Hello. In today’s session we enjoyed the Dianhong Song Zhen variety of black tea.
Dianhong Song Zhen comes from Fujian. The first thing that catches your attention is the shape of its leaves, medium-large in size and completely entire, elongated in the shape of a needle, which gives it part of its name (Zhen means “needles”). The other part of its name is given by the alternation of more golden buds, along with darker ones, typical of the varieties called Dianhong.
We prepare this black tea in a Yixing clay teapot, adding about 3 grams of tea, and making short infusions, so you can enjoy and get to know it little by little.
Once prepared, we pass it through a strainer, to be able to appreciate it better. Anyway, the leaves of this Dianhong Song Zhen holds up whole throughout the session. It is a very mild tea with an aroma right off the bat, which does not show all of its personality and presence until it is infused.
The infused leaves remain whole, an unmistakable sign of quality, while they give off a dense and pleasant aroma before tasting their flavor.
The color is a beautiful reddish with ocher nuances, reminiscent of typical barrel liqueurs.
Its flavor enters fully in the first sip, in a first phase in which it expands widely throughout the palate, to go on in a second phase to leave a softer, although long-lasting aftertaste.
The fermented touches are the first to come, with a very well balanced taste, somewhat dark with woody details. If it were a wine, it would remind us of an aging with months in the barrel to appease and almost forget the astringent touches typical of black tea.
It has a medium endurance, in terms of the number of reinfusions, and the leaves last whole while giving off a lot of aroma and flavor.
In short, a perfect tea for after dinner, to let yourself be carried away by its controlled intensity and its full flavor that does not leave you indifferent. Highly recommended, without being a “Gourmet” priced variety of tea, even if you are not used to black tea.
Well, that’s all for our session today. Thank you very much for your attention and see you soon.
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