Esgreen, Dian Hong Broken Standard

Esgreen Description:
This black tea is made of old Yunnan tea bush material. The quality is really good and could be easily re-steeped for over 3 times.

Sample provided by Esgreen for review.

My Review:

I love Dian Hong. I am looking forward to trying this one. The leaf is dark chocolate looking twists with milk chocolate colored buds. It smells nice and malty. I used 2/3 of a scoop of leaf (about 2.5g) and just ready to boil water in my press and steeped for 2 1/2 minutes. The color of the brew is root beer. As the name says, this is broken leaf but definitely not dust. The pieces look fairly uniform and are twice the size of Twinings leaf pieces. The aroma is browned cocoa. Mmmmm.

The first sip is absolutely drenched in browned cocoa. I am in love. There is some bite on the tip of my tongue but I can’t tell if it is the tea or the fact it is so hot. Nope, it was the heat. This is nicely smooth. No bitterness.  The browned aspect seems to be coming from a light roastiness in the background. The malt that was in the dry leaf scent is not lost in the taste either. This is really good.

Oh now this is interesting. The second cup I steeped at 3 minutes. The original flavors are more subdued in this cup. This allows notes of straw and horse tack to come in to play. That may sound a little eeew to some of you but they are light and very wonderful flavors that I normally would associate with puerh. If I have had it in a black tea before I can’t recall. I really like this cup a lot.

The third cup I steeped at 3 minutes. Very sweet. The leather and straw are gone. The cocoa has mellowed into more of a milk chocolate taste. The malt is now very light and only present enough to support the chocolate notes. This is really an exceptional tea, worthy of the Dian Hong name.

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