I purchased White2Tea’s Berry Malt during the dry spell without their magical Anburn black tea. It is promised to be a good daily drinker. Berry Malt is processed as a Dian Hong, but made of large leaf puer material. I got this tea back in March 2018 and actually finished the entire bag in May.
Dry Leaf and Steeping Method: Berry Malt is gorgeous and smells of yeasty bread and fresh berries. Total crack how good this leaf smells.
I used 1 gram of tea to 15ml of vessel size. I steeped gongfu style with boiling water.
Tasting of White2Tea’s Berry Malt Black Tea
First and Second Infusion: The flavor is sharp and sweet. Berry Malt’s flavor intensity is high, without being completely in your face with a fresh sweetness and malt flavor in a milky background.
Third and Fourth Infusion: Malty is the name of the game here. Berry Malt is very malt! It is so malt, it leans on savory upon the first sip. At the end of the sip, Berry Malt is sweet. I don’t taste a fruity berry so far, but it has a cooling freshness to the sweetness, as well as a cooling sweet aftertaste.
Fifth and Sixth Infusion: I am now getting the berry aspect of this tea. The flavor has shifted to an underripe but juicy blueberry. It is still freshly sweet and malty. With the final infusions, it got a little dry, making the back of my tongue feel weird. With each steeping got less malty and more sweet and juicy fruity.
Grandpa Style: I drank the rest of the bag of Berry Malt Grandpa style. I use around 5 grams in my large The Wall mug, with 200F/93c water, topping it up with more water as I went.
Berry malt starts off excellent as grandpa style. It is sweet and malty, and ultra smooth. The longer it steeps, the sweeter the flavor, developing that tart blueberry like note. It does get gritty and dry by the end but remains a malty fruity sweet treat.
Comments
Berry Malt is a likable, easy to drink black tea with a strong profile and approachable fruit and malt notes. Note, this tea is not creatively named, berries and malt flavor it is seriously what you get. This tea is great as both gongfu and grandpa style, but I preferred grandpa as I didn’t get many infusions gongfu style, and it is just as good. If it was more complex tasting or had a more powerful aroma, the tea would be upgraded past daily drinker.
Berry malt is an excellent daily drinker, I quite enjoyed it grandpa style enough to finish the bag in record time which is strange for me to do. I wasn’t planning to purchase again, as I wanted the amazing Anburn from White2Tea (before I knew how much Anburn was!) but I could be easily convinced to buy more Berry Malt with my next order as a daily drinker provided I sipped down more of my black teas.
