I'm reviewing two more teas from a set of samples from Moychay, this time promising looking black teas.
These were shared by Moychay for review, as thanks for limited help with editing. I've tried plenty of Moychay teas in the past, and find them to be sort of comparable to Yunnan Sourcing, as a market style vendor carrying a lot of different types. An order of magnitude less range than Yunnan Sourcing though; maybe a little closer to a conventional, broad type sourcing vendor.
Back when the world was different, I think in 2017, my family and I visited Russia, and I went to two different Moychay shops there. Beyond trying "regional" Georgian teas the quality of some of those really changed my view on some scope.
Their take on these teas follows, as usual added here after writing review notes:
Hua Xiang Hong Cha Black Tea (45 grams for 22 Euro, or $25.50; 57 cents a gram)
Floral Black Tea This wonderful "hong wulong" (red oolong tea) is made from the high-aroma cultivars Jin Guanyin, Jin Mudan, Huang Guanyin, and Zi Meigui, grown in sustainable agriculture certified tea gardens in the southern foothills of the Wuyi Mountains, Fujian Province. At an altitude of 550 meters, these gardens provide the ideal environment for producing premium black tea with a distinct floral profile.
The tea is hand-picked in the spring season (March–April), selecting one bud with two or three leaves. The production process includes withering, oxidizing, rolling, fermentation, drying, and refining. This meticulous craftsmanship results in tightly rolled leaves with a vibrant appearance and a rich aroma.
When brewed, Floral Oolong Black Tea produces a bright, clear infusion with a sweet, mellow, and full-bodied flavor. The enzymatic oxidation during production reduces tea polyphenols by over 90%, resulting in a tea with red liquor, red leaves, and a smooth, sweet aftertaste. It is highly durable, yielding consistent flavor over eight or more infusions.
It's interesting that this is described as being made from four different plant input types. The flavor is quite complex, which could tie back to that varying input, but the character seems pretty limited in range and consistent, as narrower input versions tend to be. It doesn't taste like some sort of blend. One part of this tasting relates to mixing the last of these two for one round, going into how blends differ from narrower input versions.
I don't do much with the theme of a "red oolong" here. Those are essentially a variation of black teas, oxidized to the same level, just drawing on different processing inputs to get there, resulting in a slightly different form. I reviewed a Thai "red oolong" version recently here, with a second black tea for comparison. There are some parallels with these two versions, but a comparison with them wasn't informative enough to go into here, and I didn't identify this as oolong related until after taking the notes, and adding this description.
That tea was a little closer to what I expect of this type, very mild, but intense in flavor, typically centered on flavors like cherry, berry, cacao, and cinnamon. This version started out quite floral and moved more into fruit range later on.
Black Tea DA SHU HONG CHA (Big Tree), Chinese tea from Jingmai Mountain, Yunnan Province (Red Tea), 60g (8.26 Euro, $9.58, 16 cents a gram)
Da Shu Black Tea is produced from the ancient tea trees of Jingmai Mountain, located in Lancang County, Pu’er City, Yunnan Province. Jingmai Mountain, recently recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023, is home to over 28,000 acres of ancient tea gardens. These gardens, where tea trees grow alongside native vegetation, provide a unique environment that contributes to the tea’s exceptional quality.
The tea is hand-picked between March 20 and May 30 each year, selecting one bud with three leaves from Yunnan Da Ye Zhong tea trees. Grown at an altitude of 1200 meters, the tea benefits from the region’s rich biodiversity and favorable climate. The production process involves traditional methods, including withering, fermentation, and sun-drying, which preserve the tea’s natural sweetness and aroma.
Da Shu Black Tea brews into a bright, amber-colored infusion. Its flavor is marked by an immediate and lasting sweetness, complemented by a distinctive orchid aroma and a pronounced mountain freshness. The tea’s smooth texture and long-lasting aftertaste make it ideal for multiple infusions.
The difference in cost is striking; the first is around four times the per gram cost of the second. It seems like better quality tea, in a more distinctive, rare, and in-demand style, but I really like the character of the second tea type, so it's much more even than that for my own preference.
