Official what Black (Red) Tea Are You Drinking Right Now?

[kuánglóng]

Judging from the teas I have had so far, Nepal tea will have its place in the tea world, certainly.

Right up there with teas from Darjeeling, no doubt. One of the things that fascinate me about Nepali teas is they're always good for a suprise. Until now I've sampled more than 25 different 2016 first flushes, most of them from Darjeeling and while it's still to early to write anything too meaningful about any of those teas some of them stood out right from the start - one of them being the 2016 FF Jun Chiyabari Himalayan Orange. The funny thing is that of all those teas mentioned above this tea somehow gets the closest to my memory of an archetypal FF Darjeeling from back in the day and I get ....loads of fun out of sampling it against any of those aforementioned teas in 1:1 comparisons, most of the time using my standard cupping sets.
Anyway, I have some more first flushes coming in these days, including Nepali teas but when it comes to complexity they all have had a hard time so far to stand their own against the Nilgiri frost tea (Parkside) I've mentioned some posts ago and some 2015 Sakhira FF I got out from the freezer.

[ethan]

kuanglong, Are you drinking first-flush tea only? Did you conclude that for darjeeling that is what you prefer?

It is apparent that besides the subjectivity of what individuals like, we have different habits. One might conclude he likes first flush darjeeling tea or Japanese green tea & then try many of those, while others may not drink so much of one type of tea.

For black tea from Nepal, I tried several brands & easily concluded Jun Chiyabari was best which led me to focus on HOR because of taste & price. (J.C.'s doubly expensive black also pleased me greatly.) After knowing I liked HOR & it was affordable, I did not buy in quantity until I found a superior "harvest". I do not say "flush" because I do not know that I prefer autumn flush always. I do know the leaves of one particular late harvest of one year was excellent tea. I love it. To secure a lot of it & to be able to get it affordably, I needed to buy in large quantity > I can drink myself. I did buy that much & so sell Himalayan Orange (HOR) via TeaSwap.


If it were wine, I'd say it was "vintage". (It also might have a better name. "Himalayan Orange" seems more misleading to me than helpful. I don't taste orange; lots of tea that we drink has orange color; the aroma is not clearly orange; etc.) But some wine people seem to have their bottles of vintage saved for some "special occasion" & for bragging rights. I think tea-drinkers drink their best teas more often & are more generous. (Not sneaking off to some small room by a couple of best friends to sip an 18-year old single malt while other partygoers are offered Budweiser.)

Anyway, for "darjeeling" the HOR is all I need for a few years. I am satisfied in that category. I was so proud to have bravely bought enough to take care of that need & need for all black tea-- until ..... yes, there are other great black teas. So, now I also am drinking 2 black teas from Taiwan regularly. I am not so smart. When will I know what I know about tea?

Cheers

[kuánglóng]

kuanglong, Are you drinking first-flush tea only? Did you conclude that for darjeeling that is what you prefer?

Not really. It's just that for the last year or so they seem to resonate with my system more than any other tea (with few exceptions, like that Nilgiri I wrote about and some lighter oolongs) and that's what I'm really after.

It is apparent that besides the subjectivity of what individuals like, we have different habits. One might conclude he likes first flush darjeeling tea or Japanese green tea & then try many of those, while others may not drink so much of one type of tea.

For me it's not so much about habits but that resonance thing I wrote about and the whole setup can change in no time. I wouldn't be too surprised if I woke up tomorrow and wouldn't feel like drinking any tea at all - it has happened before - many times. We're all in it for all sorts of different reasons.

For black tea from Nepal, I tried several brands & easily concluded Jun Chiyabari was best which led me to focus on HOR because of taste & price. (J.C.'s doubly expensive black also pleased me greatly.) After knowing I liked HOR & it was affordable, I did not buy in quantity until I found a superior "harvest". I do not say "flush" because I do not know that I prefer autumn flush always. I do know the leaves of one particular late harvest of one year was excellent tea. I love it. To secure a lot of it & to be able to get it affordably, I needed to buy in large quantity > I can drink myself. I did buy that much & so sell Himalayan Orange (HOR) via TeaSwap.
If it were wine, I'd say it was "vintage". (It also might have a better name. "Himalayan Orange" seems more misleading to me than helpful. I don't taste orange; lots of tea that we drink has orange color; the aroma is not clearly orange; etc.) But some wine people seem to have their bottles of vintage saved for some "special occasion" & for bragging rights. I think tea-drinkers drink their best teas more often & are more generous. (Not sneaking off to some small room by a couple of best friends to sip an 18-year old single malt while other partygoers are offered Budweiser.)

Nothing against Budweiser, the real (czech) deal at least, my mother is from that area and even though I usually don't drink any alcohol I seem to have something of that stuff in my genes, lol.

