I created a new shou pu-erh blend by accident.

I had a 200 gram sized caddy containing the final few ounces of a batch of Mystery Shou 199, which I really needed for a newly arrived batch of leaf.

As luck would have it, I had a small but otherwise perfectly suitable tin available to house the soon to be evicted 199. It was bought many years ago in the town of Visby on the island of Gotland, at the Kränku teahouse, and had originally contained 100 grams of their well known Guteblandning black tea blend. I rehoused the 199 in the Kränku tin.

A few days later I was brewing up some 2013 Jingmai Mountain Shou, and after I’d freed off the required number of grams there was quite a bit of stray leaf left in the wrapper that had fallen off the cake whilst I was getting busy with my pick. Before I’d thought it through I’d pulled out the Kränku tin and added the loose Jingmai Mountain to the 199 that I’d put in there earlier.

Oh. Oops, I suppose.

Eyeballing it, the new mixture looked to be made up of roughly equal amounts of each tea. “Why not?“, I thought, and put the kettle on.

A few minutes later I was taking my first sip of the new Frankenshou.

Not bad, surprisingly…not bad at all.

The Jingmai rounded off the rough corners of the 199, and the 199 seemed to calm down the more excitable camphor notes in the Jingmai.

It worked well enough for me to actually want to recreate it, purposefully this time, carefully measuring it out, using the same amount of leaf by weight from each of the two donor teas.

I thought I’d name it “lyckoblandning” – the lucky blend. I’m still keeping it in the Kränku tin.

It’s already starting to take over the post evening meal single shot Western brewed niche.

Not all accidents yield bad results. Serendipitea strikes again.