drank GABA Oolong by Wang Family Tea
121 tasting notes

Fascinating. I will have to try more GABA tea before I can develop a more nuanced opinion, but I know the following things:

1. It tastes unmistakeably like sweet potatoes (고구마). When my friends were snacking on potato chips, my grandmother was placing endless bowls of steamed potatoes and sweet potatoes on the kitchen table as our grab and go snack so that is the natural level of sweetness to expect – not the candied yams level of sweetness in the American Thanksgiving side dish topped with marshmallows. Capisce?

2. There is an interesting longlasting buzz in the mouth. Hope that is normal and not indicative of absurdly high pesticide content or anything like that.

3. I became used to the roasty toasty taste of the MST GABA and have to admit I prefer that profile. However, MST’s is far more expensive so therein lies the tradeoff. This one from the Wang family is calming but also energizing. The finish is bold and aggressively… sweet potato-y. There is a mild but persistent, uncomfortably arresting sense of raw tuber in the tummy and in the chest that belies the tongue and throat sensations, a rawness that could possibly be avoided or cloaked by eating real food before drinking the tea.

Flavors: Sweet Potatoes

Preparation
4 g 3 OZ / 80 ML
derk

I have a fond memory of a Korean sweet potato truck in Santa Clara. Nothing but a hot, steamy sweet potato tucked into a paper lunch bag.

derk

I know it’s subjective but a persistent buzz or tingling on the underside of my tongue/salivary glands is indicative of high mineral content, ‘clean’ tea.

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derk

I have a fond memory of a Korean sweet potato truck in Santa Clara. Nothing but a hot, steamy sweet potato tucked into a paper lunch bag.

derk

I know it’s subjective but a persistent buzz or tingling on the underside of my tongue/salivary glands is indicative of high mineral content, ‘clean’ tea.

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I’ll not adore every popular tea. Nor shall I always prepare it skillfully enough to do it justice and understand it before the sample is gone. Also, my search is for teas that are delicious now. I don’t know yet what will age well.

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