Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: The Little Red Cup Tea Co.
Tea Description:
You could drink Little Red Cup Keemun Black tea because it’s organic. Or you could drink it because it’s Fair Trade. You could drink it because it’s the epitome of simplicity in Chinese tea or you could drink it because it’s whole leaf. We drink it for all those reasons, but mostly because this is one great tea.
Most people experience black tea as a fairly bland brew in a metal teapot in a Chinese restaurant, or else as an adulterated product, such as English Breakfast tea. But ours is a fabulous tea– rich, robust, with wisps and hints of flower and fruit.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I do enjoy a good Keemun black, and this one certainly qualifies as good. It has a deliciously rich character, with notes of smoke and a pleasantly sweet, fruit-wine like taste. It’s the kind of tea that you can enjoy as a breakfast tea because it is robust and it has a certain amount of vigor to it. It would also make a nice afternoon tea to share with friends.
The dry leaves offer a sweet, somewhat floral aroma, which was a little surprising to me as I’ve come to expect a more earthy tone with a slight smoky note in the background from a Keemun. But I found it to be intriguing with its different fragrance, enticing me to taste it to see how it differs in taste.
The flavor of the Keemun is quite what I expected from a Keemun: bold, rich and full-flavored. As I mentioned before, it offers a fruity note that arrives about mid-sip, and as the end of the sip approaches I find that the fruit tone tapers to a sweetness that reminds me of wine. Dry, lightly sweet, and astringent … but not too astringent.
A very pleasant Keemun.
