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This was one of my sipdowns from around the end of March and the start of the current month. It was also a tea I kind of rushed into blindly in the sense that I did not research it much. I tend to be a really huge fan of Red Jade black teas, so I was eager to see what a Red Jade GABA oolong would be like. Ultimately, I found this tea to be a unique and rather enjoyable expression of the Red Jade cultivar, though I also felt that it would probably not be for everyone.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of rolled tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was chased by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of baked bread, sweet potato, brown sugar, chocolate, and molasses. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of spinach, wintergreen, and red grape. The first infusion then introduced aromas of plum and malt. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered up notes of baked bread, malt, sweet potato, molasses, red grape, plum, and wintergreen that were backed by hints of chocolate and spinach. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of geranium, grass, earth, pear, horehound, wood, blood orange, red apple, and straw. Notes of cream, minerals, geranium, pear, grass, red apple, wood, straw, horehound, earth, honey, and blood orange appeared in the mouth alongside belatedly emerging brown sugar notes and hints of leather and tobacco. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, sweet potato, plum, malt, cream, earth, red apple, pear, straw, and grass that were balanced by hints of geranium, spinach, brown sugar, horehound, molasses, and wintergreen.

Overall, this was an odd, interesting, and rather enjoyable GABA oolong, but it was also very challenging and prickly. Personally, this was a tea for which I would have to be in the mood. I could not ever imagine it being a regular basis tea, let alone an everyday tea. Still, it had a lot to offer, and I could see drinkers curious to see how the Red Jade cultivar handles being processed into anything other than a black tea or those who enjoy quirky and/or experimental teas getting a kick out of it.

Here is a review I have dreaded posting for a couple weeks now. Though I really hate posting uniformly negative reviews, truly mixed or mediocre reviews can be much worse for me because it is so hard for me to figure out what to say in them. That is the situation this tea put me in, as I didn’t find it to be truly bad. Instead, it was more boring and mediocre to me.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of malt, baked bread, honey, sweet potato, molasses, and smoke. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of brown sugar and butter along with significantly more amplified sweet potato, malt, smoke, and molasses scents. The first infusion then brought out aromas of ginger, earth, black pepper, and orchid. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered up notes of malt, butter, baked bread, roasted almond, honey, molasses, and earth that were chased by hints of orange zest, black pepper, orchid, honey, and brown sugar. The subsequent infusions brought out aromas of pine, orange zest, moss, minerals, roasted almond, violet, and cocoa. Notes of smoke, sweet potato, and ginger came out in the mouth along with much heavier honey and orange zest notes and slightly amplified impressions of orchid and brown sugar. I also found notes of minerals, moss, lemon zest, violet, cocoa, heather, caramel, and pine that were accompanied by fleeting traces of nutmeg. As the tea faded, I continued to note impressions of minerals, roasted almond, malt, baked bread, pine, and lemon zest that were balanced by hints of earth, caramel, ginger, heather, honey, and sweet potato.

While the floral impressions this tea displayed were nice, there was really nothing else that was all that interesting to me about this Jin Jun Mei. To be fair, Jin Jun Mei is not normally one of favorite Wuyishan black teas, and it is not as if I have had a ton of them by any means, but still, I have had enough to know what I like and what I don’t. In my opinion, this tea went a bit too heavy on the malty, earthy, citrusy, and buttery notes without enough floral characteristics and honey, caramel, molasses, and brown sugar sweetness to properly achieve balance and bring everything into focus. It also faded rather quickly on me. In the end, I could not make up my mind about this one. It was drinkable and certainly was not terrible, yet it was also not all that inspiring or captivating either. A meh score a little below 60 feels about right to me.

