I haven’t had a Chinese black tea in a while, so I dug around and found this! I haven’t had a Lapsang Souchong in a long time so, I was excited!
The Chinese Tea Shop: Lapsang Sauchong Black Tea
Description: “The tea liquid is very clean with a deep reddish cherry amber color, infused with a comforting camphor, woody, and earthy flavor.”
Review: The dry leaves were dark black, small and thin. The leaves had a lovely smell – malty, sweet, and earthy. Lapsang Souchongs is normally smoked, but I noticed that the packaging specifically said that it was “non smokey”, which I assumed meant that this tea would not have a predominantly smokey flavour.
Like I did in my last review of The Chinese Tea Shop’s tea, I followed the Company’s Gong Fu brewing guide, so I steeped this tea for five infusions. When I steeped the tea for the first time, I picked up a strong roasted note, followed by a bold earthy fragrance. The liquor was a reddish orange, but the flavour was rather mild.
During the second infusion, the flavour was more roasted and I detected an underlying maltiness with a tail end of some faint bitterness. The third infusion was constant with the second steep, and it featured a more toasted flavour. I found that the taste hit quickly, but it also tapered off, with some lingering smokiness.
During the last two infusions (four and five), the smokey and earthy notes took a step back and the tea was much sweeter and maltier, with some mild cocoa flavour, which reflected how the dry leaves smelled. However, the smokey flavour did come out during the tail end and sat on the tongue.
Overall, I did enjoy that this one had a nice gradual shift in flavours. I am more familiar with Golden Monkey, which has a more of malty flavour, so I was glad to be able to taste in this as well (3.5/5 rating).
- Type: Black tea
- Origin: China
- Caffeine: Low
- Ingredients: Black tea
- Other: Handpicked
- Company: The Chinese Tea Shop