Hi friends! I'm back again, this time reviewing a jin jun mei from Old Ways Tea Company. I'm a member of OldWaysTea's tea club, which means that every even-numbered month, I get a new box with delicious teas to try. In this case, August's box contained a mix of black teas, with this beautiful jin jun mei being one of them. In my opinion, OldWaysTea's club is a great bi-monthly club to be subscribed to and the value far exceeds their asking price. Phil and Mengjiao do an excellent job curating their selection and I highly recommend checking them out! Now, for a great description of their jin jun mei included in this box, check out their Instagram post, where Phil and Mengjiao counted the buds in this batch to see if the hype surrounding the "50,000 buds" of jin jun mei is true. https://www.instagram.com/p/CScu21ohk0_/?utm_medium=copy_link
So, without further ado, let's get into this review.
Brewing Parameters:
100°C/212°F water
Flash Steeps
3g leaf/100ml gaiwan
Dry leaf: I'm getting notes of honey, cherries, and malty sweetness.
Warmed gaiwan: Strong aroma of cherries, frosted cereal, and a heavy maltiness.
Rinse 3s: It's very malty and sweet. Nice honey aftertaste. Very strong taste of cinnamon oatmeal raisin cookies.
1st steep 3s: Still malty with notes of honey. I'm also getting chocolate and cherries. High vanilla notes. It really resembles Korean honey cookies (yakgwa).
2nd steep 5s: It really tastes like those Korean honey cookies. Pretty delicious. Sweet, slightly floral.
3rd steep 5s: It's malty, starting to get drying astringency. Getting flavors of dried fruits and the cinnamon notes are still there.
4th steep 7s: I'm getting something slightly licorice/five spicey? Typical black flavors coming through now.
5th steep 8s: Astringency present now and in full force. Very drying. Good tea, thick broth. 6th steep 10s: The flavor is dying, but still nice.
Overall Verdict:
I really enjoy this tea. It's a pretty standard jin jun mei, but enjoyable. I'm not the biggest fan of JJM, as I feel like it's overhyped and there are a lot of poor-quality teas sold as JJM. This one is a great example of a high-quality JJM and the flavors reflect it. I would definitely buy this again if it's sold on its own, but as of now since it was part of the tea club, there's not really a price breakdown for this particular tea.
