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.
Bai Mu Dan from The Little Red Cup Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: The Little Red Cup Tea Co.
Tea Description:
Our organic Bai Mu Dan (White Peony Tea) is a white tea, grown in the very northeastern corner of Jiangxi Province. Made from only one bud and the two adjacent young leaves, this tea is carefully processed to promote a bare minimum of oxidation. It is sun dried, heaped, and then gently baked until fully dried. Bai Mu Dan is always handled carefully in order to minimize leaf breakage so as to maintain optimal quality.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The photo is a little misleading, as it would depict a greener (fresher? higher quality?) Bai Mu Dan than I received in my package. These leaves are dull, dark brown. Broken, crumbly leaves. And no indication of velvety, fuzzy down on the leaves. I’ve had higher quality Bai Mu Dan teas from China.
So while this is not the best Bai Mu Dan I’ve come across, the flavor is still quite pleasing. It is delicate, with sweet fruit notes in the foreground, and a hint of vegetation and hay in the background. It is not grassy, exactly, but, imagine the taste of the fresh air you might experience in a field of hay … that’s what the background here tastes like: light, delicate, airy, with hints of the elements that surround you. It is almost as if I can taste the sunlight that dried this tea.
There is a crispness to the flavor that is very refreshing. Overall, I’m enjoying this for its delicate, sweet flavor with delicious fruit notes throughout. As I mentioned, it’s not the highest quality Bai Mu Dan I’ve had, but it is certainly one of the most reasonably priced Bai Mu Dan teas I’ve sampled and the flavor is certainly pleasant. I also appreciate that this is a Fair Trade and Organic tea. So for that, this tea gets an enthusiastic thumbs up.