Anyway, for "darjeeling" the HOR is all I need for a few years. I am satisfied in that category. I was so proud to have bravely bought enough to take care of that need & need for all black tea-- until ..... yes, there are other great black teas. So, now I also am drinking 2 black teas from Taiwan regularly. I am not so smart. When will I know what I know about tea?

Cheers

There sure are some other great black or 'red' teas out there, much more than anyone can sample and if it goes on like this we'll most probably see some even greater teas in the future. To me that's the central part of the fun - exploring and experimenting with what's there, getting ever deeper into it and variety plays an important role in that ongoing journey. On the other hand I've done this long enough now, to an extent that I know what I really care for and above all why and to me that's the most beautiful aspect of the whole story.

Cheers

[kuánglóng]

2016 FF Jun Chiyabari Himalayan Rolled Tips

While this tea has been grown and produced just a couple miles from Darjeeling and doesn't deny its heritage in the dry leaf appearance and some of its notes it stands out with everything else - above all its complexity and sheer intensity in the nose and on the palate. Compared to any of the ~30 FF Darjeelings and Nepali chiyas I've tried this year this tea could almost be compared to Ed Van Halen performing among young elves in a ballet school. I just got this tea on Saturday and can't say too much at this time other than that my senses have had a hard time keeping track and that I already ordered some more - it's that exceptional.
I can only hope that some of this tea and other offerings from Jun Chiyabari and other Nepali estates find their ways over the border and inspire one or the other capable guy to step beside his well trodden orthodox track and experiment some more with what's already growing there.

[daidokorocha]

Lots of blacks for me in the last day. Had the HOR again and it wasn't as nice this time in my opinion. Still nice, but I will be upping the leaf ratio certainly. After that was the Yixing Gongfu Black again. This was better this time and it went quite some steeps.

This morning I tried the Yamanami black tea from Miyazaki, Japan via Yuuki-cha. This is a first flush, which Yuuki-cha claims is much rarer. I imagine first flush is generally reserved for greens, so perhaps he is right. The reviews say it tastes like cherry, and I will say perhaps they should make this the base of flavored teas. Wow, cherry is right.

Then I steeped the Ceylon tea from Lumbini Estate, grade OPA (whole, long leaf, slightly twisted). I got this from tea source and they claim it is quite mellow and it really is mellow... and sort of bland. A slight honeyishness comes out and I had this with a honeycomb chocolate bar. They worked decently together, but I really do not care that much for this tea.

Then it was back to the Japanese black. Resteeping sees the maltier aspects fade away with the sweet cherry taking over. Much thinner body. Perhaps I didn't re-steep long enough, but it came out well either way. It is a very nice tea.

I dragged my fiancee, who only really drinks Japanese greens and doesn't really like black teas, through this whole ordeal and she thinks this is the Japanese black is easily the best out of the bunch and perhaps the best she has ever had. After that, she prefers the Chinese black, followed by the HOR and Ceylon equally. I'll be doing some further experimentation with her because she'll challenge my brewing when it comes to blacks. I am thankful she is willing to drink so many cups of black tea with me. Should be fun!

[jayinhk]

Drinking a Nilgiri I bought in Mumbai a few years ago. Gave it a light warming up to drive off moisture. Brewing in my big Vietnamese pot (500-600ml), I get a bright, lightly astringent and citrussy tea. Tastes like bergamot, but without the bergamot. Really quite pleasant when brewed lightly.

[daidokorocha]

Drinking a Nilgiri I bought in Mumbai a few years ago. Gave it a light warming up to drive off moisture. Brewing in my big Vietnamese pot (500-600ml), I get a bright, lightly astringent and citrussy tea. Tastes like bergamot, but without the bergamot. Really quite pleasant when brewed lightly.

That sounds rather pleasant. What do you look for in a Nilgiri when purchasing if sampling is unvailable? I do not really have any experience with them.

[jayinhk]

Drinking a Nilgiri I bought in Mumbai a few years ago. Gave it a light warming up to drive off moisture. Brewing in my big Vietnamese pot (500-600ml), I get a bright, lightly astringent and citrussy tea. Tastes like bergamot, but without the bergamot. Really quite pleasant when brewed lightly.

That sounds rather pleasant. What do you look for in a Nilgiri when purchasing if sampling is unvailable? I do not really have any experience with them.

This is the only Nilgiri I've tried, but bright citrus and a pleasant aroma are what you want. Orange Pekoe is the highest grade, of course, so that's what I'd look for. This was just a last minute buy.

[ethan]

Remembering that a special black tea is still a black tea:

I am posting again about Himalayan Orange (HOR) from Jun Chiyabari, Nepal. I've been drinking this tea almost every day for a couple of years. Yes, years. Years of regularly drinking the same tea means there are times of absolutely loving it, discovering again what the first best sessions were like; &, at the other extreme are times when I find myself bringing the cup to the computer to hardly taste it as I read or write. Mostly, I enjoy drinking HOR quite a bit but am not thrilled by it. It remains a favorite.

