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Items tagged with: BlackTea

Inside the bag you get what's here. (I left a few loose leaves still in the bag, mind, because I didn't want the fiddly job of cleaning up.) What you see here is a 100g chunk broken off of a "melon tea" brick. (Named for its shape, not its contents.) In this photo you can see the quality of the tea (whole leaves, no chop, and a minor amount of stem presence). This is a pretty decent grade for a fermented tea. (That amount of stem is tolerated in pu'er and other fermented teas because the fermentation process reduces the unpleasant flavours stems usually add; a conventional green or black would be dinged for having that much.) Of interest are the clearly visible so-called "golden flowers". You can *see* the fungal infection of this tea. This fungal infection is what gives fermented teas their unique earthy flavour. "Cooked" teas have a more "dirty" than "earthy" flavour, but "raw" teas that have been fermented for years (like this one) have a nice, very pleasant earthy taste.
These are the leaves, taken from the loose ones that were at the bottom of the bag, that I used for today's brew. Since this was my first time making a Hunan golden flower tea, I was conservative with everything. I wouldn't call the first brew a "botch", but it was sub-optimal, beginning with my not using enough leaves I think.
This is the tea while brewing. And here's where I came to the conclusion that I may have used too few leaves. The leaves just aren't filling the basket, and usually when making fermented teas that basket is packed tight. The error I made was that I used the loose leaves that had flaked off the chunk, so the density of tea was lower. I selected a volume of tea leaves that would ordinarily have been that volume of densely-packed tea. The result is what you see: a liquor that is a nice burnt umber in colour, but not the titular *black* that an aged, fermented tea should give on the first brew. The scent was still nice. It has a good earthy bouquet with a hint of something slightly fruity (almost orange-like) and just a touch of sharpness like a single curl of a citrus peel being added.
This is the final (first) brew. The colour is very much a "red tea" in colour, not a black one. I probably should have doubled the leaves or used a flake of the compressed leaves. It still smells delicious, but I suspect it's going to be a bit weak.
A look at the tea and basket from the side now. Shortly after taking this picture I took the first sip and, sure enough, it was weaker than I'd expected. The flavours were all good. There wasn't a hint of bitterness at all outside of the "nutty" bitters that I so adore in a well-prepared tea. No acrid flavours whatsoever, even despite that distinct citrus-like aroma gently lurking behind the fruity orange sensation. But it was all very distant, like I was drinking a cup of tea a few hundred metres away from me. Good tastes and scents, but too weak. Not quite watery, but definitely underwhelming. When I next make this I'm going to double the amount of tea I use, keep the same wash, and then watch carefully while it brews until it hits the perfect colour for a true black.
Inside the box is a bag, also made of kraft paper with the same general design. The top of the bag is rolled down and stapled shut with a single staple, over which a sticker is placed to keep the aesthetics looking traditional.
I've taken another photo of the packaging because it really is striking. I think the Chinese have actually perfected the art of packaging; most things, even when cheap, disposable things, tend to be packaged very attractively in striking ways. The local design language is very nice. In this case it's a brick of kraft card stock: light brown with dark brown ink showing pictures of tea production from classic paintings, text snippets that look like they're from the Classic of Tea, and a map that shows where the tea was picked. It's all very tasteful and amplifies the message that this tea is a very traditional tea.
Here is the tea in its wash. Keeping in the theme of being very conservative, I gave it the briefest of washes, essentially just pouring in the water, quickly snapping this photo, then pouring it out. Unlike my choice of how many leaves to brew, this was probably the right choice.

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This is just a teaser of upcoming tea photo essays. The problem with tea is that unlike coffee, small amounts last a long time. 100g of a decent tea can last me a month or two. 100g of coffee won't last me even a week.
Pixelfed
#tea #BlackTea #chinesetea #่Œถๅถ #ไธญๅ›ฝๅ่Œถ #้ป‘่Œถ #ๅฎ‰ๅŒ–้ป‘่Œถ #้‡‘่Šฑ้ป‘่Œถ #AnhuaBlackTea #GoldFlowerBlackTea @zdl@mastodon.online @tea@a.gup.pe

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