Hi, everybody! It’s been a rather long time, hasn’t it? I’ll go ahead and admit that life has taken precedence over reviewing for the last couple of weeks. Work has been a killer for me, and I have had lots of personal stuff to deal with too. Even when I have had free time, I have not been able to force myself to post here. For whatever reason, I have just not been able to focus on writing. I’m still drinking tea like crazy, though, and I have been steadily building up quite a backlog in the space of the past month. This was one of my sipdowns from the first half of last month, and quite frankly, it is still a tea I think about often. I wish I had purchased more of it when I had the opportunity because this was a fantastic black tea.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of malt, honey, baked bread, strawberry, blackberry, and red grape. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of sweet potato, roasted peanut, brown sugar, cocoa, plum, and menthol. The first infusion introduced aromas of candied orange, eucalyptus, and black cherry. The menthol scent also grew somewhat stronger. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of sweet potato, malt, baked bread, cocoa, red grape, candied orange, plum, strawberry, brown sugar, and menthol that were backed by hints of black cherry, blackberry, cream, eucalyptus, and vanilla. The subsequent infusions brought out aromas of black currant, blueberry, cream, date, orange zest, vanilla, melon, wood, and marshmallow. Stronger and more immediate cream, black cherry, menthol, and vanilla notes appeared in the mouth along with impressions of honey and roasted peanut. I also noted impressions of minerals, blueberry, marshmallow, wood, black currant, red pear, date, red apple, and orange zest as well as some subtle hints of watermelon. As the tea settled and faded, I was left with impressions of minerals, malt, baked bread, wood, sweet potato, menthol, plum, cream, and orange zest that were underscored by subtle hints of black cherry, blackberry, blueberry, eucalyptus, brown sugar, honey, cocoa, and roasted peanut.

It is very rarely that a Taiwanese black tea disappoints me, but it is also a rare occurrence when one impresses me as much as this tea did. For a tea displaying such incredible depth and complexity, it was neither poorly balanced nor overwhelming. It was also incredibly lacking in astringency, rendering a smooth, silky liquor that was never lacking in approachability. Overall, this was a fantastic Taiwanese black tea. It even reminded me a bit of some of the more consistently hyped Taiwanese black teas to have gained a following on Steepster and elsewhere (Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black and Premium Taiwanese Assam, anyone?) but with one important difference: this tea may have been slightly better than most of them.

This was yet another recent sipdown of mine. I only had 25 grams of this tea to work through and finished them over the course of two or three days toward the beginning of last week. I know that I have gone a bit crazy with Taiwanese oolongs this month, but I have had quite a few good ones to work through, and this one was yet another winner. I will probably switch to something else the moment I hit one that does not move me in any way, but that may take some time at this rate.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was followed by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of brown sugar, chocolate, burnt toast, golden raisin, pine, and plum. After the rinse, I detected aromas of cherry, roasted almond, vanilla, red apple, and malt. The first infusion introduced aromas of cinnamon and butterscotch. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of brown sugar, cream, vanilla, pine, burnt toast, chocolate, golden raisin, malt, and roasted almond that were chased by hints of red apple, cherry, pear, cinnamon, and hazelnut. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of pear, fig, white grape, nutmeg, blackberry, coffee, and hazelnut. Butterscotch and plum impressions emerged in the mouth, while stronger and more immediately evident cinnamon, red apple, hazelnut, and cherry impressions made themselves known. I also found impressions of minerals, fig, nutmeg, white grape, cream, coffee, and blackberry. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, pine, vanilla, cream, cinnamon, brown sugar, malt, roasted almond, and burnt toast that were underscored by hints of chocolate, pear, golden raisin, hazelnut, plum, butterscotch, and cherry.

This was one of those oolongs that was easy for me to write off at first because it was just so balanced and drinkable. More patient, focused sipping, however, revealed a simultaneously complex and approachable tea that was truly masterfully crafted. The liquor was both aromatic and flavorful yet lusciously thick and gorgeously textured, and it offered tremendous longevity and sneaky, gently invigorating energy to boot. In the end, there was not much of note for me to criticize about this tea. If you are looking for a high quality GABA oolong, this would be one to consider.

