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A few weeks ago I placed my first order with Taiwan Sourcing and was nervous it would take months to get here as there is a country-wide postal strike currently ongoing in Canada. To my pleasant surprise it arrived yesterday and it couldn’t have come at a better time because I am running extremely low on tea. Praise the tea gods!!!

For this session I used a 180ml gaiwan using 10g, one initial 10 second wash followed by a 10 second brew, increasing by 10 to 20 seconds for each additional infusion.
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Mmmmmmmmm. Mm. This is way more delicious than I thought it would be. I wanted to try some teas high in GABA for a few different health reasons and was expecting the value to be in the medicinal effects rather than the taste and experience. Clearly this tea provides both, and it’s absolutely glorious.

As described by TS themselves, this tea has a very strong sweet potato flavour. It actually tastes remarkably close to a classic holiday dish my family loves which is a sweet potato and marshmallow casserole (mashed potato on the bottom, baked marshmallows on top). After that first impression though the sweetness tastes less sugary and more of wildflower honey which makes sense given this is blended with osmanthus flowers. The liquor is a lovely shade of yellow, almost peach-like, and quite thin compared with some other oolongs I’ve tried. There is just absolutely no astringency, it’s smooth, and almost a bit cooling down the throat like mint in terms of sensation.

Later infusions of this tea bring out more savoury notes, still heavy on the sweet potato though. Remarkably there is a general pumpkin spice flavour towards the end, maybe cinammon and cloves or something. The overall taste is extremely clean with loads of depth and layers.

I can’t yet attest to the effects of the GABA as I imaging it takes a few days or weeks to build up in your system to have long lasting effects, but I will say this cuppa makes me incredibly relaxed, sociable, and feeling good. Highly recommend trying it!