Da hong bao from 小罐茶 (Xiao Guan Tea)

The container contains 4 grams of tea and looks expensive. The red label and the brushed aluminum surface has a minimalist, modern appeal, resembling the surface of an apple computer. The label, and the company website showcases associations with famous tea masters for each tea. However more important details of the tea such as terroir, cultivar and picking times are not disclosed.

Tasting notes:

Overall, the tea lacked stamina and did not impress. I steeped the tea in the following ways:

1.) 4 g / 125 mL boiling water. Rinse / 30 s / 45 s / 1 min 30 sec / 4 min

2.) 8 g / 125 mL boiling water. Rinse / 15 s / 20 s / 30 s / 1 min / 3 min

In the first session, the taste tapered off after the second infusion and could not be recovered. Therefore, I doubled the leaf for the second session. However, the tea did not last many more infusions.

The dry leaf has intense charcoal, roasted coffee and chocolate notes. These are enhanced in the wet leaf and completely reflected in the first steeping. The first steeping also had strong notes of milk chocolate and some dried fruit. However, by the second steeping, all the flavors were halved. I added some extra time to the third steeping, but it did not help. By the fourth steeping the tea became quite boring, with mostly diluted smoke notes. Hopefully the lack of stamina doesn't mean the tea had been sprayed with artificial flavors.

Overall, this is definitely not worth the price tag (50 yuan per container of 4 grams). The fact that people are willing to pay so much money for this tea suggests that the target consumers are not serious tea drinkers.

Comments

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