Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Red Tea
Where to Buy: Shang Tea
Tea Description:
Hearty and flavorful, this brew has a complex flavor, crisp finish, and a deep traditional red tea hue. This tea is harvested from a white tea plant, which offers a smooth finish to a fermented tea.
Ingredients: Organic White Tea Leaves
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Bai-Lin Kung-Fu Classic Red Tea from Shang Tea is quite spectacular! The aroma is like a malty black tea with aromas of cocoa, hay, and maple. My first reaction when smelling this while steeping was Mmmmmmmm. A deeper inhalation of this tea brings forth some berry aromas as well. Yet there is also something savory about this tea. My mouth was watering while I patiently waited for my tea to cool just a tiny bit so I could indulge!
This is a sweet tea! It even smells somewhat sweet. As I sip on this tea I find notes of honey, toasted cocoa beans, notes of roasted flavors, some kind of molasses perhaps, and a spark of spice. The after taste is lingering of that savory element I noted above. Almost an oregano note.
What a strange, interesting, complex tea!
This is not a tea for the faint of heart, it is bold, robust, not shy at all. It wakes you up and perks you up as it presents itself with a hearty “Hey there! Bet you weren’t expecting me!”
Its a bit sweet, a bit saucy, and all attitude! If this tea were a person it would be that interesting, but sometimes peculiar uncle Bob that sometimes makes you laugh and other times makes you go Hummmmm. Unless your uncle Bob is just creepy in which case this tea is not like him at all. It just has a way about it that speaks boldly for itself yet makes you feel comfortable with its unusual flavor. This tea makes you feel good to be a bit different, to go off the beaten path, to try new things, and indulge in rare delights that you won’t find around every corner.
If I were going to take a trek through the country I think I would take this tea along with me. It tends to make me feel invincible or like all things are possible. Its unusual, exciting, and unlike any other tea out there yet familiar enough in some of its flavor notes that I find it comforting at the same time as exciting.
Is it white or red or black? Its confusing right? Don’t despair, read all about it on Shang Tea’s blog here.
Golden Fleece from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
“This wild-picked Golden Fleece is an exquisite lesson in texture, and one of the truest flavor embodiments of Yunnan itself. . . .This is the finest, most nuanced and intriguing Dian Hong we have ever encountered. Wang Yanxin, our sourcing agent who has devoted her life to Yunnan, has been searching for a Dian Hong like this for years. Every time she sends us pu’er, she includes 30-40 Dian Hong teas, and Jin Jun Mei teas. This time, she only sent us one, and wrote on the bag “this is the one. Best Dian Hong. Taste slowly.” She was so very right.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have had Golden Fleece from Verdant Tea since it was released on Verdant Tea website. I actually ordered it twice because the first order was gone in a flash. I had thought I would save the second bag I bought and hoard it, but the fact is tea is best when fresh, and I would not want to deprive myself of enjoying this tea while still fresh, let alone deprive the tea of giving off the best cup possible. So I have opened my second bag and I am enjoying it daily until it is gone. When it is gone I will most likely purchase another bag if it is still available on the Verdant web site. As of right now it is still available so if you are tempted by this tea – get some while you still can!
This is everything that could be desired in a black tea, especially in a morning cup. It is toasty, creamy, and the aroma is one that will wet your appetite for breakfast or sustain you and give you all the flavors that a calorie ridden decedent breakfast would. Everything you will find in the aroma, you will also find in the flavor. There is a malty, maple flavor, along with a fresh hay laying in the morning sunrise dew flavor, a spun sugar flavor, a subtle vanilla flavor, and a cocoa flavor. That is just on the top levels of this tea!
Once you relish in those beautiful top note flavors you will find yourself emerged into a world of sweet spices, such as cinnamon, clove, and even a taste of paprika.
The mouthfeel is like that of silk or satin, creamy and luxurious. It offers a very full mouthfeel indeed!
This tea can be steeped many times offering new layers and flavors in each cup which is always quite enjoyable and my preferred method of brewing (gong fu style). However, if you want your first cup to be richer, fuller, creamier, or just don’t feel like fussing with a gong fu sitting, by all means enjoy it western brewed as you can’t go wrong with this tea. You will still get two to three steeps out of it western style. Its just such a fine tea however you may find yourself feeling that gong fu brewing is a must. I prefer drinking this tea on weekends when I can take a bit more time in the mornings and go at a slower pace, enjoying up to eight or more steeps.
