Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: M&K’s Tea Company on Etsy
Tea Description:
A young tea (first crafted in 1938), Dianhong Gong Fu tea is a fantastic, full-bodied tea of Yunnan. For a black tea, it is distinctly mellow with subtle fruity notes and a slight maltiness. In the context of tea making, “Gong Fu” can roughly be translated to mean “great skill”, or the skill required to craft the tea, while “Dian Hong” (or Dianhong) means “Yunnan Red” (Dian being short for Yunnan and hong meaning red (as in red tea)).
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Mmm! This Premium Dian Hong Gong Fu Black Tea from M&K’s Tea Company is wonderful!
It’s a smooth, flavorful tea with a note of tangy astringency toward the finish. I notice that the astringency starts out rather faint but as I continue to sip, the astringency builds. It doesn’t become really strong or anything, but, it is definitely stronger now than when I first started sipping on this cup. It’s a drier finish now than when I first started drinking this tea.
It’s a full-flavored tea but it’s not an overly aggressive tea, as the description above implies, it has a mellowness to it that I quite like. This would be a great tea to serve in the afternoon as a pick-me-up, but not a tea that I’d reach for in the morning when I want that boost of gusto.
Nice fruity notes – I taste plum! There are notes of malt but not a strong ‘sweetness’ to this tea. There is a balance between sweet and savory.
Overall, a really enjoyable cup of tea. I don’t know that this is the best Dian Hong black tea that I’ve tried, but it’s a mighty fine one.
Shi Feng Supreme Dragon Well Green Tea from Grand Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Grand Tea
Tea Description:
Dragon Well is a most celebrated green tea in China, the name comes from the town Lung Ching which means Dragon Well in direct translation. In recently research shows that fresh green tea, particularly in young buds contains high levels of antioxidants, and is very good for the skin and has anti-cancer properties. EGCG and theanine exist in the highest concentration in these young tea buds.
Typical for Shi Feng Dragon Well is the yellowish green leafs, sweet with a hint of chestnuts like fragrance and refreshing aftertaste. GrandTea’s Xi Feng Dragon Well is still hand-picked and hand-roasted the traditional way.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh, wow, I’m loving this Shi Feng Supreme Dragon Well Green Tea from Grand Tea! It’s so delightfully sweet and nutty.
To brew it, I used my Kati tumbler and rather than measuring these long leaves in a bamboo scoop, I simply pinched out an amount that looked to me like a scoop. (I call this my eyeball pinch method.) Then I heated the kettle to 180°F and added 12 ounces of hot water to the tumbler and let the tea steep for 2 minutes.
Now, Dragon Well tea is one of those teas that you can actually leave the leaves in the cup. I’m told that it’s one of those teas that you don’t need to strain the leaves – you can just keep on infusing, adding more water as you drink the tea. But, I’ve not tried it that way. I remember the very first time I tried Dragon Well tea, I either oversteeped it or steeped it at too high a temperature. Either way, the tea was just not something I wanted to drink. So since that time, I’m careful with how I brew a Dragon Well.
I’m quite satisfied with the way this cuppa turned out!
It’s sweet, buttery, lightly vegetal and deliciously nutty with a flavor reminiscent of freshly roasted chestnuts. It also has a really pleasant, creamy texture.
And while I’m not one to keep the leaves in my cup and keep adding hot water to the cup – I’m all about the resteep! I resteeped these leaves three times with no real significant loss in flavor!
This is indeed a superb Dragon Well! I highly recommend it.
We Are Nearing The Home Stretch!
Please help us reach our S-t-r-e-t-c-h Goals! Please click here and contribute!
We are nearing the home stretch of our Kickstarter and we’re so excited that we’ve reached our goal and we will be funded. This means that I will be – together with my daughter, Amethyst – taking over 52Teas as of June 1st!
But we are looking to achieve MORE with our campaign! The more funds we raise, the more we can invest in equipment to make the business more effective. We also desperately want a new website!
We have about eight days left on the campaign and I believe we can go FAR with those eight days! Please click here to go to the campaign and contribute what you can. As little as $5 will get you some tea – and you’ll have helped build our business and help my dream come to life! THANK YOU!
And after you’ve contributed, don’t forget to vote! Right now, backers are voting on five new reblends to add to the campaign reblends, so if you have a favorite 52Teas blend that you’d like to see reblended, please contribute and then VOTE – let me know what tea you’d like to try!
