What Black Are You Drinking

Oxidized tea
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mbanu
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Tue May 17, 2022 2:45 pm

mbanu wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 3:19 pm
Today it is a Taylors of Harrogate Earl Grey. Not bad! Based on broken Keemun, arrived in good shape, strong Bergamot but still English-style Earl Grey rather than Russian style. My first impression is that it is better than U.S. (Polish-packed) Twinings, at least to my tastes. Wish I'd saved some of the Tea & Sympathy Earl Grey for a taste-off. Apparently Prince Charles took a liking to Taylors tea back in 2004, eventually giving it a Royal Warrant -- I'll need to see if I can find some old examples of their packaging from before then, but they certainly try to make the most of it now. :D
More of the same -- I'm noticing the tea is a little dusty, however. Maybe it's a case where they are assuming that since it's an Earl Grey it isn't worth the cost to do extra refining on the tea? If the dust goes flat, the flavor will be covered to some degree by the bergamot. Alternately, maybe the tea itself was squashed sometime between leaving the packer and receiving an outer box? Dustier than your average broken-orthodox Assam, not as dusty as your average Fukamushi sencha. :)
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LeoFox
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Sun May 29, 2022 7:21 pm

Enjoying a nice hong after a hectic day
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Iizuki
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Mon May 30, 2022 3:42 am

LeoFox wrote:
Sun May 29, 2022 7:21 pm
Enjoying a nice hong after a hectic day
Image
Hah nice bubble! :D
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Teafortea
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Mon May 30, 2022 7:19 am

Red jade nr 18 first flush from TTC. Probably my favorite for this season, I keep coming back too. My favorite part of tea drinking is observing the infused leaves 🍃 :)
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Bok
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Thu Jun 02, 2022 8:04 pm

Unknown gifted Taiwanese Hongcha in the morning… big pot, big cups, nice!
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klepto
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Sat Jun 11, 2022 3:49 am

its 3AM here and I am trying to unravel the mystery of @Ethan Kurland's Championship Black.
First steep with an accurate glazed teapot I got this orange candy like note that reminded me of drinking Indian teas with a perfect OB sweetness as an aftertaste.
The notes changed from steep to steep with some excellent complexity. I got chocolate notes, deep fruity flavors that danced in and out.
I noticed during the 4th steep the leaves hadn't even opened up yet for the most part. Nice indicator there. To be honest there was far too much involved for me to comprehend on my first taste. I will use less leaf next time and see how clay does with it. I find this Taiwanese gem fascinating as you get the robust flavors of a hong but the sweetness of a bug bitten oolong. Some of the fruity flavors reminded me of a hong shui oolong. More time will be required and I have plenty of it :D :D :D :D
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mbanu
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Sun Jun 12, 2022 7:44 pm

Some Yorkshire Red today. With CTC tea sometimes you are forced to follow the leader -- I don't like their internet advertising, but it's been successful enough that you aren't likely to get stuck with stale tea if you happen to buy it.

When fresh, a fine choice for whole milk and sugar. (I'd put it above Yorkshire Gold and P.G. Tips, mostly because I don't like semi-skimmed milk in my tea, which those two seem designed for, and above Typhoo due to the availability issues and the weird smell I've gotten off a few Typhoo batches.)

To avoid this becoming another example of Yorkshire internet marketing, I had some Campbell's Perfect that I remember being of the same quality, and based on fresh Tetley teabags, I suspect that a fresh Tetley loose would also do a good job here.
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debunix
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Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:05 pm

Today enjoying some Alishan Black tea from Floating Leaves Tea. It's made from Jin Xuan cultivar, and has a lot of oolong character which of course endears it to me and has made it quite the hit with my tea buddies at work. It is fruity, floral, plummy, sweet, with just a hint of spice, even now, 9 hours since I added the tea to the 2L thermos and filled it with boiling water. Fine stuff. This will be in the regular rotation from now on.
Ethan Kurland
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Fri Jun 17, 2022 9:29 pm

klepto wrote:
Sat Jun 11, 2022 3:49 am
.... To be honest there was far too much involved for me to comprehend on my first taste... fascinating as you get the robust flavors of a hong but the sweetness of a bug bitten oolong. Some of the fruity flavors...
Well, I think you "comprehend" this tea better than I do. Or at least write better about it. I am out of it & hope that doing w/o this for a couple of months will lead me to make a good dent in my stock of other teas I have (some of them very good but not favorites). Cheers
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klepto
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Tue Jun 21, 2022 1:31 pm

I was trying out this pre77 hongni 60ml shui ping from Chadrinkingcat drinking a Red Jade #18 Taiwanese black from Yuchi. Drinking from a 60ml teapot you can steep out the tea for a long time and not get full. This Taiwanese black didn't show how wonderful it truly was until I had steep it so long I forgot how many times it was. Initially it gives you a lovely blackberry note and some spice but later on I tasted wild cinnamon and other fruits far late in the game. Sometimes I don't take my time and let a tea show me everything it has to offer.

