Red Lily - Song Tea — THE RAMEN GUIDE

Notes of sugar cane, adzuki bean, and orange blossom.

Visual Notes

The tea resembles a black tea, with long squiggly leaves. There are some lighter colored leaves in the mix as well. However, there is a LOT of tea dust. I am not sure if it is just due to being stuffed in a sampler packet, or if this tea tends to crumble easily. Who knows if all of these particles will ruin the tea. The small tea particles and dust really clump the tea together in the gaiwan, giving it an unattractive appearance. I honestly might sift out the dust next time if there is this much. Thankfully I have a fine mesh strainer to filter out most of the smaller particles. The tea does brew to a beautiful bronze red hue, though.

Scent Notes

Characteristic of a black tea, it has that pungently sweet molasses scent. I am also picking up some notes of white bean, and small amount of spiced floral notes.

Tasting Notes

The taste is not as richly sweet as the scent would lead you to believe. The slightly bitter, slightly sweet flavor is present at front, which then moves with warmth to the back of the tongue. The texture is light, just a little bit softer than water. There is a floral note in the nose, and a nutty note on the finish. The finish is quite nice, breathing the sweetness through the nose, and leaving the mouth not too dry, but with that candy like coated sweetness.
The sweetness on the scent has diminished, and the nutty white or red bean scent is actually more present. I do faintly detect notes of sugarcane on the scent of the tea. The tea leaves smell like burnt orange candy. The first sips of the tea introduce a little bit of sweetness, and more bitterness. The texture is like water. I do appreciate how the perceived sweetness is toned down, however, I feel that the bitterness may also be strong to some. Yet, there is not much dryness at all, which at this stage is quite pleasant. The finish is still great, breathing out that spiced sweetness through the nose, and feeling a freshness on the throat. The scent of the empty tea cup really does reveal that red bean scent, as if I am smelling a freshly baked red bean mochi treat.
The taste evolves through multiple stages per each sip. At first is a sweet milkiness, then comes a short lived bitterness, and then a small acidic tinge at the end as your tongue warms up to the taste. Every sip after that is quite sweet and mellow, doing a good job coating the tongue with flavor.

Rating: 4.5/5

I generally am not a fan of black teas, but I must say that this is one that I am more partial too. I tend to think that some black teas are obnoxiously sweet. Despite the strong sweet scent of this tea, it was actually quite tame. Most of the flavors, while still a strong black tea compared to lesser oxidized teas, were a bit more tame and balanced. There was some encroaching bitterness as time went on, but it was not the primary trait of this tea. This tea had excellent finish as you could feel a spiced sweetness on the nose, and a clearing of the throat. It does have a fair amount of depth to is flavor and scent profile, and I think this could be a great base for other teas like a black milk tea.

I must say that I am surprised by how impressed I am with this black tea. Obviously I am biased against black tea, as it is not my cup of tea. However, for someone who likes the same traits in tea, this might be a fantastic find. From the description given by Song Tea, I was prepared for a mediocre tea, given the source leaf. However, the end result is a well balanced tea, with subdued sweet and bitter notes, and a fantastic distinct finish, with a spicy sweetness out the nose, and almost a menthol like fresh clearing of the throat.

Tea Seller’s Description

Notes of sugar cane, adzuki bean, and orange blossom.

Red tea from Taiwan・April 2020・金萱紅・Unsprayed

This Alishan garden, at 1400m, was a pioneer of high mountain tea craft, and played a critical role in developing the region’s reputation for some of the finest teas in Taiwan.

Red Lily is made from the Jin Xuan cultivar, a hybrid developed by the Taiwanese Tea Research and Extension Station as a hardy, high-yielding green oolong, well suited to low elevations. As lower elevation generally produce uninspiring, lackluster teas, Jin Xuan is typically considered a tier below oolongs made from the qing xin (green heart) cultivar.

Good tea making, however, is cultivar-agnostic. A skilled tea maker can transform even the lowliest varieties into something breathtakingly delicious and aromatic. Red Lily is one such transformation.

Hand-picked in April 2020, these leaves underwent a long, gradual oxidation, pushing beyond the prescribed boundaries of an oolong. The result is a red tea thick with depth, texture and range, without the loss of the innate creaminess of the high mountain cultivar.

Brew: 5 grams・150 ml・203° F・1 min

This tea brews with remarkable range. Our suggested brew parameters yield a tea that balances the floral aromatics with deeper chocolate notes. Decreasing temperature will highlight the tea’s sweet and aromatic character, while increasing temperature yields a thick, deep tea that brings to mind Assam and Yunnan reds.

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