Welcome to the January 2025 edition of the Curious Tea subscription! Here’s a closer look at the four exciting new teas that we are sharing with our subscribers this month.
For the lighter side of the selection we start with a classic Xin Yang Mao Jian green tea from Henan Province of China that delivers a thick vegetal liquor with savoury flavours. The next light tea we selected this month is a new terroir for us – this green tea hails from Tanzania and is carefully hand processed in a lightly roasted style to create a full bodied flavour profile.
For the dark side of the selection we are featuring a rare tea from Rohini Tea Estate in Darjeeling that is crafted from tea clones of a wild tea plant of unknown origin to create a uniquely spicy and peppery profile. For the final tea of this month, we selected another tea from Sakare in Tanzania, this time an orthodox black tea that has a mild and smooth flavour that is approachable and satisfying.
Our Discovery subscription boxes contain 10g taster pouches of all of the above mentioned teas. If you are a subscriber you will benefit from a 10% discount on all teas from our tea shop!
Let’s get into further detail on these teas featured in our January tea subscription boxes.
Sakare Roasted Green
Sakare Roasted Green is a complex Tanzanian green tea from a farmer owned and run Sakare Speciality Tea Cooperative. Focusing on women empowerment and crafting artisanal hand made orthodox teas, the Cooperative produces some unique teas not found elsewhere in Tanzania. This green tea delivers a bold flavour with roasty woody notes of tobacco and a herbal aftertaste. This current lot is from the October 2024 harvest.
This Sakare Roasted Green tea comes from the East Usambara Mountains region of Tanzania. The farms and the factory are located at an altitude of around 1,000m and receive two rainy seasons per year. The tea farms are surrounded by an indigenous rainforest, a unique habitat that requires protection. Hence the small holder nature and organic production is well suited to this area since it is not the kind of high intensity farming that is harmful to the natural environment. The terroir of this area certainly lends a complexity and uniqueness to the flavour of the teas produced here. Combined with careful artisanal hand processing, it does deliver some intriguing results.
This Sakare Roasted Tanzanian Green tea has large dark green leaves that produce a light amber liquor with a roasty aroma. The flavours are complex, delivering a profile that is almost oolong-like. The bold taste has notes of wood and tobacco that are nicely balanced by underlying creamy mouthfeel and vegetal flavour. There is light astringency on the aftertaste that becomes more herbaceous as it cools. This is a complex green tea that definitely would appeal to fans of other greens made from assamica plants.
This tea is best brewed at 80°C for 2-3 minutes and can be brewed 2+ times. We can also recommend experimenting with gongfu brewing of this particular tea.
You can also buy this Sakare Roasted Green tea in our online shop.
Xin Yang Mao Jian
Xin Yang Mao Jian (信阳毛尖) is a truly superb green tea from Xinyang in Henan Province of China. This famous green tea has a history spanning over 2,300 years and is listed as one of the top 10 famous Chinese teas. It was harvested from tender young leaves in the middle of April 2024. Tea plucked at this time is referred to as ‘Yu Qian’ tea, which falls between April 5 and April 20, just before the Grain Rain Festival (Gu Yu, 穀雨).
The name ‘Mao Jian’ translates as ‘fur tips’ and it refers to the appearance of the young tea leaves when they are plucked – they are covered with tiny ‘hairs’ or ‘fur’. This rare tea is very time and labour consuming to produce, as approximately 50,000 buds need to be plucked to make only 500 grams of finished tea. After plucking, the leaves of this Xin Yang Mao Jian green tea are rolled and pan fried, resulting in compact needle-like dry leaves.
The dry leaves of this Xin Yang Mao Jian green tea have a lovely grassy and fruity scent. When brewed the liquor is light green in colour with a vegetal and nutty aroma. The taste is quite complex but balanced. The liquor has a thick and juicy profile with fresh vegetal, grassy and slightly fruity notes. The initial taste has top sweet notes followed by a deep and long lasting umami aftertaste that is somewhat savoury. Xin Yang Mao Jian produces a complex and satisfying cup of tea that is very refreshing on the palate.
We suggest brewing at 80°C for 2-3 minutes according to your taste. It can be brewed around 3 times depending on your preference.
You can also buy this Xin Yang Mao Jian green tea in our online shop.
Darjeeling Rohini Spicy Oolong
Darjeeling Rohini Spicy Oolong is an unusual oolong tea from Rohini Tea Estate made from clones of an unknown wild tea plant. This is a rare opportunity to try this unique tea as a very minimal quantity is produced every year. The plants are carefully picked and the leaves are processed by hand to bring out a spiced and peppery profile. This particular lot is a Second Flush harvest from May 2024.
You may also be interested in our other 2024 harvest teas from Gopaldhara and Rohini Tea Estates as well as a Spicy White tea and Spicy Black tea versions from the same plants.
Like all our Rohini and Gopaldhara teas, we source it directly from Rishi Saria, the owner and director of Gopaldhara and Rohini Tea Estates. Rohini Tea Estate is located along the route that connects the towns of Siliguri and Kurseong. Surrounded by a beautiful natural environment, this estate produces tea from relatively young trees. The estate has had a chequered past, not actually producing any tea for about 30 years after it was shut in 1962. Recently it has been replanted with young tea trees, so sometimes it is referred to as the youngest tea estate in Darjeeling. It is now going from strength to strength and is producing more and more interesting and higher quality teas. Most recently Rohini have been elevating the quality and flavours by focusing on smaller hand processed batches and more unusual types of tea.
