Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Foxfire Teas
Tea Description:
This beautiful black tea from the Yunnan Province in China has a beautiful dried leaf appearance and once steeped it has a wonderful robust aroma with slight fruit notes. This tea is part of the Limited Collection, so we have a very small quantity available and once it is sold out, we may not see it again until it is next harvested.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh. My. Goodness!
This is soooo good.
Once upon a time … (Once upon a tea?) I tasted Dawn from Simple Leaf. Dawn is one of the very best teas I’ve ever had the privilege to sample, and of the pure black teas I’ve sampled, it is definitely in the top three if not at the #1 spot. Unfortunately, Simple Leaf is no longer in business. (sob) But every once in a while, I will encounter a tea that reminds me so much of that amazing experience that I had with Dawn.
This moment with High Mountain Red Tea from Foxfire Teas is one such experience.
The dry leaf is beautiful – long, curly, wiry leaves of dark chocolate brown that smell of sweet fruit, notes of chocolate and hints of caramel. And after the tea brews, that is the fragrance that surrounds my olfactory nerves when I take a deep whiff of this magical brew.
And that’s what I taste too. The flavor is sweet, rich and smooth. Well-rounded. Notes of cacao. Undertones of sweet, luscious caramel. Sweet fruit notes that are reminiscent of apple, plum and currant – but with no tartness. Just the sweet tones of those fruits! There is a pleasant … what I’m going to call “savory” quality … toward mid-sip. This “savory” quality is not bitterness, it is not sweetness, it is not tart or tangy … it’s just … smooth and robust and … well, savory.
There is no bitterness to this cup … and virtually nothing that resembles astringency. There might be the slightest twang of a tangy pucker towards the finish. But this is so slight that if you’re not paying very strict attention, you’ll miss it.
Easily one of the best cups of tea that I’ve had in a very long time – and I’ve had a lot of really, really good tea lately!