This was another of my sipdowns from earlier in the month. I tried to keep as open of a mind as possible while reviewing this tea because Nilgiri teas have never been favorites of mine. Despite the fact that the previous Nilgiri teas from What-Cha that I had tried were impressive, I was not expecting much out of this one since I find Indian green teas to be very hit or miss. Lo and behold, this Nilgiri green tea ended up greatly impressing me. I have not been drinking a ton of green tea so far this year, but this one will likely remain one of the most satisfying and interesting green teas of the year for me.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 158 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of malt, raisin, dried cranberry, and sorghum. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of apricot, mustard greens, and spinach. The first infusion introduced aromas of honey and grass. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of malt, grass, sorghum, sour apricot, honey, mustard greens, and grass that were balanced by hints of butter, pear, dried cranberry, and spinach. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of sweet corn, butter, pear, sour cherry, and citrus. Stronger and more immediately noticeable butter notes came out in the mouth alongside belatedly emerging raisin notes and impressions of minerals, sour cherry, sour plum, cream, kumquat, and bitter orange. I also noted hints of sweet corn, umami, grapefruit, and juniper as well as touches of wintergreen after each swallow. As the tea faded, the liquor began to emphasize notes of minerals, grass, spinach, malt, bitter orange, sour cherry, sour apricot, and sour plum that were backed by fleeting hints of grapefruit, honey, dried cranberry, cream, sorghum, umami, sweet corn, raisin, and wintergreen.

As Indian green teas go, this one struck me as being unique. In terms of body and texture, it reminded me of some of the better Yunnan and Vietnamese green teas I have tried, while its aroma and flavor profiles were like a mixture of Assam, Yunnan, and Vietnamese green teas with some truly unique and unexpected characteristics that one would not normally expect to find in any of those teas. Overall, this was a very likable and satisfying tea that more than held its own in a relatively lengthy and intense review session. I would have no issue with recommending it to anyone looking for a vibrant, memorable, unique, and challenging green tea.

This was another of my sipdowns from the present month. I finished what I had of this tea around the start of last week. I wanted to compare it to the Taiwan ‘Charcoal Roasted’ Oolong Tea from What-Cha because I had a sneaking suspicion that it was the same tea. Even though I found a lot of the same aromas and flavors in this one, this was apparently a different tea produced in a different location. Of the two, I ended up preferring this tea because it was slightly fuller in the mouth, displayed slightly more longevity, and had a few intriguing components that the other tea lacked.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of cinnamon, vanilla, cream, cedar, roasted almond, toasted rice, and roasted barley. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of charcoal, baked bread, brown sugar, butter, and raisin. The first infusion brought out aromas of toasted coconut, chocolate, roasted peanut, and smoke. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cinnamon, cream, butter, vanilla, cedar, charcoal, roasted almond, roasted peanut, raisin, roasted barley, and toasted rice that were chased by hints of toasted coconut, baked bread, brown sugar, smoke, caramelized plantain, grass, and spinach. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of grass, spinach, nutmeg, coffee, pine, green olive, kale, apple, and pear. Stronger and more readily detectable notes of baked bread, grass, spinach, smoke, and caramelized plantain emerged, while chocolate notes also made themselves known. I also picked up impressions of minerals, nutmeg, pine, watercress, green olive, coffee, tart cherry, kale, apple, pear, ginger, and grilled pineapple. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, toasted rice, roasted barley, roasted almond, roasted peanut, cream, butter, and vanilla that were backed by hints of kale, grass, brown sugar, caramelized plantain, apple, pine, smoke, watercress, and green olive.

This was a very satisfying roasted oolong with a bevy of interesting aromas and flavors. Everything worked well together, and the tea liquor had a pleasantly full body with a nice, creamy texture. Fans of roasted oolongs would likely be into this one.