Acerola Cherry Fig Black Tea Blend from Tea & All It’s Splendor
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Tea & All It’s Splendor
Tea Description:
THIS. TEA. IS. RICH! It’s full of flavour, body and mouth feel. It’s like drinking a great red wine. We were blown away by just the smell of this well made blend. It was so amazing we had to check to make sure that it was all natural. Raelene assures us it is (along with all their other teas).
The rich sour cherry flavour, is sweet and fruity. The fig, adds a sweet and mellow brown sugar finish. This paired with a high quality black tea means you’re left with a warm cuppa that is perfect for novice and advanced tea drinkers.
Learn more about subscribing to Postal Teas here.
Taster’s Review:
My eleventh edition box from Postal Teas has finally arrived! Happy day! This eleventh edition focuses on a new-to-me tea purveyor: Tea & All It’s Splendor and this Acerola Cherry Fig Black Tea Blend is the first that I’ve tried from this collection of teas.
I mean, how could I resist? They had me at the word fig! And as I’ve confessed previously, I’ve noticed a trend in my tea drinking. When I’m given a selection of different teas, the type of tea that I’ll reach for more often than the others is black tea. Don’t get me wrong, I love other tea types. I’m crazy about Oolong teas and Yellow tea is my favorite, but there is just something so comforting about black tea. It appeals to an almost instinctual need for me. That need for tea and it’s caffeine.
And this tea is quite lovely! There is a tasty balance here between tart and sweet. The fig is sweet – almost sugary sweet and it’s a pleasing contrast to the jarring tartness of the acerola cherries. Beneath the cherry top note I taste the smooth black tea that’s not bitter nor overly astringent. I’m really glad about the lack of astringency here, I think that astringency would kill this blend for me because the cherry flavor is quite tart and a tangy, dry sensation would be a bit much for my taste, I think.
But even though the tart is very strong here, I’m not finding it off putting the way I tend to find tart flavors. I think this has more to do with the fact that the cherry flavor tastes so authentic. This is not your average cherry flavoring that ends up tasting like cough syrup. NO! This is a really tasty, true-to-the-fruit cherry flavor that tastes as though I’ve just bitten into a tart cherry. Except that thanks to the fig notes, I’m not puckering.
This. This is good tea. And as fantastic as it is served hot, it’s even better iced. Wow! What a great way to get back into the swing of things with Postal Teas!
Black Tea & Ginger Blend from Chiang Rai Tea House
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Chiang Rai Tea House
Tea Description:
If you need an extra boost, try some black tea with ginger, an energizing root that helps fight just about any infection. A perfect hot drink for those cold winters days or when you need a lil’ pick me up!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
In the early days of spring, I find that my allergies are on overdrive. I have issues with my allergies year round (believe it or not! Hey, I live in the Pacific Northwest!) but in the spring, even my every day allergy medication doesn’t do enough to power away the allergy symptoms all the time.
So I find teas like this Black Tea & Ginger Blend from Chiang Rai Tea House to be particularly comforting when I get to feeling kind of blah from my allergies. The warmth of the ginger help soothe the swollen throat and the peppery spice of the ginger enliven the taste buds. It’s a tea that I find both soothing and invigorating!
I could smell the ginger immediately upon opening the pouch. The ingredient list shows that this is 60% tea and 40% ginger – which is quite a bit of ginger! And it’s evident in the flavor – there’s a powerful kick to this!
The black tea base is a Thai black tea and it’s a smooth tasting tea. It’s not bitter or astringent. It’s nicely round with a pleasant flavor. I’d categorize it as a medium-bodied tea and it has a pleasantly soft, thick texture. I taste notes of molasses and leather.
There is a lot of ginger to this and it adds a spicy kick to the cup. But I still can taste the black tea. The ginger isn’t overpowering the black tea, although the amount of ginger-y flavor does hinder my ability to talk much about what I’m tasting with the black tea. I taste black tea and I taste ginger. I don’t taste a lot of specific black tea notes other than an undertone of molasses and a hint of leather here and there.
In most cases, I would find that disturbing but I rather like the ginger taste. I like the way the flavors are presenting themselves. It’s warm, comforting and soothing. I like that I taste a lot of ginger but I can still taste the black tea.
A nice first experience with this new-to-me tea company!