Friday 6 March 2015

Northern Tea Merchants: Keemun Mao Feng

(Keemun Mao Feng in the infuser. A glorious tea that is dark in colour, with thin leaves).

When I take the first sip of a new tea I'm trying the reactions can range from "that's alright" (meaning it's okay but I'm not overly keen) to "that's a lovely cup of tea" (which translates in non-tea talk as this is really nice and I'm loving this blend". Very occasionally you'll get "that's bloody nice" (meaning this is a tea that is beyond nice, beyond gorgeous, heading towards sublime).

I can safely say Keemun Mao Feng from Northern Tea Merchants is most certainly in the sublime category.

Each month I make a small order with Northern Tea. This is done so I have fresh tea to blog about but on a personal level I just love their tea and am enjoying everything they have to offer. In my last order came a packet of this tea. Sadly, I didn't have the chance to try it before I went on my tea tasting so this morning decided to fire up the tea maker and delve right in!

What I was able to do is decant the tea into a spare caddy. I do this promptly so that the tea is kept as fresh as possible. Today, upon opening the caddy had a good inhale and the tea smelt wonderful, with tones of dark chocolate to it.

The appearance of the tea is fantastic. It's very, very dark in colour, and the leaves are very long and fine, almost like spider legs. This is a tea that appeals to all of the senses. It smells gorgeous, looks intriguing and feels just lovely. And it tastes wonderful, too!

(Keemun Mao Feng infusing in the Sage tea maker. After a just a few seconds it was already a lovely golden, honey colour).

I infused the tea for six minutes as recommended on the website. What I did notice during the brewing process was just a few seconds in it had reached a gorgeous honey colour. This was going to be a lovely, dark tea.

(Once brewed the tea was a dark, ebony colour).

Last year I reviewed Northern Tea's Keemun which went down a right treat on Laura's Tea Room so was really excited about the Keemun Mao Feng.

As Northern Tea states on their website, Keemun Mao Feng is "one of the finest examples of Keemun tea produced today". And they are right.

Despite it's dark black colour, which could possibly make you feel it would be a very strong tea to taste, it's actually surprisingly gentle and "soft" to the taste, though it's a little bit more robust then the previous Keemun that I've reviewed.

Keemun Mao Feng is a very mellow tea, smooth and easy to drink. For me, anyway, it has a light, almost chocolate like taste to it. It's incredibly refreshing, too, and moreish. It certainly didn't take me long to polish off the four cups that I had brewed in the tea maker. And before long I was filling up the tea maker with fresh water ready for another infusion.

So what is the tea like after re-steeping the leaves? It makes for a wonderful cup of tea. And no bitterness which you can sometimes get during the re-steeping process. I was really impressed. I always re-steep with a degree of caution because I've had plenty of experience with tea's which were lovely first time, suddenly morphing into a monster of a blend on second steep!

Another thing I'd like to add about Keemun Mao Feng is it's a brilliant tea to drink black. (And that's also the case for Northern Tea's Keemun, too).

I've mentioned on here a while back that I drink tea black due to suffering from eczema on my skin. Sometimes this can be as bad as nearly 50% of my body covered in eczema. It can be set off by stress, worry, nerves amongst other things. But, too much diary products also affects the condition, so I made a conscious decision to stop adding milk to tea a few years back.

It was then that I hit a snag with black tea's because some, such as Assam and Chai's were too strong, malty or overly spiced to drink black. Keemun Mao Feng is a perfect tea to drink black, and if you are making the step from taking your tea with milk to taking it without, do choose this tea because it's gentle enough to ease you into the world of tea without milk.

On the second steeping I added lemon which works well with the blend. Brilliant if you want to make it a bit snazzy.

Keemun Mao Feng is just a perfect black tea, brilliant to take without milk and is gorgeously soft and gentle, yet, ultimately, satisfying.

I'm a lucky girl having been able to try this tea.

You must try it. You won't regret it. A brilliant example of a classic, black tea. Flavoured tea's are brilliant, but drinking tea in it's purest form has never been lovelier.

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