Ancient Yunnan - Organic
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Commercial Description
...harvested from Yunnan's world-famous ancient tea trees. With a deep, well-rounded taste, each sip contains a complex array of flavors ranging from walnuts, ripe fruit, peppery spice and sweet raisin. Subtle notes of cocoa whisper gently during this tea's malty, lingering finish...
Ratings & Reviews
Page 1 of 1 page with 2 reviews
83 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5Alex (45 reviews) on Jun. 9th, 2018
This is a very enjoyable tea. The twisted, tippy leaves have an aroma of raisins, wood, cocoa, and malt. When I added water I was initially disappointed to see that the leaves were broken, as I've paid less for full leaf Yunnan. Fortunately, the taste doesn't seem to suffer from this fact, with no bitterness and only a slight astringency. When brewed for around four minutes, it has a smooth, thick, malty and fruity flavor. The finish is sweet and slightly peppery, with lingering notes of raisins and chocolate. A longer brew brings out an intense chocolaty sweetness, which seems to be a common characteristic of Chinese black tea.
It resteeps well for a broken black tea. I get two good cups easily even with longer brew times, and a third slightly weaker (but still quite good) one if I have the patience for a 20 minute final brew. The character of the tea doesn't really change each resteep, but by lengthening the brew I can control the balance between being more fruity or more chocolaty. It might be fun to play with this aspect of the tea in my gaiwan.
After overlooking the region for a while, Yunnan black teas are quickly becoming one of my favorites. This tea is good enough to keep Yunnan at the top of my list when looking for new teas to try, but it lacks something to make me feel that it's exceptional; I think I'll try Yunnan Sourcing next. As usual for Octavia, it's overpriced on their website, but it can be found cheaper at some tea and coffee shops.
80 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5Alex Zorach (1453 reviews) on Nov. 22nd, 2014
Sampled in Velvet Sky Bakery in Jenkintown.
A smoother-than-average Yunnan black tea (Dian hong) with a classic character, slightly nondescript, but with a hearty, warming quality that makes it very pleasant to drink. Not quite as mind-blowingly awesome or weird as some of the ancient-tree Yunnan teas I've had, but very enjoyable.
Aroma is subdued, and very balanced, but complex: notes of fruit (raisin), wood smoke, and malt. There are a few resinous notes in the aroma too, hinting at eucalyptus. Flavor is bold but relatively smooth...a strong tea, but not overly bitter, and with just the right amount of astringency to make it very rich and thick. Finish is less peppery than most Yunnan teas.
Easily brews two cups. I liked a briefer first steeping, 2-3 minutes, followed by a longer (4-5 minute) second cup. Probably would brew more cups if you used more leaf and a shorter infusion.
An excellent winter tea; I could see drinking this every day in winter, although I would probably not enjoy it quite as much in summer, but this is the type of tea I'd never complain about drinking.
Page 1 of 1 page with 2 reviews
More Black Tea from from Octavia Tea
Afternoon Darjeeling
| Style: | Darjeeling Black Tea |
| Region: | Darjeeling, India |
| Caffeine: | Caffeinated |
| Leaf: | Loose |
1 Rating
