Everything I tried from Joseph Wesley Black tea has been excellent, I can’t recommend them enough if you are a black tea lover. A couple good tea friends have told me No. 03 Classic Chinese black tea is a really good one from Joseph Wesley. When I ordered the Qimen, I sneaked in a tin of Classic Chinese black tea.
Of course with Joseph Wesley, their teas have an awesome modern design that I love.
Enclosed leaflet with the tea.
Dry Leaf
Classic Chinese Black features delicate and wiry black tea leaf with the rare golden tip. The dry leaf is a raisin fruity fragrance explosion upon opening the package.
Steeping Instructions
The container lists western steeping instructions at 175-180F for 2.5 to 3 minutes.
I’m doing Gongfu cha style brewing, so boiling spring water, 5 grams of tea in a 75ml gaiwan. Live fast, leaf hard.
Derp, I am steeping this tea at 7,000 Feet/2100 meters. So it’s technically boiling as my kettle loses its mind at 199F. My steeping and tasting might be a little different than yours because of my elevation.
Tasting of Joseph Wesley Black Tea’s No.03 Classic Chinese Black Tea
First and Second Infusion: Classic Chinese Black steeps up a light golden orange colour with a strong raisin scent. It appears Black Tea Owl is still caught up in the dry leaf scent.
The first steeping is quite light, with some creamy smoothness. Second infusion picks up with creamy caramel notes and is lightly sweet and cakey, like poundcake dotted with raisins.
Third, Fourth, Fifth Infusion: The tea has changed yet again, it seems this black tea needs a couple infusions to settle in. changes again to an even stronger flavor – malt, off-the-charts bittersweet dark chocolate with a slight background of smoke.
Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Infusion: Classic Chinese black tea is smoothing out to a light caramel, cream, bitter sweet chocolate, and malt with a little bit of astringency as an after sip. Each steeping gets lighter losing the bittersweet and malt and getting more clean cream and caramel. Very delicious!
Comments
Joseph Wesley Black Tea’s No. 03 Classic Chinese Black tea is an easy to drink black with excellent dessert like notes. Classic Chinese black tea is a great complex black for the tea heads, but also an excellent quality black for the black tea lover. This tea would also make a great western brew too!
Hoot, a little help here please.
