playing with what’s left, as I think it would lend itself wonderfully towards a little mix-up.

You can see pictures here: http://wordsabouttea.blogspot.com/2014/05/premium-keemun-hao-ya-black-tea-by.html

Insomnia has been biting me in the butt again and last night I made a few crucial mistakes. I drank caffeine after dinner and I worked out close to bed time. My milk powered alarm clock then decided to go off, 40 mins earlier than normal. Thank goodness for caffeine and a good cup of tea to get me rocking and rolling this morning.

After a comment from looseTMan on the keenum front I pulled this sample out again. This is another tea that proves my theory I need to give a tea at least 2 tries before rating or making a decision on it. This has been my go to tea this week and the very generous sample from the folks at Teavivre is almost gone. This has the good kind of brisk with a fruity-ness to the tea that I can’t quite explain. I pulled this tea out to compare to the wp pin peak keenum and they are both wonderful. I would keep both in my cupboard. The pine peak has a more bread like flavor and this has more fruit accents. A good morning cup!

I wrote a note but it ran away. :(
Basically, the cut up leaf bits brewed up quick. It’s a bit astringent but still smooth and sweet enough to be quite the pleasant cup. Love the deep reddish brown.

For the second steep, I let it sit a long time in the water, then added cream. Mmm, this is good with cream. Seemed like it would be as it had the potential to be strong and very astringent. Best British style tea I’ve had in a while.

Now if only someone in this office would stop spraying air freshener, I’d enjoy this tea a lot more. Ugh. It doesn’t even smell in here or anything. What gives?

Oh, also turns out I’ve had this before. Still good!

Many thanks to Angel for sending me a monster amount of samples, including this one. I’ve had limited experience with keemuns up until now, but I’m sure many here know that I’m kind of whiny when it comes to anything smoky and/or earthy. It’s amazing how our senses of smell and taste are interconnected, because I feel the exact same way about earthy fragrances.

This one isn’t too smoky, but I’ll admit that I was anticipating something maltier based on the fragrance of the delicate, wispy dry leaves. This particular keemun yields a muted, sweetened smoke, more akin with a (very distant) campfire rather than tobacco, though. There’s very minimal astringency. As the cup cools, I’m getting a bit of malt in the background but the smoke is the prominent note for me.

I greatly appreciate having the chance to try another keemun. It’s helping me verify what my stance is on them.

Had a cup of this yesterday and I’m nearing the end of my sample of it.

This is a nice smooth black tea that does well on it’s own, or with milk and sugar.. of course I had to try it that way.

I will be sad to see this one go but I look forward to trying more straight blacks to find one that works as that nice basic black tea that I won’t fret about adding things to because it’s “too good” a tea to mess with. Although it would be nice to have a small amount of a tea like this to fill that need too.

I’m thinking about adding things to a basic black like cocoa nuts, mint, coconut, and maybe some things I can find at my health food store … Might be fun.

Despite their popularity, Keemun black teas remain one of the black tea “families,” to which I have not heavily been exposed. Thus, with the opportunity to try this tea, I am eager to brew a cup. Teavivre’s website makes suggestions for brewing this tea gongfu-style or as a whole pot, Western-style.

I opted to use a Finum infuser basket to brew a single cup. Into the basket went a teaspoon of the black tea leaves. Then I placed it in a mug and poured water, which had just finished boiling, over it. Time-wise, it was a bit of a toss-up. The website suggests two to five minutes. After two and a half, for which I set the timer initially, the tea looked and smelled a bit weak, so I left it for another minute (three and a half minutes in total). When the timer rang, and I removed the brew basket from the mug, I stopped to smell the tea…and was intrigued.

Instantly, I could tell that this tea was different than most of the black teas I consume. The smell was a complex combination of a number of aromas. Foremost, I noted spiciness. The peppery spice walked alongside a sweeter spiciness, which seemed almost like cinnamon but devolved into the malty body of the scent. Oddly, there was a bit of a floral aspect to it, which puzzled me but compounded the experience.

The first sip carries those aromas into taste. The foretaste is surprisingly lacking in impression, but, when the tea covers the tongue, all of the nuances emerge. Boldy, the flavor embodies the moderate maltiness. The pepper smell has become a tingling undertone in the taste and mouthfeel of this tea. Highly reminiscent of a breakfast tea, it would pair with food nicely. Three minutes might have been enough for this tea, as I can sense the start of astringency on the edges, but that does not detract from the enjoyment to be found in this cup. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate this Keemun black tea an 87/100.