This was one of my sipdowns from around the first of the month that I just didn’t get around to reviewing here until now. Looking at the scores for this one left me a bit shocked. I was a little surprised to see this tea being scored so poorly because it was a more or less excellent Dong Ding oolong in my opinion.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of toasted rice, roasted barley, vanilla, and baked bread that were underscored by subtle scents of orchid and roasted nuts. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of cream, sugarcane, steamed milk, cinnamon, and magnolia as well as a stronger orchid fragrance. The first infusion brought out a clearly defined roasted peanut scent and aromas of honey and grass. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of toasted rice, roasted barley, cream, butter, vanilla, grass, baked bread, orchid, sugarcane, and roasted peanut that were chased by hints of bamboo, spinach, honey, and magnolia. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of spinach, banana leaf, butter, watercress, custard, roasted hazelnut, and golden raisin. Impressions of steamed milk came out in the mouth along with stronger and more immediately noticeable impressions of bamboo, spinach, magnolia, and honey and hints of cinnamon. I also detected notes of banana leaf, custard, cattail shoots, minerals, golden raisin, golden apple, seaweed, watercress, roasted hazelnut, longan, roasted hazelnut, orange zest, zucchini, macadamia, and pear. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, cream, steamed milk, toasted rice, butter, grass, roasted barley, and sugarcane that were balanced by a complex mix of watercress, zucchini, roasted peanut, spinach, seaweed, macadamia, cattail shoot, longan, golden raisin, banana leaf, and golden apple hints before stronger macadamia, spinach, seaweed, and cattail shoot flavors emerged on each swallow.

This was a complex oolong with a ton to offer. It produced an exceptionally aromatic and flavorful liquor with tremendous body and texture in the mouth. Nothing seemed wrong with this one to me. I am not sure what others found to be so lacking about it.

Hi, Steepster! How ya doin’? It’s always so difficult for me to get started on reviews when I haven’t posted on a regular basis in a long time. I’m still spending most of my tea drinking time going through teas I have purchased larger amounts of over the past two years. This was one of my more recent sipdowns (relatively speaking )as I finished what I had of this tea a couple weeks ago. I found it to be a very nice roasted oolong, though I also noted that the roast was really the only thing that provided any interest. Otherwise, this probably would have been a solid if relatively boring oolong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of rolled tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was followed by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry leaves produced aromas of toasted rice, vanilla, roasted barley, charcoal, and cedar. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of sugarcane, toasted coconut, caramelized banana, smoke, chocolate, and roasted peanut. The first infusion introduced aromas of burnt toast and tar. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of toasted rice, roasted barley, vanilla, cream, caramelized banana, and sugarcane that were chased by hints of toasted coconut, smoke, chocolate, roasted peanut, and cedar. The subsequent infusions introduced aromas of pine, butter, juniper, apple, green olive, cinnamon, grass, coffee, and grilled pineapple. Notes of tar, and burnt toast came out in the mouth alongside stronger and more readily noticeable impressions of smoke, cedar, and roasted peanut. New impressions of pine, marshmallow, cinnamon, grass, juniper, kale, apple, grilled pineapple, green olive, coffee, butter, watercress, turnip greens, minerals, and cooked lettuce also emerged. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, toasted rice, cream, butter, and roasted barley that were balanced by hints of vanilla, grass, roasted peanut, pine, green olive, smoke, kale, sugarcane, apple, caramelized banana, watercress, and cooked lettuce.

As indicated earlier, this was a very enjoyable tea. The roast had settled quite nicely and allowed some of the tea’s underlying qualities to shine through, though its characteristics had thankfully not disappeared entirely. Unfortunately, most of the tea’s most interesting qualities were provided by the roast, and as the tea liquor started to settle and fade, there was not much left to hold my attention. All in all, this was a very good roasted oolong, but if you are not a fan of such teas or expect a ton of interesting characteristics aside from those provided by the roast, then you should probably steer clear of this tea.

