2006 Aged Wild Mountain Black Tea, Lot 236

This is not my first tea of the day. First I had a cup of A & D’s Chinese New Year (aka Golden tips), then I had a pot of butiki’s Dinjoye Estate Assam. I should probably post about them, but I don’t really feel like backtracking today, so this is all you get. They are both delicious.

Now for this tea, which is the one I am currently drinking. Tasty Brew included it in the Grab Bag of our BBBBox. I sampled all of the others in the bag, & didn’t care for any of them, so they will be headed to Canada soon. I was gonna sample this one & probably do the same, but then I realized Sil has already tried it, I wasn’t a fan, so I’ll keep it.

I guess it has grown on me, because I kind of enjoyed the first cup & am working on the resteep now. It’s kind of earthy, woody, a little dried fruit, & an underlying taste of white willow bark (think salicylic acid, aspirin), which is interesting because I have a mild headache & was thinking, “I need to stop by Cheryl’s Herbs to get some more white willow bark, & then drink a cup”. So maybe I’m imagining that part.

I have really enjoyed my order from TTC. All except this one. If you like raisins, and I mean the really sweet and juicy ones, then you probably would like this tea. But as I don’t like raisins at all, not even remotely, this tea had to be dumped. The second steep wasn’t as raisiny but it still lingered in the background and I couldn’t get past it. This is their most expensive tea, so my tea budget is happy I don’t like it.

Terri sent this one to me in our last exchange. Not i have to preface this with the fact that i have really enjoyed all of the black teas that i’ve tried from taiwan tea crafts. The exception appears to be with their aged teas. Granted this one tastes totally different from the other aged tea i tried :)
The brewed aroma of this tea is amaaaazing. It’s juicy and fruity and overall i was like oh man..that smells wonderful. Sadly, that doesn’t equate with the actual tea. Much like tastybrew, this isn’t a tea for me. I get where she mentions raisins, as that is sort of what i’m tasting. Overall though, it’s like musty raisins..or something.
Nothing i’ll order again, but i do like being able to cross it off my list. Especially since there will be continued orders from taiwan tea crafts :)

Another black tea sample from boychik! Apparently this one came from Terri HarpLady originally, so thank you Terri! The leaves look similar to other Taiwanese teas – they have that creepy gnarled tree branch vibe and they’re jet black. The dry scent is very mild, but I can catch some sweetness from honey or molasses. I steeped about two teaspoons of leaf for 3 minutes at 200 degrees. I think I may have underleafed a tad, so I’ll keep that in mind next time (boychik sent me a generous sample).

Wow, this tea has such a sweet aroma. It makes me think of lots of dark brown sugar and, to a lesser extent, maple syrup. I think there’s a touch of bread there too, but it’s drowning in all of that sweet syrupy lusciousness. This is a very rich and sweet tea. The flavor is mostly caramelized brown sugar and maple syrup as well. There’s a little touch of wheat bread and some dark dried fruits, like raisins. Yum!

Super generous sample from Terri HarpLady – thank you
3G 130 ml gaiwan 212F
Rinse/30/45/45/1min etc
Leaves are black and unruly so I used scale to not underleaf
It’s malty with muscatel and stone fruit notes kinda like Second Flush Darjeeling but with Taiwanese notes as well. Some unmistakable Taiwanese sweetness. Some dryness in aftertaste but not unpleasant . I really liked this tea as much as I like good SF Darj
Thank you Terri for the opportunity to try. It’s a winner