Drinking from this yixing teapot gave me a flashback to when I was using them for the first time and all the mess I made :oops: :oops: but I have a bit more exp now so for the tea went into the cup not on the table :oops: :oops: :oops:
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debunix
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Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:13 pm

I’ve been doing this for a good while now and I still sometimes end up with lots of tea pouring out onto my tea tray…..
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debunix
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Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:42 am

Balthazar wrote:
Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:42 am
Currently away for what will be this year's only vacation. Want to make the most of the time spent with family, so only brought along two teas that are both good "office style porcelain mug grandpa brewing" performers.

One is Farmer Leaf's 2019 spring Jingmai sun-dried hongcha. I've found FL's hongchas very reliable and excellent for the price, but wasn't thrilled by this one when I first bought it. Three years down the line I'm finding it great. It's got just the right amount of astringency, good body and deep, lasting flavors.

Shai hongs are probably the king of office mug brewing for me. Excellent mix of qualities, almost impossible to brew totally wrong. Comfortable for the body in the all the year's seasons. And not as heat-greedy as some other teas I think do well grandpa brewed in bigger and lidded mugs but no so much in normal office size ones.
After Balthazar's intriguing mention of compressed black tea, something new to me, as
Balthazar wrote:
Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:42 am
almost impossible to brew totally wrong
, I went scouting for shai hong tea, and didn't find a lot of offerings on my first few pages of google results. Although an order from Farmer Leaf is on the way, it won't include black tea cakes because they didn't have any currently on offer. I found one on Teasenz and ordered several cakes to try it:
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Sun-dried black tea, also known as 'shai hong' is made based on a different processing method than mainstream black teas. Most black teas are made letting the leaves wither, followed by rolling and fermentation. However, for Shai Hong the last step is different. While the most common way is to roast the black tea leaves to stop the fermentation, for a sun-dried black tea, the fermentation is stopped by drying the leaves in the sun (as it's done for pu erh).
'Pu Erh Shai Hong' or 'Tai He Tian Cha'?

Because tea types are classified based on their processing method, a sun dried black tea can also be considered a type between black and pu erh tea. This is why it's not strange that sun dried black are also known as 'pu erh shai hong (普洱晒红).

The after taste of a Shai Hong is sweet and because it originates from Tai He, it's also known as 'Tai He Sweet Tea' or 'Tai He Tian Cha' (太和甜茶).

Note that the black tea cake on this page is however made from wild tree leaves from Yiwu.
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Dry leaf a bit smells a bit malty and fruity.

2.5 grams leaf in 100mL glazed gaiwan by Inge Nielsen, water 205-210 degrees:

1 minute infusion is mild, a bit malty/earthy, has a scent that reminds me of a young puerh, herbaceous in a way that promises some bitterness but that is not borne out in the infusion because the sharpness is missing. The liquor is pale red-orange, but I didn't take photos because I was enjoying it from Inge's teadust cup, and the black finish suggests more than shows the color.

1 minute second infusion, because the first was just too light (normally would have done 1/2 time for 2nd infusion): more young puerh notes, lightly bitter, maltiness gone, earthy now

3rd is 2 1/2 minutes, strongly herbaceous, less earthy, hint of malty, but the bitterness still is very slight. This is interesting stuff.

4th infusion 13 minutes, more of the same, herbaceous/bitter notes stronger here, but still quite mellow vs the average young puerh or western-style CTC leaf.

5th infusion I just let go for many hours, and returned to it later at night, and while there was more astringency, it still did not cross over to bitter--quite remarkable.

As a final test, I took 2.5 grams of leaf and dropped it in a pint thermos with 205 degree water and left it for 8 or 10 hours. It was quite nice, with the plummy-fruity notes that the dry leaf scent promised finally coming to the fore, grounded with pleasing malty-earthiness, and no hint of bitterness. The plummy notes are very reminiscent of the Lao Cha Tou puerh nuggets from Norbu that are so mellow and fine infused for ages in the thermos for a long day away from my tea things. And this morning, I started my teaDay finishing that long infused tea, and the color is now a rich red, and the flavor quite pleasing as mentioned just above. It is a fine everyday tea for neglectful brewing.
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Now sipping from a Petr Novak shino cup to show off the liquor better.
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Balthazar
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Sun Jul 03, 2022 1:51 pm

Glad to hear you enjoyed it, @debunix, your notes resonate with mine.

Actually, shai hong's arent always compressed. I'm not sure whether loose or compressed versions are most common (@aet probably knows though), but the one I referred to from FL is loose. (Actually, the only cake compressed shai hong I've had from FL I didn't enjoy much at all, but I believe that one was pressed from summer material...)
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pedant
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Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:59 am

up late enjoying "championship black" from @Ethan Kurland. one of my favorite black teas. thanks for making it available.
Andrew S
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Sun Aug 21, 2022 5:08 am

Ending the day with a big pot of wild old bush Taiwanese hong cha, made from the wuzhilan (烏枝蘭) cultivar.

Bright, elegant and refreshing flavour, very long aftertaste, nice relaxing but active feeling. Very nice. I'll have to try brewing it in a small pot soon.

I don't have much experience with hong cha, but I think that even if different styles of tea can have vastly different kinds of flavours and aromas, the best examples of them nevertheless share certain underlying qualities.

I think that I stayed away from hong cha for quite a while because the ones that I tried in the past were often dense, thick, and 'heavy', without the pleasant refreshing quality that I enjoy in tea, regardless of the style.

Andrew
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