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Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP), the listed type / grade / leaf presentation |
A vendor sent a sample of Ceylon tea to review, not such an unusual thing, but it does come up here more frequently related to other countries. Kandy Tea is actually selling tea out of Sri Lanka in this case, with a FB contact here, and a website here. It's odd this doesn't comes up more, people taking up resale-vending local teas in producer countries, versus lots of various themed tea businesses in the US and Europe (and Australia and wherever else too; other places than where the teas are from).
Per discussion with that local Bangkok Ceylon vendor, SNSS, it's not that simple to buy tea directly from Sri Lankan plantations, related to an auction sales process that isn't just convention but also regulation-restricted forms of sales. I wouldn't know, from my own experience; just passing that on.
This part of Sri Lanka that the company is named after played a role in the early history of tea there, explained in this CNN article citation:
In 1867 Scottish coffee planter James Taylor, the man who would be recognized as the pioneer of Sri Lanka's tea industry, planted 19 acres of tea near Kandy at an altitude of around 500 meters...
Within 10 years, this lethal fungus led to financial ruin for the island's British coffee planters. Roughly 1,700 left for England while the remaining 400 or so switched to growing tea...
By 1890, the year Thomas Lipton arrived to purchase tea estates, 23,000 tons of tea were exported to London's tea auctions. Ceylon had become an island synonymous with tea.
The description of the location of the tea source could be more specific, but that elevation citation reminds me of their website product description claiming it's coming from higher up:
The Broken Orange Pekoe range falls into the category of High grown and medium grown tea, hailing from the centre of the country’s hills, grown at an elevation 6000ft to 2000ft above sea level.
To me this particular tea ties to the theme of checking out better Ceylon and Assam versions earlier in this year; I'll be forever really getting to what the best examples of these teas offer. On to this specific version for now.
Review, prepared Western style
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from the second tasting instead, of course |
The dry tea scent is nice, warm, rich, sweet, a bit malty, and complex, maybe a bit heavy in a nice dried fruit range.
Brewed initially (Western style) the tea is like that, positive, complex, and well-balanced. As with other better versions mineral structure plays a role that's hard to describe. I tend to talk about different kinds of rocks or mineral springs to pin that down but I'm not sure that's ever clear. It reminds me most of other Ceylon teas I've tried.
It includes a bi of malt, just a softer and lighter presentation than in the Assams I reviewed not long ago. Part of the flavor range is a bit like tamarind, not completely off raisin but not that, maybe extending a little into dried fig. It could be interpreted as woody but to me that's not right either, something along the lines of leather captures that part better. I tried the tea again later, brewed a different way, to see if I could dig deeper related to flavors assessment and overall judgement.
Brewed Gongfu style
Some types of black tea make more sense to prepare Gongfu style than others. I can pass on my thoughts and experience related to that but it seems it would vary with preference quite a bit, different per person.
I recently tried a Taiwanese black tea, a "honey black," prepared Gongfu style, which worked out much better that way than earlier Western style attempts. I tasted it that time along with a Dan Cong black, (a Chaozhou area black tea; I'm not sure if that "Dan Cong" description is commonly used for black teas or not). That second type also probably does work better prepared that way, but I've not also brewed that Western style to check on that. Sometimes Gongfu style seems to work better for Dian Hong too, for Yunnan black teas, but in some cases the outcome is more the same for both approaches. For some decent orthodox Assams I tried recently it didn't seem to make much difference. It almost has to do as much with the tea being touchy about parameters as it being so good that it somehow makes more sense, although it's hard to connect causes to working better with more short infusions versus a lower proportion and longer steep time.
The aspects didn't seem all that different for this tea; the main flavors were still along the lines of mineral, fruit in the range of dried tamarind, hinting towards fig, and earthiness not so far off leather. It seemed possible to shift around parameters and shift the balance of those, to soften and sweeten the tea using slightly cooler water and lower infusion times, or to emphasize the earthiness by going the other way. That tone would then move into the range of feel more, picking up a resin-like quality that occurs in some versions of Dian Hong.
As far as taste goes when pushing the tea a little, brewing it slightly stronger, or using hotter water, it reminded me a little of the woody, unique scent of pine cones. If the smell of those isn't familiar it's hard to think of anything remotely similar; a bit like that smell of almond or brazil nut shells, but stronger, and a little sharper. Once I think of that this tea reminds me more of the scent of an almond shell, but that could just be imagination.
Conclusions
So in conclusion brewing it Gongfu style the tea wasn't necessarily better, but it was possible to shift the character a bit within a limited range. Brewed faster and a little cooler it's possible to accentuate the lighter flavors and sweetness of the tea and using hotter temperature and slightly longer times to draw out a balance of more feel-related aspects.
If I'm describing a high mountain oolong from Taiwan, or a Dian Hong, or other familiar Chinese black teas, once I get through a list of aspects, and how those match up with typical expectations (including flavors description, and some mention of feel and aftertaste, etc.), then bit by bit I would have already said how good the version is. At the end of reviews sometimes I'll clarify that, even if I don't try to put a particular tea on some sort of scale.
I hoped to guess a bit more at just how good this tea really is, even though doing that really is optional, and atypical in most blog reviews. It doesn't helped that I've only tried a single-digit count of better versions of Ceylon teas (described in a number of separate posts). Of course it's worlds away from CTC versions (ground-up machine-processed tea), but that's not saying much. It's like saying that it's better than any orthodox teas one buys in a grocery store; of course it is, but better Ceylon doesn't turn up in grocery stores, per my own experience. It's on a similar level as those better Assam versions I'd recently been drinking. It's "good tea," but I suspect still in the middle of a range of what I would consider good teas, with room for improvement related to the best orthodox Ceylon.
How would I know that, since I'm really only claiming that this tea is about as good as the best of the other Ceylon I've tried? I don't know it, for sure. I'm extrapolating what I've experienced from Chinese black teas, and others. At this quality level the flavors and other aspects balance is quite nice, positive and distinct, good on different levels beyond flavor, with no noticeable flaws in the tea. For even better teas aspects tend to become more refined though; complexity can pick up, and style differences related to exhibiting unique character can improve. Feel won't improve that much, for black teas, but it can still thicken and venture into different textures.
It is a bit bizarre for me to say this isn't as good as the best Ceylon has to offer, while at the same time claiming that it's as good as any I've tried, but so reviewing in this blog tends to go. At times I try to explain what I don't know. Perhaps that last extrapolation analysis is a case of a "fool rushing in, where angels fear to tread."
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one of the two blog mascots, even posing a little |
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