Plum Rooster is incredibly smooth and sweet rare black tea made from varietal used for producing one of the most prized green teas in the world – long jing.
Name: Plum Rooster
Vendor: Teabento (Germany)
Tea Type: Chinese black tea
Plum Rooster’s Living Environment
I saw a review of the Plum Rooster on Teabento site saying that leaves do not look like black pressed long jing tea. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding going. Long Jing is the name of famous green tea, tea varietal and a place in Hangzhou. First, there was a Long Jing Village. Then came the tea. This tea is unique because it comes from an area famous for producing green tea (that is, some of the best green tea in the world), and because the tea is made of the same varietal used for making famous green dragon well tea. It has nothing to do with the shape this time. The name of this tea is Juiqu Hongmei (Red Plum of Jiuqu), Longjing Hongcha (Longjing black tea) or usually simply Red Plum tea. Price is 8.90 EUR fro 25 grams or around 10.50 USD.
So let’s continue with the shape.
Sharp feathers
Leaves have incredible freshness and depth. Smell like raisins soaked in bitter chocolate with a hint of honey and some tiny smokiness on the side, like someone was smoking tea in the neighborhood and Red Rooster’s leaves caught a bit of smoke. Leaves are sharp, long, dark, almost black. It has an amazing scent of hot sweet corn syrup mixed with dried plums soaked in chocolate liquor.
Feeding the Plum Rooster with water
Brewing: 5 gram, 150 ml of water, 65 sec, 30 sec, 3 min
I decided to go with shorter steeping times as I always prefer making tea in this way. The „Western“ way is good only for tea breaks from tea reviews and tea related work. (I drink at least 2-4 liters of tea per day. I’m still alive after more than 15 years) Scent is so wonderful, very smooth, sweet and warming. This tea is the smoothest black tea ever. It flows gently, like coated in a sweet flavor of plum, without any drying end, any traces of astringency or anything similar to black tea made of var. assamica. Almost like it has no end, you just keep feeling it for some time until it slowly fades away. Leaves keep the attitude until the third steeping, then they slowly start to fade.
Red Plum is the most gentle black tea ever. It would be a perfect choice for those that have been traumatized by drinking bad black tea in childhood and are scared to try it again. It gives you the same feeling you would get from covering yourself in the softest and warmest blanket in the world. Love it.
If you want to try Teabento teas, you can use the special discount code for Tea Chronicles’ readers. Type in „cajne“ during your tea check-out for a 10% off. Don’t know which one to choose? Take a look at sample teabento box – it includes eight TEAriffic teas. Discount is valid until the end of October. Teabento’s tea animals can offer a lot of love.