This Rohini Spicy Oolong tea is a prime example of an unusual and small batch hand processed tea from this estate. The plants that are used for this tea are clones of a wild tea plant of unknown origin. When the tea replanting at Rohini was done around the turn of the century, a wild tea tree was found growing nearby that provided the cuttings for these new clonal trees. The history or the type of this original wild plant is unknown. As the newly planted trees were particularly hardy and strong, they have become known locally by the name Bhime after Bhim, a mythological character from the Mahabharata epic who was considered to be very strong.
While the plants are strong, unfortunately the leaves also originally produced a very rough flavour when made into a fully or partially oxidised teas. As there is a limited amount of plants, there is also not enough output to produce a green tea. Hence a white tea was the first type that was developed from these plants. Due to continued experimentation with other tea types, a few limited black tea batches were produced. This is the newest version crafted, a medium oxidised oolong that delivers the spicy peppery flavour without the harshness or astringency of much earlier batches.
This Darjeeling Rohini Spicy Oolong has neat attractive leaves with plenty of silver buds. It produces a dark liquor that is peppery, malty and stony. There is a definite Darjeeling character, although the very unusual dominant spicy notes do contribute to a unique flavour profile. The flavours are smooth and balanced with vegetal notes of sweet red capsicums and black pepper. It has a juicy and sweet aftertaste that is quite brisk. It is definitely a tea with a rather unique profile, unlike anything else, that is a must try!
This tea is best brewed at 90°C for 3-4 minutes and can be brewed 2+ times. Like all top grade teas from Gopaldhara and Rohini, we can highly recommend experimenting with gongfu brewing.
You can also buy this Darjeeling Rohini Spicy Oolong tea in our online shop.
Sakare Gold Black
Sakare Gold Black is a fruity Tanzanian black tea from a farmer owned and run Sakare Speciality Tea Cooperative. Focusing on women empowerment and crafting artisanal hand made orthodox teas, the Cooperative produces some unique teas not found elsewhere in Tanzania. This black tea delivers a delicate flavour with fruity mineral notes and a lightly tannic aftertaste. This current lot is from the October 2024 harvest.
We source this tea directly from the Sakare Speciality Tea Cooperative that is farmer owned and led, with many of them being women farmers. The leaves for this Tanzanian black tea were collected from an 8-hecatre organic tea farm and other surrounding smallholder farms. The processing of the tea is done at a small-scale artisanal factory (you can see the photos of it below) that focuses on high quality, single origin orthodox teas. The Cooperative is specifically committed to empowering women farmers and workers in the area, sharing the profits between them. They also invest in speciality tea training, providing access to processing machinery and supporting farmer investment activities. This shows a stark contrast to the majority of the CTC tea industry in Tanzania that is geared towards tea bags where tea is traded at commodity prices. The mass produced nature of cheap CTC teas results in the farmers getting prices dictated by multinational conglomerates, while having zero involvement and minimum support outside the bare minimum price paid for their hard toil.
This Sakare Gold Black tea comes from the East Usambara Mountains region of Tanzania. The farms and the factory are located at an altitude of around 1,000m and receive two rainy seasons per year. The tea farms are surrounded by an indigenous rainforest, a unique habitat that requires protection. Hence the small holder nature and organic production is well suited to this area since it is not the kind of high intensity farming that is harmful to the natural environment. The terroir of this area certainly lends a complexity and uniqueness to the flavour of the teas produced here. Combined with careful artisanal hand processing, it does deliver some intriguing results.
This Sakare Gold Tanzanian Black tea has large dark leaves that produce a dark amber liquor with a fruity aroma. The flavours are mild and delicate, delivering a smooth profile that is more akin to finely crafted Chinese black tea than the usual bold types to come from Africa. The sweet fruity flavour had light mineral notes and pleasant lightly astringent tannins on the aftertaste that add complexity.
This tea is best brewed at 90°C for 3-4 minutes and can be brewed 2+ times. We can also recommend experimenting with gongfu brewing of this particular tea.
You can also buy this Sakare Gold Black tea in our online shop.
We really do hope that you enjoy this tea selection and are looking forward to the selection in our February boxes!
For the lighter side of the selection we opted for a unique Ya Bao Silver Buds white tea from Yunnan Province of China that has a unique appearance and flavour not found elsewhere. This is followed by a lightly oxidised Shui Xian Oolong from Zhang Ping of Fujian Province of China that, unusually for an oolong, comes compressed into small squares and delivers a complex floral profile.
For the darker side of the selection we chose a fantastic high mountain Taiwanese Gui Fei Oolong from Yu Shan that features a distinctive and complex floral honey aroma and taste. Finally, the last tea selected is a Silver Tips black tea from Devagiri Tea Estate in Sri Lanka that has a bold classic black tea profile.
If reading this has made you curious about our teas, but you don’t yet subscribe to a monthly tea selection, you can sign up for our tea boxes in just a few clicks. We ship worldwide from London, UK.
We always love to hear from you, so if you have any questions, suggestions or just want to chat about tea, email us at contact@curioustea.com, via our Facebook page or via Twitter.