Today is a new tea company review – Hence Tea. They are based out of Los Angeles and carry Chinese Teas. The teas I have for review are their Songluo Black and Shou Mei White.
Songluo Black from Hence Tea
This black is from Songluo Mountain, which is in the Southern Anhui Province of China, between Keemun and Huangshan.
Songluo Black’s leaves have a fruity and honey scent.
For the first round of this black tea, I went gongfu style, 1gram per 15ml leaf to vessel ratio, steeped with boiling water. After a rinse, the leaves smell grapes and floral.
Songluo Black starts off quickly, tasting like malt, honey, sweet potato, chocolate, and dark raisins. Some sips have a plum skin and honey vibe. After each sip, the tea dries my mouth with a rock sugar taste.
As the tea steeps on, it gets a bit abrasive in texture and shifts to notes of red bricks and bitter malt, but still with a rock sugar finish. By seven infusions, the flavor slips to light minerals and tart sweet potato. The astringency in this tea doesn’t go past a bit of dryness on the teeth.
Lazy / Grandpa Style: I threw in a couple of grams of leaf and let Songluo Black steep. An extended leaf in infusion makes this tea go more sweet, mineral, mellow, and malty, with a caramel aftertaste. Still a bit astringent to tickle the throat, but the blend of the flavors in this tea is better than snap shots of gongfu style.
Comments
Hence Tea’s Songluo Black is a good, middle road, comfort food noted black tea great for daily drinking. I found this black tea the best lazy style, so overall an easy going black tea that I enjoyed sipping while working.
Shou Mei from Hence Tea
Let me tell you my struggles with finding loose shou mei. More often, I can find it aged or pressed. Other times, I discover my Shou Mei is fanning quality, intended to be flavored or put in tea bags.
However, this Fuding Shou Mei’s leaves are a bit stemmy and brown but look intact! The scent is of paperback books and twigs.
I went with my usual white tea gongfu set up – 1 gram of leaf per 20ml of vessel size, steeped with boiling water. The first infusion opens up the leaves to coconut and flowers
This Shou Mei sips in soft, but then has a heavy tulip, young coconut, and agave syrup flavor. The texture leaves a lip balm feel.
I oversteeped the fourth infusion, but it came out aromatic tulips and a sweet finish, but bitter potpourri floral sip. The final sixth infusion I went in again with a long one and it came out bitter and dry but had an excellent woody honey character.
Comments
Hence Tea’s Shou Mei is a reliably solid tea at a good price, perfect if you want a no fuss shou mei. There are still some fresh floral notes, but also some interesting coconut ones showing off some of the bud content in this tea.
(teas provided for review)