Am I drinking the same tea too often? Am I not paying enough attention to it when I drink it? Perhaps the answer is yes to both ?s.

Yet, I think the most important mistake that I have made w/ this tea is not treating it as a black tea. I have been preparing it w/ 96C water. I believe this temperature brings out a lot of flavors that can be somewhat buried by the character of black tea prepared w/ fully boiling water. The 96C preparation makes sense when one has no dynamic tea around except the HOR. Now I have several great teas in rotation; &, the flavors that appear more strongly at 96C don't stand out as much.

To shorten what could go on forever. Now I started preparing this w/ boiling water & do not get exactly the same result; &, it is a result that is less dynamic. Yet, w/ all the other tea I drink, HOR fits in better in my tea life now at 100C.

[daidokorocha]

Ethan, I understand this. There are certain oolongs that I just do not care about how I brew too much because they are everyday drinkers. As shown in my post in the oolong thread, I can coax some nice flavors out of something so cheap as SeaDyke 125 oz for 2 dollars. However, I rarely brew it in such a way that would give me those flavors. Why bother when if I want those flavors I can reach for something superior? Thus, instead of brewing it under similar parameters to more fine teas and having a more detail oriented brewing session in order to get a more dynamic taste, I brew it until the cows come home at whatever temperature and it becomes its own thing. Now, if I suddenly ran out of all superior oolong, then perhaps it becomes a different story. I think learning to brew all your teas in various ways no matter how cheap is useful, but in the end you often fall back on throwing those into a cup for grandpaing or other such casual leisure brewing.

[jayinhk]

Ethan, I understand this. There are certain oolongs that I just do not care about how I brew too much because they are everyday drinkers. As shown in my post in the oolong thread, I can coax some nice flavors out of something so cheap as SeaDyke 125 oz for 2 dollars. However, I rarely brew it in such a way that would give me those flavors. Why bother when if I want those flavors I can reach for something superior? Thus, instead of brewing it under similar parameters to more fine teas and having a more detail oriented brewing session in order to get a more dynamic taste, I brew it until the cows come home at whatever temperature and it becomes its own thing. Now, if I suddenly ran out of all superior oolong, then perhaps it becomes a different story. I think learning to brew all your teas in various ways no matter how cheap is useful, but in the end you often fall back on throwing those into a cup for grandpaing or other such casual leisure brewing.

In Hong Kong we call drinking tea in big cups without much concern, "ngau yum," or cow drinking. Sometimes that's just what you want. I do this with standard black teas, greens and shu pu erh. Once upon a time I gongfu'd everything, but for certain teas I like big teapot brewing.

More care with brewing always results in better tea. I'll try dropping the temperature on the Nilgiri a little, ethan, to see what I get from it. A hotter temperature would indeed result in more extraction and perhaps some of those volatile aromatic compounds get diluted in the soup at full boil, so what you say makes sense. Slightly cooler water would keep down the astringency, too, which is what keeps me away from black teas much of the time.

[Milo]

Got a large order of samples from Teabox arriving this week. I'll post tasting notes sometime this upcoming weekend. Speaking of Teabox: they've been in business (and how!) for over two years now, yet there's no vendor thread from what I can see. What gives?

[victoria3]

Interesting thread regarding tea habits. I sometimes worry that one day I'll wake up and no longer want my stand-by 'let's start the day' teas, so I continue the search for new teas to expand my horizons and knowledge while enjoying the exploration and journey along the way. For many years my go-to teas were Japanese greens, then in the past two years plus Oolongs and Jasmin Pearl because they travel easily adapting to different water types. From reading this thread I'm now curious to try Nepalese and Japanese varieties one day.

Going through my tea cabinet, while I wait for some new orders of oolongs, and came across Glenburn Estate Khongea Assam Leaf Premium that I purchased at a tea convention here in LA some time ago. It is quite complex and rich, didn't knock me over, but much better than expected. The caffein content though is high for me, especially since I'm also preparing later in the day first flush Sincha, so I'm on a buzz all day with these two.

[jayinhk]

Got a large order of samples from Teabox arriving this week. I'll post tasting notes sometime this upcoming weekend. Speaking of Teabox: they've been in business (and how!) for over two years now, yet there's no vendor thread from what I can see. What gives?

Not enough interest in their offerings, I guess. Let us know what you think! Not every vendor gets a thread here either, including vendors many of us buy from regularly.

[Milo]

I'm hoping there'll be some gems, despite my past tea drinking experience. Still haven't had a Darjeeling (from any year) as good as 2011 Jun Chiyabari. That was simply heaven in a cup.