If I tried to tell you what this tea smells like, I’d say a blend of Nesquik powder (powdered chocolate drink mix), brulee’d sugar (the caramelized sugar on top of a crème brulee), and cocoa puffs cereal. It tastes as if you made a weak hot chocolate with water instead of milk. It has a pleasant malty, cereal grain sweetness kind of like Ovaltine, and a very smooth mouthfeel, again kind of milky. It’s very easy drinking without all the bullshit astringency, bitterness, and sour notes people are used to in black tea.
I think it’s widely accepted that Yunnan is the place in China for inexpensive black tea. Dian Hong, as it is generally known, is a black tea (black to us, China says red) coming from the area in Yunnan province where the old Kingdom of Dian used to be. I used to sell a Dian Hong here in this shop, it was great for what it was (it was only $0.17/g) but I wouldn’t expect it to change someone’s life. On the other hand, I sell a tea called Jin Jun Mei — I really do think that tea would change someone’s life. What I mean by that is, it opens a door in the world of tea which would generally remain closed. Not many people are going to enter the realm of $1.60/g black tea, but when I first opened that door, man was it something else. Black tea was often the kind of tea I didn’t find appealing because of its bitterness, strong astringency, and sour mulchy notes. Jin Jun Mei changed my whole outlook on the type and fueled a desire to find other black teas that could make me feel just as happy.
It should come as no surprise that a tea made entirely from buds would elicit the same response in me, and though it isn’t as refined, or cerebral as Jin Jun Mei, neither is the price.
Enter ‘Yunnan Golden Buds’
Yunnan is a mountainous region with lots of peaks and valleys, it’s an ideal place to grow tea. In fact, it’s among the tract of land which can be considered the heartland of tea, and thus uses the native Assamica (large leaf) version of the tea bush, rather than the shrubby small leaf, domesticated tea bush like most other provinces in China.
One of my mentors is the senior tea taster for a major tea exporting company in China, and it turns out him and I have nearly opposite taste in black tea. We discuss it often, high mountain black tea appeals to him very much. I’m not against them, but high mountain black teas (to me) are better from Taiwan than anywhere I’ve found on the mainland. From the chat logs of the last time we spoke on the subject, here are some words right from his mouth:
“you know, to keep the full leaf bud shape, the rolling of the golden bud tea can only be done very gently, which is not enough to macerate the tea cells. Consequently, the tea juice does not come up for oxidation…tea flavor is easy to make, taste is difficult”
“In China, due to the influence of the semi-fermentation oolong tea style, now more and more black tea is less fermented. People tend to make black tea into oolong tea, and people develop the appreciation of oolong tea, thus they tend to appreciate black tea from the point of oolong tea. The light taste tea might be good to appreciate in occasions of Cha Dao of Gong Fu Cha tea ceremony, but we find many people drink tea after meal, in this case, they need a cup of strong tea to impress the taste. Light tea in this case, gives the impression of water, while strong black tea (eg: Darjeeling and high quality Yunnan Black) gives very strong taste, while make people feel very impressive of vegetative elements (strong taste does not mean coarse taste)”
“The elevation of Darjeeling is high. While in Yunnan, we have even higher elevation. The taste is as strong as Darjeeling. In these days, I am very fascinated by very high elevation black tea, and to let you know, nearly all the fancy golden bud comes from low altitude tea gardens. The low land tea enjoys the growing, and makes a lot of tender tea shoot, and usually the tea garden uses a lot of fertilizer and even pesticides. The collection of tea bud is not easy. Only in the high yield tea garden, it is more economic to produce the single bud.”
In almost all instances where I drink tea, I am in the mindset of Cha Dao or drinking tea as a pairing with food. In almost all situations where I introduce tea to people, I will put them into those situations too. Tea for me isn’t a beverage as much as it’s a tool to enter a period of reflection and deep, focused thinking, which I find incredibly fun and nourishing for the soul. The teas I bring in and serve are those which I enjoy thinking about. I think having a light tea after dinner is not necessarily a bad choice, so long as it’s justified, and since we eat chocolate/caramel/baked cookie style desserts so often in our North American lives, this tea is frequently a useful accompaniment for the end of dinner (before or after the whiskey)
This is an a-typical bud tea, in the sense that it comes from a high elevation garden (2100+ meters a.s.l) but that doesn’t mean as much to me as ‘holy shit this tastes like Jin Jun Mei, but it’s less than half the price’ does. I’ve come to believe that trichomes (the little golden hairs) give me what I want in black tea, the more the better, and these little Chewbacca’s taste pretty damn great. I have about 900 grams left, so I have plenty for now, let me know if I can get you some to help you through the Christmas season!
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