When I first had pouchong, didn't think much of it...very little flavor...but now as I sit writing this, bending over an aromatic cup, I've changed my mind.
Brewed it at 190ºF for two minutes. When the tea first hit the water, the most flowery aroma emanated, which quickly turned more toasty. On sipping it was smooth,elegantly flowery with a tiny bit of bite at the back of the throat. Just wanted to drink it by itself, never mind the chocolate!
This flavor profile is not surprising, as pouchong lies between green tea and oolong in its preparation. What does this chameleon-like quality mean for pairing with chocolate?
=>> What it means is that it is perfect for pairing!! Only one of the four chocolates I tried didn't do anything for the tea or chocolate.
• That was the Vosges Super Dark Coconut Ash & Banana. All flavors, both of tea and of chocolate, disappeared in the clash of receptors. Pouchong activates cold, warm, and hot receptors, as does this chocolate, so they all negate each other.
• By contrast, with the Chocolove Ginger Crystallized in Dark Chocolate, the ginger brought out the cool grassy melony flavors of the tea coupled with the rich coolness of the ginger, and allowed for the tiny but oh so pleasant bite at the back of the throat. So delectable!
• Ghirardelli 100% cacao? Oh my, a totally different experience! Bitter bitter bitter, more bitter than the chocolate by itself, but ever so deliciously so as the hot receptors kicked in, allowing another flower profile to emerge, this time jasmine. The chocolate turned off the cool/cold receptors, allowing the warm receptors that respond to methyl jasmonate and jasmine lactone, so characteristic of pouchong, to take over.
• Even white chocolate was pretty good with this pouchong. As I said in the previous post, white chocolate is much too sweet for me, but the bitterness of this tea cut the sweetness just enough to make it tolerable, and I could taste the vanilla of the chocolate. Like the jasmine-related compounds in the tea, vanilla activates warm receptors, enhancing the flavor of the tea. Note that the cocoa butter in the white chocolate turns off the hot receptors, so that you are left with activation of warm receptors, with neither bitterness nor sweetness, as a consequence of which the pairing was somewhat unidimensional.
• Worth noting: this pouchong doesn't taste bitter by itself, but the bitterness can be brought out by activating the bitter receptors with another bitter compound, while its content of catechins is sufficient to tune down sweetness in a pairing.
=>> Dilemma: do I prefer the tea with the ginger chocolate or with the 100% cacao? Drank it all up trying to decide!
Picture above shows the loose tea (can you see the silver needles of the buds? Abundant in this tea!) and the appearance of the tea after brewing. On the upper right I've included a special cup for fragrant tea, made by friend Peter Ting's company 1660 London, to show you what I think is the perfect cup for such a fragrant tea. Reminds me of the aroma collector glasses for Pinot Noir wines. For more about these cups go to: http://www.1660london.com. And here's Peter himself, from his website http://www.peterting.com.
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