Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Grey’s Teas
Tea Description:
Keemun is grown in Anhui Province and is a ‘gongfu’ tea requiring disciplined skill to produce thin tight strips. It produces a rich liquor with a slightly scented flavour and delicate aroma. Keemun is the most famous of China’s black teas and, due to its subtle and complex nature, it is considered the “Burgundy of teas”.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
OH wow! This China Keemun Dahlia Black Tea from Grey’s Teas is awesome!
The flavor is rich and powerful – it is a bold, robust, hefty black tea, but it also possesses enough subtle nuances to it to keep it from becoming too overpowering. There are some smoky notes to this, but, they aren’t as apparent as in some other Keemun teas I’ve encountered. Here the smoky notes are softer … like wisps of smoke that waft their way throughout the sip.
There is a really pleasant complexity to this tea – with notes of fruit, earth, leather, caramel, hints of smoke and very delicate whispers of flower within the layers of flavor. I like that it is a strong tea, but, it isn’t all about the strength. I like that it isn’t so heavy in flavor that the softer notes become lost … I love that I can taste all the little delicate notes here.
This is a tea that has the strength that is needed for that first cup of the day (this would be great as a morning latte!) but it also has enough softer, wine-like notes that make for a very enjoyable afternoon cuppa as well.
An excellent Keemun – this one gets two enthusiastic thumbs up from me!
Formosa Lapsang from Grey’s Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black & Oolong Teas
Where to Buy: Grey’s Teas
Tea Description:
A most unusual tea combining the earthy characteristics of Formosa’s oolongs with the pinewood aromas of Fujian Lapsang Souchongs. The typically coarse yet deep brown leaf produces a wonderfully balanced and subtly smokey tea that is most appealing.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
When I first opened the package of this Formosa Lapsang Blend from Grey’s Teas, it smelled much smokier than I expected it to. The Smoky tones are really strong!
I brewed this for three minutes in 195°F water following a quick 15 second rinse, and I’m really delighted with the results. The smoky tones mellow out a bit after brewing (and rinsing!) … this is not nearly as smoky tasting as I anticipated it being based on the aroma I was experiencing when I opened the package.
This is really quite nice! It is smoky, yes, but, the smoky tones are more subtle than I expected them to be. The Formosa Oolong offers a smooth, almost buttery kind of texture to the sip, which when united with the smoky notes … becomes this very soft, smooth, sophisticated kind of smoky note that is actually quite enjoyable to sip. I think that if this was the first smoky tea that I ever tried (and provided I brewed it correctly!) … I might not have been so anti-Lapsang Souchong for so many years! This would be an excellent “gateway” kind of smoky tea for those of you who fear the strong, smoky overtones of Lapsang Souchong!
It has a richness to it, although it’s not quite as sturdy or bold as, say, a black Lapsang Souchong. The Oolong lightens the cup up a little bit, while adding a nice texture to the body of the cup … so I would still categorize this as a full-bodied tea, but, just not quite as hefty as the typical straight black tea might be. It has a very pleasing flavor, especially to me, as I tend to be not so crazy about the overtly smoky teas. I like the subtle approach of the smoke here.
In addition to the smoke, I also note lovely floral notes and fruity tones in the background … like a smoked peach, if you can imagine such a thing! Delicious hints of caramel undertones. A real delight, and a very pleasant surprise, this Formosa Lapsang tea from Grey’s! I like it.
Editor’s Note: I have edited this review based on the input provided by Mr. Grey (see the comments!). When I originally reviewed it, I believed it to be a blend of Lapsang Souchong black tea and Formosa Oolong tea, and have since learned differently. It is a very good tea – regardless!
Darjeeling Monteviot Organic First Flush from Grey’s Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black (Darjeeling)
Where to Buy: Grey’s Teas
Tea Description:
This 2011 first flush is produced at Monteviot, one of Darjeeling’s oldest tea gardens located in Kurseong south valley at an average altitude of 3600 feet. At around 220 acres the garden it is also one of Darjeeling’s smallest. The leaf is green and neat with a clean, fresh hay-like aroma. In the cup the golden infusion yields a lovely, highly drinkable, honeyish tea with little astringency and a long finish.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Darjeeling Monteviot Organic First Flush is a really good Darjeeling – one of the nicest I’ve had in a while!
The dry leaves range in color from forest green to a medium brown color, and they smell like oak, hay and smoke. Really … what I was first reminded of when I smelled the dry leaves was the smell of hay burning … not an aroma I smelled often growing up on a farm, but, there was one occasion when a haystack caught fire, and the scent is rather distinctive and imparts one of those memories that doesn’t fade.
I was kind of surprised by the smoky notes in the aroma, really, because I don’t usually experience that with a Darjeeling, so I wondered what other surprises this tea had in store for me. I didn’t smell any smoky notes with the brewed tea, but I do still smell the hay-like aroma as well as a woodsy tone.