Here is my last review of the day. This was another recent sipdown of mine. I finished the last of this tea Monday afternoon. For the most part, I am a huge fan of Georgian black teas, but I quickly came to the conclusion that this one was never going to be one of my favorites. Though it was a good tea for the most part, I did not feel that it compared favorably to some of the other Georgian black teas that What-Cha has stocked in recent years.

Rather than gongfuing this tea, I opted to brew it in the Western style. After rinsing the leaves, I steeped approximately 3 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. Normally, I do not resteep black teas that I brew in this fashion, but I opted for a second infusion with this one. The second and final infusion was 7 minutes, and 194 F water was again used.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced subtle aromas of raisin and pine. After the rinse, I found aromas of roasted almond and malt that were underscored by a faint smokiness. The first infusion brought out aromas of cream and steamed milk along with subtler scents of cinnamon and orange zest. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of raisin, malt, roasted almond, cream, steamed milk, butter, pine, toast, cinnamon, oats, and nutmeg that were accompanied by hints of date, smoke, pear, and orange zest. The finish was very smooth, emphasizing cream, raisin, malt, oat, and toast notes. The second infusion offered steamed milk, cream, malt, roasted almond, toast, butter, raisin, pine, and petrichor aromas. The liquor was thinner and slicker in the mouth, as softer, subtler notes of pine, malt, cream, steamed milk, roasted almond, toast, butter, and raisin flitted across the palate. I also noted some subtle mineral impressions, hints of petrichor, and touches of brown sugar and vanilla here and there on the finish.

As stated above, this was not a bad tea. Unfortunately, it was also really nothing out of the ordinary for a Georgian black tea. Just about everything one would normally expect to find in such a tea was here. If you’re a fan of Georgian black teas, then you will probably like this tea to a certain extent, as it would be the sort of tea you could always fall back on when you need your Georgian tea fix. If, on the other hand, you are just getting into Georgian black teas or are looking for a more unique Georgian tea experience, there are teas out there that are considerably more interesting and appealing. In the end, I would very likely pick something like Natela’s Gold Standard Black Tea over this one if given the opportunity.

This was another recent sipdown of mine. I think I finished what I had of this tea either Friday evening or Saturday morning. I worked through most of what I had of it alongside the spring 2017 Jingmai Purple Needle black tea because I wanted to compare them to one another. Both were quality teas, but this more traditionally styled Jingmai Mountain black tea ended up being my favorite of the two.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of baked bread, malt, chocolate, brown sugar, and sweet potato. After the rinse, I detected aromas of roasted almond, roasted peanut, cream, and butter alongside an even stronger chocolate scent. The first infusion introduced aromas of rose, orange zest, straw, and violet as well as a subtle scent of smoke. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered up notes of malt, cream, butter, baked bread, earth, and chocolate that gave way to impressions of rose, roasted peanut, sweet potato, brown sugar, and orange zest before impressions of wheat toast and some vague vegetal notes took over on the swallow. The subsequent infusions brought out aromas of pine, wheat toast, caramel, anise, cinnamon, marshmallow, menthol, and earth as well as some subtler scents of black pepper. Roasted almond, straw, and violet notes came out in the mouth along with stronger and more immediate impressions of wheat toast. I also detected cooked green bean hints and impressions of minerals, cinnamon, anise, menthol, caramel, red pear, pine, and lemon zest. There were even hints of leather, smoke, sour apricot, red grape, black pepper, and marshmallow lurking around the fringes. As the tea settled and faded, the liquor began to emphasize notes of minerals, lemon zest, orange zest, malt, earth, roasted peanut, and cream that were balanced by hints of pine, roasted almond, sweet potato, chocolate, and brown sugar. Some menthol coolness remained in the mouth and throat after each swallow.

This was a very nice Jingmai Mountain black tea. It expressed a ton of character on the nose and in the mouth, and unlike quite a few other Yunnan black teas, its energy wasn’t overwhelming. I could see this making a great tea for Yunnan black tea connoisseurs and neophytes alike since it had a ton to offer yet was never confusing, awkward, or overpowering.