My contact at Atlas Tea Club told me that she was most excited about this location due to ” Mr. Lnthavong’s teas that are hand-plucked from wild tea trees as old as 100 years, from the famous Ban Komaen gardens in northern Lao”. It took me this long to get to the tea, but it is not one that I will soon forget. I have reviewed this company before so I was very excited to work with them again and discover new teas from areas that I have not had tea from before. This is one of a two that was in the box, so here are my thoughts on the Sham Cha Black from Laos.
This tea established itself as a showstopper quite early with its grape vine-like aroma and leaves. Each individual leaf was twisted and thin, a mix of light and dark – quite the beauty on the eyes. As I steeped the tea, they slowly unwinded and showed some beautiful whole-leaf action. After waking up the leaves (Just shaking the dickens out of them after putting hot water in my gaiwan), I noticed the aroma was like mashed grapes with the skins prominently sticking out in my mind. There was a strong malty sweetness, almost sugary sweet but heading more toward molasses/brown sugar.
The tea brewed a lovely brownish color, with orange and amber edges to each brew. And the taste…creamy almost. The first steep was extremely light and had almost a velvet vanilla taste with a slight sugar sweetness on the end. There was a mild astringency to it. Jacob took a sip and said it reminded him of melted sugar on top of creme brulee – which made my mouth absolutely water. After a few steeps, the aroma was definitely more brown sugar reminding me a bit of brown sugar boba. Jacob also noted some flower-like notes and I did as well, bringing some floral sensations onto my tongue.
After a while, I references the package and was shocked to see a citrus note being reported on it. I didn’t pick up on that at all, but I guess perhaps I wasn’t totally focused.
Pricing: This is a tea subscription, so a two-option tea subscription is about 2 teas a month for $14. You can specialize the caffeinated tea according to your preference.
Packaging: The packaging changes based on tea origin, and the box is very well branded. The tea pouches themselves are quite airtight and look to be good quality.
Sourcing: This particular tea was from Laos, but they zig-zag across different countries to highlight different teas and cultures around the globe.
Hey Hey! Another tea review done? Wow – you must be saying to yourself – Danielle really has her stuff together this week. I hope you enjoyed it! Happy Brewing!
-Danielle
I absolutely love the picture of all the twirly dried leaves. And this tea sounds heavenly.