The flavor is really quite surprising as well. The first thing I taste is honey! Yes, honey! (And no, I didn’t add honey to the cup!) I don’t usually taste honey-esque notes with a Darjeeling, as Darjeeling usually tends to be more fruity than honey-like. I taste hints of flower in the distance, as well as a definite woody note. I taste fruit too … imagine currents and apples drenched in honey! That’s what I taste. Sweet, slightly wine-like but not so much of a distinguished muscatel note … but delightful nonetheless.
Like with most Darjeeling teas, there is some astringency with this cup, and it imparts a slightly dry feeling on the palate in the finish. The aftertaste is clean with hints of sweetness.
A very enjoyable Darjeeling … I’m glad I had this chance to try it.
Good Afternoon from Grey’s Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Grey’s Teas
Tea Description:
Our Afternoon blend – Well chosen China and Indian teas are blended to give a light, fragrant liquor with a little smokiness. Once you have tried it you will not drink an average tea during the afternoon ever again! Can be drunk with or without milk.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
When I first open a package of tea, I do what many of “us” (tea drinkers) do, I inhale deeply to take in the aroma. And when I did just that with this Good Afternoon tea from Grey’s Teas, I noticed a hint of smokiness and a rugged earthiness, evoking thoughts of the smells I might encounter while hiking through the woods.
After brewing, the smell that wafted out of my tea pot and now out of my tea cup is smoky with hints of pepper. I imagine this is what it might smell like if I were to burn a bunch of peppercorns and pine wood in the fireplace.
But the flavor is quite surprising, because it isn’t as smoky tasting as the aroma lead me to believe. Yes, it is smoky, but, it melds quite nicely with the rest of the cup and doesn’t stand out as strongly as the aroma led me to believe it would. I taste the faintest hint of pepper as well. This is a very robust, bold kind of blend – much stronger than I expected for an afternoon blend. Other afternoon blends I’ve tried tend to have a lighter taste, like a Darjeeling. This tastes more like Lapsang Souchong (or possibly a strong Keemun) meets Yunnan and Assam for a power lunch.
All that said, I find this to be quite enjoyable. Different than I expected, but still, I am enjoying it. The smokiness is not overwhelming, it manages to marry well with the other flavors of the blend to become part of the complexity rather than oppressing it to the point where the complexity is lost – if that makes sense.
And as this tea cools, I find that it becomes even more enjoyable. It’s not cold, it’s still hot, it’s just not straight from the tea pot hot. It’s had a chance to cool just slightly and I notice the caramel-y undertones emerging, and an almost creamy note also come forth, which is really quite lovely when it melds with the smoky overtones. It’s really wonderful.
This is a powerful afternoon blend – for those days that you need something stronger than the average pick-me-up!
Assam Mothola White (White Assam) from Grey’s Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Grey’s Tea
Tea Description:
Recognisably malty, this is a beautiful tea not only to drink but to look at. The long white velvety buds of White Assam have a rich floral aroma and produce a rich flowery liquor that has good definition but without astringency. This is a lovely, highly exclusive and most beautifully made tea from the Methola Estate, located on the south bank of the great Brahamaputra river in eastern Assam. It is one that matches the very best white teas from China but with the rich maltiness that is exclusive to Assam. No other white teas are known to be produced in Assam. The buds are meticulously hand picked in early spring and are then air dried. Brew for fifteen minutes. This is a highly prized and unique white tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh goodness, this is delicious.
I (again) did not follow the suggested steeping parameters. I did not steep this for fifteen minutes. Something inside me was not able to steep an Assam that long – regardless of the leaf type, so I steeped this for four minutes. I’ve had one too many bitter Assam teas (yes, they were black, but they were bitter nonetheless) after steeping just seconds beyond three minutes, so steeping this one for four minutes was difficult for me to do.
But it turned out amazing with a brew time of four minutes. It is sweet, creamy and delicious. It has that malty note that I’ve come to expect from a high quality Assam tea, and the way the malty note melds with the creaminess of this tea … it becomes absolutely decadent. So smooth and rich, with virtually no astringency … and nope, no bitterness.
Perhaps this would be alright to steep a little longer. However, I must say that I’m really enjoying it at four minutes, and it’s hard to believe that I could enjoy it more if it were steeped longer. I’d just have to wait longer to enjoy it!
This tea is good for at least two infusions, as well … perhaps more! I found the second infusion (I steeped it for six minutes the second time) to be still malty and creamy, although these two notes seem to have softened somewhat to make way for the emerging fruit and flower notes that I tasted. Not overly floral, but pleasantly so, I found the fruit notes to give this a delicious, juicy quality that was positively thirst-quenching.
This is a tea I’d recommend to all tea drinkers out there. It’s one of the most unique teas I’ve yet to taste. It is different from a typical white tea, it is different than a typical Assam tea. It is in a league all its own: it’s absolutely wonderful!