/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Today's tea: Tea Habitat’s “Gold Thread Single Old Tree Dan Cong in Cactus Honey – 2014”
Today I get to try something unique and different. This is a dancong that was aged in honey as the name implies. I apparently it is a regional thing that is done as a medicinal tonic. It is not hard to imagine hot honey water being tasty. The tea itself consists of partially broken up dancong leaves suspended in california cactus honey. The tea liquor is a brownish orange. Contrary to the picture on the website it looks like there may be two types or grades of tea in it. Some lighter green some more brown. The aroma from the spent leaves is floral and perfumy but also has something strangely unpleasant about it that fortunately does not carry over into the cup. It’s taste is quite sweet, due to the honey no doubt. It is also quite fruity. Reminds me of ripe peaches but that to may be partially the sweetness changing my perception of the tea. Still has a hint of the traditional dancong bitterness, mostly only in the aftertaste as it is masked by the honey. I do think both the western style brewing and the honey have hurt the dancong’s dynamic range but it is still enjoyable. The second steep is much weaker and mostly lacks the honey flavor. This is the sort of thing you can probably only expect one good brew from because the tea already steeped in the honey and that is dissolved in the first brew. Not sure if it is medicinal but it really is a nice soothing drink. Still feels quite caffeinated though. Probably not the thing to drink right before bed.

I would consider trying to make some of this myself. I think dianhong aged in honey sounds good. If I were to make some I would probably use a higher ratio of tea leaf to honey in order to make it stronger. Anyone have any tea-honey combinations they think would be good?