Little Red Cup Tea Co.

I am almost done tasting all my new teas (excluding samples) and the 4 I have left from Little Red Cup have been sitting on my kitchen table taunting me for some time. After a rather awful experience with the first tea of theirs that I tried, I was hesitant to dip into another. But this is about as far as spinachy bitter green as you can get (plus I need the space these are taking up!).

The dry leaves smell like smoke and hay—I actually like both of these in tea if they’re not overpowering. Brewed it’s still smokey but there’s also a hint of fruit—peach or grape maybe? This is a brisk, bold cup, and really exceeded my expectations for sure. It’s also my first experience with a Chinese black straight-up, and it definitely doesn’t need milk. A little astringent but not bitter at all.

Backlog: I enjoyed a cup of this earlier today. It is pleasantly robust, with a nice fruity character that is somewhat wine-like, ending in a wine-y sweetness and then some dry astringency. Sweet, bold, and full-flavored. I like it, it’s a good Keemun.

This isn’t the highest quality Bai Mu Dan I’ve encountered. The leaves are broken and crumbled, and are certainly not as green as the photos on the website would like to suggest. They are dull and brown, with no visible signs of fuzzy down like I’ve come to expect from a high quality Bai Mu Dan.

With that said, this is not a bad Bai Mu Dan. It’s just not the very best that I’ve encountered. It’s nothing exceptional. But it is pleasant. It has deliciously sweet, fruity overtones and a nice hint of hay and air in the background.

Overall, a pleasant tea experience.

Fair Trade and Organic +2
Slightly Bitter -1
Lovely floral Balance +1
Good Pricing +1
A somewhat new company (I think) – nice website but it seems to still being worked on as it has already changed recently.
This is a nice tea – but there are many far better out there – here is the issue I have – I have been drinking Shang, Verdant, Teavivre all day today and yesterday so it is going to be very hard to measure up to those companies. HOWEVER in fairness to this one, I have had far worse! The thing is I am new to Jasmine tea as a whole so I have not necessarily had “far worse” jasmine tea. This company seems to be good and I have other teas of theirs to try so we will see.
I like that they seem to know who they are, simplistic bagged tea, with vibrant red, fair trade, organic, and excellent information about the teas, the company, sustainability, etc on their site.

Here is an excerpt from the site:
We decided to sell Chinese tea that is simple, high quality, and straightforward — tea that our friends from Beijing would recognize and enjoy. So: no Mango-Walnut-Green-Tea-Surprise. Instead we will sell green tea, black tea, and white tea. Just tea, no flavoring except for jasmine, which is as traditional a flavoring as tea itself.

I will sample more of the teas I have from them soon. For now this is good, not great maybe but very good.