I don't just drink tea it turns out.

I got two kinds of hard liquor this weekend. This is the first that arrived.

This is the 浓香 (nóng xiāng or "strong aroma") style and stems from 江苏宿迁 (Suqian, Jiangsu).

Strong aroma styles of 白酒 (báijiǔ, the local hard liquor) are very strong and complex in flavour profiles and have a pronounced, almost unctuous sweet flavour despite there being no sugar in the final product. Other flavours that tease the tongue through the 52% (104 proof) alcohol burn include pineapple, banana, and other tropical fruits (with a bit of an overripe sensation), and even hints of anise or the like.

Of course the flavour profile is very alien to western palates and tends to result in recoiling on first contact. But not for me. I've loved the insanely complicated world of Chinese liquor since I first tasted it.

This particular one is a sorghum base (like most hard liquor in China) and its "qu" (the mechanism by which fermentation is started) is made of wheat, barley, and peas. (This is typical for "strong aroma" liquors.)

As usual alt text has more information and Mastodon users will have to click through to get all the pictures.

#白酒 #浓香型 #江苏宿迁 #liquor #baijiu #StrongAroma #SuqianJiangsu

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Again I'm tagging @[email protected] for content that is #Chinese #liquor. This time it has arrived and I can actually review #tea infused liquor!

First the good things:

1. I like the #bottle #design. This sounds shallow, but working where I work I know how important distinctive looks are. They've done something tasteful, but distinctive here. and didn't just use some standard bottle like so many #distilleries choose to.

2. The liquor itself is nice. At 52%/104proof, pretty much the standard grade of decent liquor in #China, the very strong base grain used (#sorghum) and the other grains used (#wheat, #rice, #corn -- mostly in the 酒麹/"jiǔqū" or just plain " qū" starter) cuts through the alcohol burn with its flavour. This is "#浓香/#nóngxiāng" or "#StrongAroma" (a.k.a. Luzhou style), so it is very sweet ... with none of the sweetness coming from sugars. This is a nice sipping liquor with a complicated attack and a quiet finish with the alcohol acting less to burn than to carry the aromatic components into your sinuses. I will definitely try it again.

But that leads us to the bad thing (and the point where my fellow tea fiends will be disappointed):

3. When I concentrate very hard I can fool myself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, I'm tasting the tea. But let's be #BrutallyHonest: if this were placed in front of me without prior knowledge and I were asked to identify all the taste components, I'd know that the base was sorghum. I'd know that the qū was multigrain. I'd get the hints of ananas and anise in the bouquet. I'd get a faint whiff of banana peel as well, as well as a hint of the sweet part of cassia. I doubt I'd ever guess that tea was used in the production. So if I think I taste the tea after intense concentration, I've fooled myself like most #sommeliers do when they recite the #nonsense lists of comparisons they use to describe wines.

So, the liquor is good, but it's not really something my fellow #TeaFreaks will have much interest in.