This is the second tea I’ve had from China’s Guizhou province, a seemingly underrepresented province in the western-facing tea world. The other Guizhou tea I’ve had was a lovely yellow tea that is also sold by What-Cha. They also offer a Guizhou green tea called Dew Drops, which I’ve been wanting to try for a while but for some reason I haven’t picked up yet. All three of these teas are certified organic and affordable!
Back to this Cat Cave black tea. June 2018 harvest, full of flavor and aroma for a summer tea. It performs great as a western-steeped wake-up brew and has very good longevity for a hongcha when prepared gongfu. The aromas and tastes offered by this tea are very complex — savory with cooked vegetables, tobacco and grains, fruity with raisins, cherry and berries and tart with a complementary floral rose overlay. Tannins are present in the full body, giving an otherwise smooth tea a light astringent bite but the liquor does not sit too heavy in my stomach. Expansive raisin-apricot-lychee fruity aftertaste that lingers. The tea even presents a delayed strong returning sweetness when prepared gongfu, after which the tea fades away into a nutty, malty and buttery brew with a pronounced lemon and mineral tone. Very caffeinating!
To be honest, I haven’t had much experience with hongcha outside of Fujian or sweet dianhong from Yunnan so this was rather new territory to dive into. I did find this tea to be very well structured and complex, really hitting all the notes I could want from a tea. If you’re looking for a strong, savory breakfast- or lunch-type tea, I’d suggest giving Cat Cave a try especially given its organic certification (by whom, though?) and price point.
Rating range: 86-91
Western: 2 tsp, 205F, 3/5 min
Gongfu: 5g, 100mL, 205F, flash rinse, many shorter steeps starting at 7-10 seconds.
Flavors: Apricot, Blackberry, Blueberry, Butter, Carrot, Cherry, Cream, Floral, Fruity, Grain, Lemon, Lemon Zest, Lychee, Malt, Mineral, Molasses, Mushrooms, Nutty, Pecan, Potato, Raisins, Rose, Tangy, Tannin, Tobacco, Vegetable Broth, Walnut, Wet wood
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Ooh! Sounds really lovely!
I must missed it somehow :O
Ha. I saw this odd Cat Cave tea yesterday and was wondering about it.
Martin, I’ll you send some of this tea and a few others soon for post-exams, when you can spend some time with gongfu sessions ;)
Ros — it’s an interesting tea, for sure. I keep finding new things going on with every gongfu session.
tea-sipper, I think I saw you waffling over ordering one specific tea from What-Cha? If that’s the case, consider adding this one to get closer to free shipping ;) Or if you want, I’d be willing to split a free shipping order since there are a few teas I want to try.
Nerdery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou
Interesting the province is known for growing tobacco as that is one of the main flavors I picked up on. Perhaps the low price for the tea is because of the high percentage of minority people living there.
Some more nerdery: thanks to What-Cha for listing the cultivar used to produce this tea. The Xiao Bai cultivar, which translates to Small White, is primarily used to make Fujian province gongmei white tea. I haven’t been able to find any information regarding the processing of this cultivar into a black tea.
Yeah, that was me waffling over ordering a couple What-cha teas. I would love to split an order with you, but Kawaii said she was sending a bit of the Sticky Rice oolong which should tide me over. :D
That’s so nice of Kawaii :) I’m going to wait to place another order until I work through some teas but if you ever want to split, let me know!
I had the Guizhou green tea and it was really sweet and creamy. I’ll have to check this one out next time I order from What-Cha
I really need to get some of the green dew drops and maybe the yellow again. The yellow was also really sweet and creamy, like peak season raw sweet corn, and tasted so clean.
Ooh! Sounds really lovely!
I must missed it somehow :O
Ha. I saw this odd Cat Cave tea yesterday and was wondering about it.
Martin, I’ll you send some of this tea and a few others soon for post-exams, when you can spend some time with gongfu sessions ;)
Ros — it’s an interesting tea, for sure. I keep finding new things going on with every gongfu session.
tea-sipper, I think I saw you waffling over ordering one specific tea from What-Cha? If that’s the case, consider adding this one to get closer to free shipping ;) Or if you want, I’d be willing to split a free shipping order since there are a few teas I want to try.
Nerdery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou
Interesting the province is known for growing tobacco as that is one of the main flavors I picked up on. Perhaps the low price for the tea is because of the high percentage of minority people living there.
Some more nerdery: thanks to What-Cha for listing the cultivar used to produce this tea. The Xiao Bai cultivar, which translates to Small White, is primarily used to make Fujian province gongmei white tea. I haven’t been able to find any information regarding the processing of this cultivar into a black tea.
Yeah, that was me waffling over ordering a couple What-cha teas. I would love to split an order with you, but Kawaii said she was sending a bit of the Sticky Rice oolong which should tide me over. :D
That’s so nice of Kawaii :) I’m going to wait to place another order until I work through some teas but if you ever want to split, let me know!
I had the Guizhou green tea and it was really sweet and creamy. I’ll have to check this one out next time I order from What-Cha
I really need to get some of the green dew drops and maybe the yellow again. The yellow was also really sweet and creamy, like peak season raw sweet corn, and tasted so clean.