There's an early round flavor inclusion in the second that's more or less a flaw, but beyond that it's quite solid. The first includes a bit of tartness, a least favorite flavor aspect in teas for me. Or taste; that could be coming from tongue based sensation, with some people using flavor to describe aroma based sensations, which really overlap experientially as we process the experience. Common use of these terms is typically vague; you can call all of it flavor or taste, as you like, or break it down otherwise.
Review:
Hua Xiang Hong Cha: a little light because it's just getting started, but this is exceptional. It is sweet and floral, with good mineral complexity. A bit of spice joins the floral range, which is rich and complex enough that it probably relates to more than one flower, maybe orchid on the lighter level and something richer like lavender beyond that. The flavor is so complex that this will probably evolve to include other range as it transitions across rounds.
It's a style that anyone could appreciate, very complex, balanced, and refined. All the same it's a higher end, forward flavor range style of black tea, along the line of how a recent Mi Lan Xiang version came across, a black tea made from a plant type usually used for Dan Cong oolong. And I really love the other flavor range (cacao and roasted sweet potato or yam), depth, and warmth of Yunnan style black tea, even when you give up some flavor complexity and refinement to experience that.
This isn't tart; I'm not saying that, although there is a trace of that as an input. It does include a hint of cacao, so that's not a gap. I'm just saying that I have a favorite black tea style, even if it's often more basic than this, so it could come across as lower in quality level.
Da Shu Hong Cha: that was a decent lead-in for saying that this version is exactly like that, but it's not, even though it overlaps a lot with what I was discussing. It does include more warmth and depth, so it's mostly that the flavor range isn't exactly what I was thinking of.
It's important to be able to appreciate what a tea offers, instead of comparing it to some abstract type or quality norm, and seeing gaps instead of what is there that's positive. At least in terms of what I've written that's what I'm doing here. These teas are really good though; they're much better than I need tea to be to like them. So I'll need to be careful to describe the experience as I really interpret it, as gratefully appreciating what is positive, which is essentially all of this experience.
This tea does include a flavor aspect that's unusual, sort of woody, or perhaps along the line of spice. It's taking a little longer to fully open up than the other, but there is also plenty of positive range. It's probably as well to do a more complete list style description next round though.
Hua Xiang #2: even better. That hint of tartness is fading already, and flavor range picks up. This will probably be better yet next round, really hitting its stride. There's a lot going on in this. It tastes like floral range, still in a complex form, as more than one flower type. You don't notice cacao for that blending in with the rest, but it seems to be there. Warm mineral grounds the experience. There's not a lot of spice range, but there is more warm tone adding to complexity. Interpreting one part as dried dark cherry works.
Feel is pleasant, sweetness level is good, intensity is good, and refinement is fine. I suppose someone who is picky enough could find that the balance doesn't work for them related to tartness being a component, and for feel being a little dry along the back and edges of your mouth. But to me that's splitting hairs, extending personal preference for style into not being able to appreciate a really good tea version.
Da Shu: it's interesting how this expresses so much warmth and depth. You don't really notice the other tea lacking those things, but the contrast makes them stand out. I can relate to this tea better, as I've described personal preference here already. There is a funky sort of note in this, which I think it could be reasonable to regard as a flaw, although I really see it as a distinctive flavor input that one may or may not like. It's a balsa wood sort of flavor, not so far off cardboard, but not that. It's as pronounced as the cacao and other range, making it hard to identify the rest. I suppose it also includes flavor like roasted butternut squash, or it could be sweet potato.
The first tea sounds better, from my reading of the lists I'm writing out, but I can still relate better to the second. Personal preference is a funny thing. In a couple of different senses the first tea is better.
Hua Xiang #3: not so different than last round, but it is evolving slightly. The balance of what was there before shifts a little, in ways that would be hard to describe. Tartness isn't pronounced, but it is still present. To me a fruit note resembles dark cherry most, but it would be natural to interpret it as cranberry if one combined those flavor identifications together. Floral range still stands out quite a bit. The rest is subtle, but it passes on an impression of complexity, the cacao and mineral.
