Drinking all kinds of mysterious stuff as I go through the Puerh TTB today. This is another one from Liquid Proust’s Mystery bag. The leaves were quite dark and tiny looking. It smelled smokey, more towards the BBQ side of things, which almost made me flee in terror. Thankfully, I gave it a chance. Once wet however, the leaves smelled even heavier of smoke. I got 7 steeps out of this tea.
Only the first steep was really smoky. It was also malty with a plummy fruitiness and a drying finish. Even here, the smoke was not as egregious as the smell led me to believe it would be. After tasting this first steep, it was apparent to me that this was a black tea – I was kind of thinking hei cha, but no, definitely a black tea. The second steep had a small amount of smoke left, followed by maltiness with a hint of tangy sourness on the finish. The next couple steeps featured a bit of chocolatey flavor along with the maltiness. The chocolate notes didn’t last long, and the final three steeps were just light maltiness with some fruit in the aftertaste.
After finishing the tea, I guessed this was a Lapsang Souchong smoked black tea. I was mostly right! It was a 2014 Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong. The only other Lapsang I’ve tried was far too smokey for me. I don’t know if this one was just processed differently, or if the smoke has had an opportunity to dissipate some with the tea being a couple years old. Either way, this was a pretty good tea, and shows me that I can enjoy smoked black tea!
Rating: 74/100
Flavors: Chocolate, Fruity, Malt, Plums, Smoke