There are other wonderful flavor notes to find in this tea – some of the base notes I find are mushroom, oak moss, rock mineral, and wood. There is a dry finish to this tea which is due to the base notes.
According to Verdant’s Website: “ Instead, this is a subtle experience that will appeal to lovers of fine oolong and pu’er.”
I could not agree more! I myself am a lover of oolong and pu’er so they are absolutely correct as I fully appreciate this fine black tea.
I always say that good tea, which is defined by each of us alone, should evoke a thought, a feeling, or a memory, and for me this tea evokes the thoughts and feelings of friends, family, good times, warmth, and love. This is why I have chosen this tea for my Christmas Time Tea and why my review of it is posted today, Christmas Day. I will be enjoying this tea all day today as I spend cherished moments, and make forever memories, with my family and friends.
Merry Christmas to all.
Doke Thunder Second Flush from Rare Tea Republic
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Rare Tea Republic
Tea Description:
Ripe apricot, butternut squash, sweet finish.
A juicy ripe apricot aroma leads to an exceptionally flavorful liquor with vegetal undertones of cooked butternut squash and a lingering finish. .
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I bought a sample of this, along with about 12 others, from Rare Tea Republic a week ago and today I picked it from my grab bag of RTR teas to taste.
This is an Oolong? I had to check three times to be sure. I was extremely sleepy when having this as my morning wake up cup, I thought perhaps because I generally have a black tea in the morning, and that is what I thought I had grabbed I thought that I must have been mistaken when I went to Rare Tea Republic site and saw it was an oolong! Surely that was a mistake on their site. To me, this tastes like a black tea.
I am even a little surprised by the flavor palate of this tea – again to me it rings more true to a black tea.
Regardless, letting go of all that and just allowing myself to sink into the tea itself, submersing my distractions of what this tea is supposed to be and just appreciating the tea in and of itself I could not be more pleased.
This tea reminds me of walking through our local fruit farm in the fall. Today’s weather here in my town could not be more perfect. Its like the weather had planned my tea selection this morning. Its cool and crisp outside, leaves are gently blowing around, my yard is the neighborhood’s catch all for fallen leaves, and I LOVE it! The aroma and flavor from this tea are fresh butternut squash, apricots that are a bit over ripened and reduced for quick sale, (the juiciest), autumn leaves, moist air and wet leaves, all indicative of the weather we are having today. Yesterday it was sunny, balmy, and hot, but hey I live in Kansas, as they say if you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes, it will change! My local fruit farm which is down the road from me, is chalk full of the very things this tea evokes at this time of year.
Also there are wonderful flavor notes of syrup, and malt. This is like no other oolong I have ever experienced! The astringency is even aligned with a quality black! I can’t get past the fresh squash note. It is so spot on, so perfect. What a lovely treat on this cool October morning!
Surprised, yes, but delighted for sure! This is one enjoyable cup with wonderful flavor notes that are sure to please!
Yorkshire Tea from Taylors of Harrogate
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black, Assam, African
Where to Buy: British Isles
Tea Description:
A proper tasting cuppa. Pure and simple.
Founded in 1886, Taylors of Harrogate is an independent family business, dedicated to the pleasures of good tea and coffee. The family business has been buying and blending fine teas for over a century.
In every cup of their tea you can taste the skill, creativity and craftsmanship of Taylors’ tea blenders. Taylors’ employees visit tea estates personally to select only the finest seasonal hand-plucked teas.
By investing in long-term partnerships and paying fair prices, Taylors is able to make a positive difference to the quality of the teas and the lives of the growers. The company is a member of the Ethical Tea Partnership and is committed to the ethical sourcing of tea.
Every year Taylors donates at least £100,000 (approx. $190,000) to environmental and community projects overseas. Since 1990 Taylors has planted over 3 million trees across the world with the charity Oxfam.
Taster’s Review:
This is quite simply the perfect English tea! 
A very dear friend of mine, from the UK, sent me a huge box of this tea awhile back and I was surprised when I discovered it was not just some regular ol bland black tea! Imagine my shock and horror that a bagged tea could be so rich, malty, and delicious!
This tea also does come in loose leaf so I provided links to both, but if you look around the site a little you will find you can get it in different quantities as well. My b
ox has 160 bags and on those days when I just can’t seem to navigate my tea stash, let alone, proper brewing, I grab a bag of Taylors and Harrogate Yorkshire and all is right with the world!