A hint of mint might be picking up. That should sound familiar to many, from a Red Jade / Ruby Taiwanese black tea type, that includes a good bit of that. If this didn't include tartness, and had a bit more depth, it would be one of my all time favorite black tea experiences. As it is it's pleasant.
Da Shu: the best this has been. That unusual balsa wood note more or less dropped out, or faded to be hard to notice. It picks up a creaminess, which works well with the rest of the character. Cacao really stands out. A fruit note could be more distinct; it's somewhere between dried longan and dried berry or dark cherry. The difference between these, them covering completely separate ranges, and flavors (although those do overlap), makes me wonder how they would be combined. I'll mix the last of this round to see.
It's better than both in a sense, but it gives up a lot in terms of the aspects being distinct. That's the general trade-off between well balanced blends and more individual types, that can have strengths and weaknesses, a gap in some character, but that can be appreciated differently. The feel, flavor profile, and overall effect balance really well, but the flavors come across as more muddled, less distinct.
Somehow the aftertaste range ends up being very pleasant; what trails after really works. The cacao and fruit inputs of both combine there. Feel is probably better than either tea individually. I was curious about that but it's not for me to routinely be mixing teas. It prevents them from expressing their individual characters.
Hua Xiang #4: I've been brewing these relatively quickly, at 15 seconds or so, and I'll give them more like 25 to see what that changes. When I write in these posts that I don't measure proportions but have a pretty good idea of how much is there that relates to this kind of experience. These are 7 gram samples, and I often use just a little more, even though these fill a 100 ml gaiwan fairly well. 7 grams is perfect, to me.
This again only changes a little, but the change is positive. This much cacao, fruit, and creaminess cover part of the range of a chocolate covered cherry. There's still plenty of floral range, but to me it has shifted more on to fruit. The other version had been even creamier, with a good bit of cacao as well. Of course someone else might not interpret it as that at all; that could seem like a spice input to someone else, or just a part of the fruit or floral range. Or like a mild malt, or whatever else. If you think of Ovaltine / Milo / malted milk ball while drinking these--probably both--the comparison would seem to work.
There is still a faint hint of tartness, but feel switches to an impact in the front half of your mouth instead. That doesn't mean anything in particular to me.
Da Shu: creamier, deeper, with more cacao, and richer overall feel and flavor. But it lacks the up front / higher end punch of the other version. Aftertaste is even more pleasant. Cacao and a richer dried fruit note carry over, even though flavors are less intense while you drink it (than the other; still pretty intense in general).
That warm mineral fullness and depth is a personal favorite part of black tea experience, for me.
These teas aren't finished, but that's enough to get the main story across, and at most they might transition some for a couple of more rounds.
Conclusions:
Both were good, both representing two very different styles. You could tell that the first was higher in quality in some conventional ways, more intense, distinctive, and complex. The second is essentially a Dian Hong version, meaning a Yunnan origin black tea; it's definitely from there. Some style limitation within that implied, which seems to apply; the character falls within that expected type range.
Given I liked the second as much it seems a better value (it costs a fourth the per-unit price of the first). But for people who prefer that style of the first tea the difference would stand out more. It's definitely a lot harder to find teas like that. Dian Hong is around, sometimes with a minor gap in flavor range, as this shows in the first couple of rounds, but it commonly has that pleasant flavor profile and great depth.
To me this second style of tea (the Da Shu) is great for owning a good bit of, to use as a daily drinker, a fall-back tea to have with breakfast over and over. They had sold 150 grams of it as a third option, beyond 60 and a 7 gram sample, but no longer list that. I've bought a kilogram of somewhat related style teas a few times; from the right kind of source that can be a really good value.
Some might think that they could blend that with other types, or add some sort of tisane flavoring, but I wouldn't. I might alternate between brewing it Gongfu and Western style, and that's about it. Or it works well to brew in a tea bottle, "grandpa style," an especially favorable approach for drinking during travel.
The first tea, the Hua Xiang, is too pleasant and intense for that; I wouldn't even brew that Western style.
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