Himalayan Jun Chiyabari

 This is a tea I just had to have. You know the ones you see online somewhere and the vendors description sounds amazing? Or for whatever reason it just grabs your attention. This is one of Upton's new offerings. Upton's has several new first flush Darjeeling tea's that sound very promising and I almost grabbed one of those but instead I opted for the Himalayan Jun Chiyabari Estate GHRHT. Golden Hand Rolled Himalayan Tips. Upton's description is pretty much on target. It is very similar to a Bai Hao Oolong but with a few curves. Opening the bag creates an assault on the senses, extremely pungent with the aromas of cocoa, stone fruits, lemon and floral nuances. But the curve ball with this tea is the aroma of a very light and clean rosemary. I know, rosemary? Yep! And you know what? It matches this tea perfectly. The smell of cocoa and fruit are the dominant smells and flavors but the floral, lemon and rosemary form a perfect alliance in balancing the heavier flavors. This tea isn't cheap, A 140 gm. bag will set you back $54.72

I wasn't sure how to approach brewing this tea, would it withstand gong fu? Or would it be better suited to the British style? Well, after experimenting Ive come to the conclusion that you can gong fu this tea but your not going to get multiple infusions, about four, maybe five steeping's is as far as it's going to go. And it's better with extended infusion times, starting at a minute for the first, 1&1/2, then 2 minutes. I used a small 125 ml. yixing, 5&1/2 gms. of leaf, boiling water. I think the most impressive thing about this tea is the aroma, it is incredibly strong, you can smell the teapot from across the room. A nice little treat for a change of pace. As much as I love my sheng and greens Ive gotta have something a little different every now and the

Just take a gander at those leaves, almost makes me want to just eat them. The tea brews up a cup with brilliant amber clarity. It's a medium bodied tea and just barely sweet enough to balance it's astringency.  By the way, that cup is one of Petr's. The "Bark Cup" is a little camera shy, I like them because they hold the entire pot of tea, they hold heat very well and they just feel right when holding them. It's a gorgeous set of cups but not easy to photograph. It seems my choices are I can get a good clear shot of the cups bark texture but with the whitish rim glaring. Or the rim clean and clear but the bark texture looking muddy. One of these days I'll read my camera's owners manual.