Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Keemun’

This tea emits an earthy, malty smell from the dry leaves.

3 minutes at boiling yielded a bready-yeasty flavor.

I attempted to add milk and sugar to get the Keeman experience I had grown to expect from china keemans, the result was a cup of milk and sugar. The tea completely disappeared with the additions!

The overall feel for this tea was lack luster. It lacked the true maltiness of a Keeman. I was expecting a really great cup of Keeman, but I was truly disappointed with this selection from Tula Teas.

You can purchase the Keemun Mao Feng directly from the Tula Teas website.

At a venerable 104 years old, Mark T. Wendell Company has perfected the art and science of selecting and purveying fine estate-grown teas. This variety, according to the website, was a favorite of the founder himself.

This is a great tea, but if you’re proficient enough to recognize a Keemun with your eyes closed, you may be surprised. This one behaves a little differently. Keemun teas generally have grainy, hay-barn, feedlot aromas. Dry, these big leaves lead with that smell, but there’s a fermented, fruity accompaniment that sets it apart.

Steeped, M.T.W. Formosa is a beautiful burgundy-brown. That magic “other thing” that changes up the dry aroma is present in the liquid as well, toning down the sharpish taste that I normally associate with Keemuns. Sweet…dry and a little puckery…it’s a little hard to describe, but extremely pleasant to analyze! Left (neglected for a couple of hours while I ran to the mall) to itself in the pot to cool, it reheats nicely without turning bitter.

Good tea reviews sum up with a pithy one-sentence summary recapping the tea’s personality in a few concise words. Because this one’s so not-run-of-the-mill-but-really-interesting, I’ll have to do in three: Steep. Taste. Repeat.

You can purchase the Formosa Keemun directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.

This is one of those amazing quality teas that sends you straight to the package, squinting at the fine print to find evidence of flavoring above and beyond the tea itself. Nope. Nothing but great tea.

The dry leaves have the farmy burlap feed sack smell traditionally associated with Keemuns. (Southwest Missourian that I am, I could just breathe the bag fumes and be content!) Drink the Leaf subtitles this “red peach Keemun,” which is evident in the red-gold color of the steeped tea.

But peachy doesn’t even begin to describe all the things that happen in your mouth once you start enjoying this stuff! This tea has heft and a wonderful liquid honey taste that stays on the tongue long after you’ve swallowed. (Suddenly, I’m craving buttered toast.) A second steep lightens the flavor some, but it’s still pleasant follow-up to the first yummy batch.

Drink the Leaf describes Hong Tao Mao Feng as having a “long finish,” appropriate for a tea you’ll want to enjoy when you have plenty of time to sit and smile between sips.

You can purchase the Hong Tao Mao Feng directly from the Drink The Leaf website.

In 1875, a failed civil servant traveled from his home in Anhui Province, China to Fujian Province. The goal was to learn the secrets to black tea production. While Fujian was mainly known for its white teas and oolongs, the region also had Golden Monkey to brag about. He returned and set to work on a type of his own. The results were a hearty and sweet “red tea” that exceeded his wildest dreams. The new beverage took the name of the county where it was created – Qimen. Or as we “Anglish” know it, Keemun.

The tea also gained popularity as an export, becoming the principle ingredient for the titular English Breakfast blend. There are five true Keemun varieties in existence and one “faux” Keemun produced in a province west of Anhui. I had no idea that a Keemun variant was produced in Taiwan, but leave it to Mark T. Wendell Company to surprise me. Their site mentioned that this silver-leafed tea was one of their founder’s favorites, referring to it as the “Burgundy of tea”.

Rarely has Mark T. Wendell let me down in their selection of Formosa (or Taiwanese) teas. The first of theirs I ever sampled was the much-lauded Hu-Kwa – a Lapsang Souchong-inspired smoke tea. The notes were subtler than its campfire kin and also possessed a strange floral presence. From then on, I knew Taiwan could make a black tea. Their Formosa Keemun also promised something unusual. At first sight, the leaves were indeed as silvery as the site description proclaimed; they were also longer and twistier than their Chinese inspiration. The aroma was an odd mixture of dust, earth, nuts, rice and spice – like I was smelling a pu-erh blended with flowers and herbs.

Black tea brewing instructions on the MTW site called for a four-to-five-minute steep in 190F-200F (88C-93C) water. That was much stronger than I took my black teas. I had to give in to my palate preference on this one. I raised the water temp to 205F, used 1 heaping teaspoon of leaves in 8oz, and steeped for three minutes.

The results were a far lighter-looking beverage than I anticipated. The liquor ended up a dark gold color with a middling smoky/nutty nose to it. The lightness was probably due to my steep preference, but most Keemuns I had sipped fared well at three minutes. The flavor – as is often the case – was where this showed promise. Keemun proper usually possessed a bitter foretaste then settled into its sweeter notes. This, on the other hand, went straight for an earthy (almost leathery) prologue and settled into a textured pinecone-like middle. The aftertaste was understated but not unwelcome.

I can’t say this lives up to some of the best Keemuns I’ve tried. Keemun Gongfu does figure-eights around this variant on nuance alone. That said, the earthy characteristics give it a body and taste similar to another Formosa offering – Ruby Black. And from my sipping perspective, that isn’t bad company to keep. It’s still quite an acceptable alternative.

You can purchase the Formosa Keemun directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.

The first time I tried this, it was so smoky, bitter, and strong I couldn’t finish the glass. So I threw the sample into a drawer and tried to forget about it. Then, a few months later I found the sample again, and decided to brave trying it again.

This time, I decided to make sure I used an *extremely* short steeping time. And it helped, immensely. Now, the smoky flavors have done from trying to remove the skin from your nose to a more pleasant woodsy flavor. Like chewing on tree bark. The brew tastes very masculine and robust. Lots of tannin, lots of body.

I still don’t like it much. I feel like it’s a bit of a bully of a tea; pushy and strong and ready to hit you if you don’t treat it exactly right. Others may like it, especially if you’re a black coffee fan or like the stronger, darker flavors. Me, I’ll reach for something else.

You can purchase the Keemun Hao Ya B directly from the Vicony Tea website.