I picked up a small 50g bag of this tea from A Southern Season after the brush calligraphy exhibit in Chapel Hill. I know I've had this tea before, but I can't place my finger on any specific date. It's taste is reminiscent of chocolate, sweet orange, and a little bit of malt. Good stuff! I started off using my mug infuser in a steel, double-walled mug which yielded extremely bitter results after 3 minutes of steeping. If the $3 price wasn't a tip off to the lower quality, then the bitterness certainly was. I guess this is probably not quite tippy enough to prevent that.
But, I had fun experimenting with the way the tea tasted in the steel mug and my yixing mug. The steel mug had a harsh, bitter quality to it and the yixing actually removed the bitterness and enhanced the chocolate flavors of the tea. I'm still not certain, but I think the tannins in the tea react with metal to create certain off flavors. Afterall, the mug infuser has take on a blueish tinge because of the tannins...
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