I go for some pretty long stretches forgetting how much I (sometimes) love red teas, or black teas if you prefer, which I don't. HongCha!
Dug out this sample, the name threw me big time, Honey Red Jade, I don't know what that is, I don't know who sent it to me, so I cant track it down. Opening it I see a brown, tightly rolled oolong with no discernible scent coming from the bag. The entire sample weighs in at over 11 grams, nice! You know what I find myself wishing? That with a little bag clearly this pretty I could see the art. See it flat and unfilled, before its contours are rippled and the image ruined by the vacuum sealing of the tea. Bet a lot of these are gorgeous, this one included.
Brewed up regular oolong style in my now obsessively used new Lin's teapot which is seeing so much varied action that's its a crime perhaps. But since it ain't Yixing I figure it doesn't matter too much as long as the little angel of a pot gets good rinses with scalding water when I switch to other teas. Am I wrong? ( My inner-Lebowski voice says back to me, "No Walter, you aren't wrong, you're just an asshole").
The smell of the dry tea in the heated pot is fabulous, promising and very reminiscent of Oriental Beauty types of teas. The rinse smells yummy, sipping it it, is far too weak so I dump it, just wanted to make sure.....and steeps 1 through 5 are just sweet, floral and classic. Love it. Perfect pre-supper tea, and when I return to it after dinner the magic is gone, so I move onto a slightly larger vessel, a 180 ml gaiwan and use the remaining 6 grams and have a deep and intense session that lasts the remainder of the evening. Which is only, of course, because I get my old ass to bed at 9pm.