I received this sample of this cake from Smacha, and had put it into my Puerh drawer as it was in 'cake sample form' and I didn't realize it was not a Puerh (being a newbie-newb) and rather forgot about it until yesterday afternoon while preparing the holiday meal. (Or rather, and more accurately watching my husband prepare the holiday meal.) What was I thinking?! Never, ever get anything from Smacha and not pay it full attention, this is not just a normal tea sample, sheesh! I could have had this weeks and weeks ago!
This is one of the nicest, smoothest black teas I have ever had. Out of the Puerh drawer and into the drawer of special blacks, please! Move over, Darjeelings!
I started with 4.5 grams in a 180 ml gaiwan at 205 degrees. YUM. From there I played around with it in lower temps, higher temps, longer steep times than my usual super-short steeps, and all brews were super easy to drink and all went extremely with toll-house cookies! This is a wonderful black tea, and I thoroughly enjoyed breaking up leaves from the cake, which was easily done with this lightly pressed offering.
I brewed that initial gaiwan session six or seven times, and it still tasted good to me. After supper last night, I brewed another batch using my Smacha Tea Infuser with around 5-6 grams which I eyeballed, having a houseful of people and not being able to take the time to find the scale.
This worked out well even though I wasn't sure about my parameters. I thank the brewer for that! What a help-mate. Newly acquired and already beloved with its white with gold accents, Smacha's auto-brewer was so insanely handy last night after Thanksgiving supper when my husband and I wanted to share a small pot of something really good and special in my grandmother's ancient Noritake China, (used only on Thanksgiving) and the auto-brewer was a beautiful addition to our already prettily set dessert table. The tea itself was the cherry on top of the perfect meal. So today, I am just sitting here feeling grateful for many things, not the least of which is crazy good tea from reliable sources.
From Smacha:
From the Jing Mai Mountains, in a protected park situated above 5,000 feet, this black tea, which is pressed into cakes is made from 500 year-old trees. It exhibits the rare complexity, smoothness, and subtlety only found in tea made from trees of this age.ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- ALTITUDE2200m
- FERMENTATION80%
- ORIGINJing Mai Mountains, Yunnan, China