/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Today's tea: Blue Willow Tea’s “Black Sticky Rice”
The tea is a Yunnan Dianhong scented with “sticky rice herb” (nuo mi xiang) which as the name suggests it supposedly tastes reminiscent of sticky rice. Typically when it is added to tea it is combined with cheap shou mini tuocha so this tea is kind of unusual. The dry leaves look fairly typical for Dianhong but you can really smell the nuo mi xiang. It really is vaguely reminiscent of cooked rice or porridge but has a sweet herbal element to it as well. The tea has the malty undertones of the Dianhong with a sweet rice porridge flavor coming from the sticky rice herb. Additionally, there is prominent perfumy herbal note from sticky rice herb which I expect to be divisive as it is a bit strange and sticks out. The scenting is strong enough to hold up to repeated steeps but does start to tapper off after awhile. This is an interesting tea. I don’t think would prefer it regularly over plain Dianhong but is nice as a change of pace. I shroud try some more sticky rice herb teas for comparisons sake. I wonder if it is possible to grow sticky rice herb yourself. The seeds look like they may be hard to find.