This tea is rich, complex enough, and has just the right amount of malty flavor to kick me into high gear in the mornings. It has a rich full mouthfeel and the tea itself is quite robust! Yet, it is not bitter whatsoever and the astringency that exists within the cup is the right kind of astringency that should be there in a fine black tea!
Of course being a good bold tea it can take well to cream, milk, sweeteners, anything you may want to add to it.
Now I did link one of many places to purchase this tea, however it can be found in many places both online and in stores. I have seen it in many of my local markets, as well as at our local British Shop.
If you are looking for the perfect English style tea to sever for a tea party, a cream tea, high tea, ANY kind of “tea” situation or celebration, get some of this. Its just as they say, “A proper tasting cuppa. Pure and simple.”
Sun Moon Lake Black Tea from Fong Mong Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black Hand-plucked Sun Moon Lake Black Tea Loose leaves
Where to Buy: Fong Mong Tea on eBay
Tea Description:
Sun Moon Lake black tea can be declared “Red Treasure” in central Taiwan. Sun Moon Lake in Nantou County is surrounded with mountains and lakes with remarkable environment and typical climate. Heavy moist and stable yearly average temperature make the tea trees grow thick and rich tea leaves which produce carmine and perfectly clear liquor. Its unique sweet aroma and strong mint taste make it truly unforgettable. It is also the best ingredient to make “bubble tea” (the most famous Taiwanese tea drink on earth).
Taster’s Review:
I was thrilled that Fong Mong Tea was offering some samplers a while back.
They provided a sampler pack that would allow two steeping sessions gongfu style.
I love it when a company includes enough in a sample to have more than one session. It allows for a learning curve if needed and for trying different steeping methods if one prefers.
I had the first session soon after I received the sample and now I am enjoying the second session.
I had been saving the rest of my sample for a day I needed a really relaxing and unique tea. A morning when I didn’t have to rush around, and didn’t want to. Today is that day.
Upon the initial sip my first thought was “is this a black tea?” well of course I knew it was but the flavor profile was so green. Fresh, vegetal, brothy, like juicy fresh from the garden green beans. I was slightly taken aback, although the flavor was absolutely delicious it was not what I was expecting. This prompted me to check my tasting notes from my first sampling of this tea! Indeed I also had felt the same way three months earlier when first trying Sun Moon Lake by Fong Mong.
I continued to sip and picked up mushroom notes, tree bark, and a hint of spice that caused a tingling sparkly sensation on the tongue. Ahhh, now the dark notes are beginning to show themselves lending to the black tea profile.
More of the black tea notes began to ring out loud and clear with a slight malt flavor, a milk chocolate flavor, and an oak moss flavor, however those light lilting green vegetal flavors never totally faded!
Lovely!
This is a very meditative tea. As a black tea I am not sure I would want this as my first cup in the morning as I tend to need far more of a punch in the face tea to wake up, however this is my second tea for today and its helping me ease into my afternoon beautifully. Its relaxing, assisting me in focusing on tasks I need to complete, and helping my creative juices to begin to flow gently, calmly, and with ease.
Now I have an admission to make. I used a lower water temperature than suggested. The reason why is quite simply that I was impatient and did not want to heat my water up. My Zojirushi water heater was already at 175 from the night before, and I just went ahead and used that temp for this tea. Granted I was taking a risk with this precious sample, being that one more session was all that was remaining. I have no regrets. This is obviously a forgiving tea, and of course it was not going to get burnt by over heated water but I have also not lost any flavors either. This tastes exactly as I remember it and matches my previous tasting notes perfectly. If nothing else perhaps steeping at this lower temperature will prolong my session allowing for even more steeps than I would normally have got. I am on my third steep now and it is ever bit as good as the first and I plan to keep on steeping until it stops giving.
I am surprised, actually shocked that this is not already holding a place in my permanent stash, but I am so happy that I had some left over as a reminder to place an order with Fong Mong Tea today!
In my previous tasting notes I said that this tea was like a soup created in the kitchen of a culinary master, one that needed to be allowed to simmer for a long time to allow the true flavors to develop. A broth that needed to age like a fine wine. This tea speaks to you as if it is knowing of secrets held within old trees, running streams that have spread gossip from one watering hole to the next and the memories of vegetation along the way. Sun Moon Lake is one that needs to be allowed to take you on a journey to unknown territories, allowed to tell you its stories. This is a slow, easy sipper tea, again not my preference for morning when I really need to suck a tea down in light speed to get “my fix”. This tea is one to be savored and appreciated.