Well this is my first ever Da Hong Pao, and I'm really excited to review it (but not as much as I was to taste it)!

I brewed about 1.5 spoons (because the leaves are long) in about 9 oz of water at 200 F for 4 min.

The color of the tea is beautiful reddish amber (Alex, I think a good feature would be uploading pics here). The scent was mild at first, nutty and toasty. As the tea cooled down, a lot more character came out in the aroma.

The taste is superb! It had complex levels my palate can't really understand yet, but I picked up chestnut, grapes, caramel, etc. The flavors definitely got more pronounced as the tea cooled. I was just so eager to try it haha. There was a light astringency that came out in bigger sips. I like that though, a bit of dryness. Especially for this style of tea, which reminds me of hojicha but is much more complex. The taste lingers in the back of my throat and on my lips. It's very savory.

Excellent tea, and I'm so glad I tried it.

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote: on November 14th, 2014

The feature to allow users to upload pics is in the works! Hopefully I'll have it ready some time next week!

I haven't tried this particular tea, but I'm a huge fan of Life in Teacup, and I've had many excellent oolongs from them.

You may have picked a good (or bad) Da Hong Pao to try first...I find Life in Teacup's stuff is way ahead of many tea companies, so you are likely getting a good example of the stuff, but it may spoil you a bit in case you end up trying a bunch of others!

Kmidst wrote: on November 14th, 2014

It is a great company :) My whole order was like 9 different samples, and they still tossed in a few extra samples beyond what I even ordered. There'll be reviews trickling in for the next couple weeks haha. I love this Da Hong Pao though. I may be spoiled yes, because it set the bar pretty high.

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