foojoy

Generic green tea flavor, like a typical gunpowder tea. Larger twisty leaves, with a good amount of very fine particles. Meh.

A value-priced tea at $8.50/8 oz. I guess there may be a touch of the distinctive aroma and sweet taste of the higher grades sold by Foojoy (this is the lowest of the three grades that I purchased), but mostly this is a very grassy green tea. There is a sharp and slight bitterness to the grassy flavor, but thankfully not too bitter and I find the grassiness tolerable. Lower grade is evident in the presence of some stemmy stuff and not very uniform leaf appearance. Not one I would repurchase.

Not nearly as delicate and nuanced as the Foojoy Gold premium Lungching, but attractively priced at $11.40 for a 7-ounce tin. Some might even prefer this over the finer grade, as the sweet roasted nutty flavor is more pronounced and there is not much of a bitter edge at all. But there is some grassiness creeping in. Floral qualities are still present, and reminds me perhaps of what a dandelion might taste like, and not in a bad way.

Hell no . . .
This is scraping the bottom of the barrel here. I purchased four of the budget-priced boxed teas sold by Foojoy from T&T Ginseng here in Las Vegas. They are all priced around $8-$9/200 – 227 grams. Of the four, this is the only one which I feel was a bad purchase. Compared to Foojoy’s “Fujian Oolong,” which is very darkly roasted, this one has perhaps a medium roast. However, while the Fujian Oolong is pretty enjoyable, this “Tikuanyin” oolong seems to give off more of the roast taste and not a very good roast taste. It is like drinking a cigarette ashtray or something like that. Not a worthwhile tea, in my opinion. But I am generally happy with Foojoy’s other teas!

Kind of boring. My first genmaicha tea and probably my last. It is decent enough, but not my thing I guess. I prefer straight-up tea but sometimes I like tea mixed with flowers (like rose or osmanthus) and I dig ginseng oolong. Occasionally I might like an earl grey, but usually not so much. Green tea with roasted rice and popcorn. You can really taste and smell the roasted rice but not much tea character comes through at all. I guess this isn’t a bad deal, though, for people who like genmaicha.

My least favorite of the three Foojoy Gold green teas that I purchased from T&T Ginseng, but still a solid cup. Has melon rind aroma, a somewhat grassy taste, and a nice sweetness. I think this would be perfect for making green tea lemonade. This one is distinguished for the ability to get at least three good brews from the leaves, so I gave rebrewing a shot. It does indeed retain most of its flavor for another brew or two, but not really a quality I am looking for in my tea. I don’t care to rebrew.

Found this in the “Foojoy Gold” foil-packaged lineup at T&T Ginseng here in Las Vegas. I like this one quite a bit. Fig and caramel notes for sure as mentioned in a previous review, however for me the floral elements play a much more prominent role, with what I would describe as the “orchid” aroma/taste standing at the fore. Similar to the orchid note I find in many Keemun teas but in a lightly roasted and mostly green balled oolong. Very nice. At $16.50/100g it is comparable to other TKY oolongs you might find in the $60-$70/lb range. Not a super exceptional version of this tea, really, but it is a style that I really like, and definitely quite a few grades above the budget boxed version of TKY Foojoy also offers (which I also tried and it has its merits, but no comparison to this). Nice to have the option to buy only 100g and get roughly the same pricing ounce-for-ounce as if you purchased a 1-lb bag.

Has a delicate floral aroma. Brews an orange-tinged yellow color and has a fruity golden raisin-like presence. Only slightly lingering taste finishing with some floral notes hinting of jasmine. Not a lot going on with this one, but it is pleasant enough. At $16.50/100 grams it is a little pricey for what it is.

I won’t pretend to know what an authentic Lung Ching spring tea should taste like, but I can say I like this one a lot. At $13.99/100 grams, it is doubtful that this comes from the West Lake region in the early spring! The quality of the tea is very nice, and I would liken it to a green tea version of a nice light white wine. There is a sweetness to the tea, which makes the vegetal green notes take on more of a squash-like (tending towards fruity) character. I do also catch some slight floral notes and some pleasant and subtle bitterness creeps in at the finish. Flavors do not linger as long or as floral as I would of hoped but I do enjoy this tea and it definitely transformed my views on what a green tea can be like. Light and refreshing! This is another tea that I found on my recent trip to T&T Ginseng, a local Chinese market.

Good budget buy for oolong. I picked it up for $8.39/8 oz box at T&T Ginseng here in Las Vegas (https://ttginseng.com/). I was thrilled to discover this local retailer which carries a variety of Foojoy teas, Ten Ren teas, and various other teas.

This is clearly a lower-grade oolong, as many stems are present. It is a very heavily roasted style of oolong mostly rolled into brown-black balls.

It brews a beautiful and clear dark amber cup and presents a pleasant nutty roasted aroma. There is good body to it, with almost a syrupy mouthfeel and maybe some caramel with the slightest hints of raisin or fig-like fruitiness and some oak. That might all sound kind of great, however these flavor notes are not as prominent as one might hope, and this can present as a pretty one-dimensional tea defined mostly by the heavy roast flavor. But there is some depth if you look carefully.

All in all, this one isn’t a great tea, but it is a good everyday drinker and a good value for those who might enjoy darker roasted oolongs entering the territory of what is more like a black tea.

I had to check to see if I wrote a note for this tea from an ANCIENT teabox and I hadn’t yet, so this is just to say I DRANK THIS. It’s actually a really good teabag – black tea with lychee flavor and the lychee really holds up after all these years. I like it! It looks like Foojoy also has some loose leaf. And embarrassed to say I actually have one of their teas and it might be the oldest tea I own. Time to go digging for it.

Different….strong….Smokey.

This is my first jasmine green tea that I bought. It’s not the best jasmine green tea for sure. Maybe I am just newbie about drinking tea. But surprisingly, it’s way better than tea bag version of jasmine green tea.

Tung Ting is a lightly fired oolong which has a beautiful floral aroma. This tea should be lightly extracted and reused several times, each time giving it a little more time. It is a very subtle taste and should not be brewed strong.

[I had the red tin version of this tea, not the yellow tin]

[Eat before drinking this tea it weighs you down a little bit]

I am fairly new to tea, and for a few weeks I have been learning about tea. So, I am really eager to start, but shipping from china is kind of lengthy. So, I found this tin in my mother’s cabinet. I don’t know the age or anything about this tea, But I just wanted to practice some gong fu style brewing, and further my knowledge about the different flavors I am to expect from tea (I will explain more later).

I rinsed the tea for 10 seconds (because it was quite old) and then brewed with a 25ish second infusion for the first infusion. To be honest I didn’t expect much out of the tea, but I at least wanted some flavor. I got very little flavor at all, just a flash of bitter at the tip of my tounge, and then just flat until I swallowed it. It left my mouth quite dry and it made my throat want to close up. The second infusion was the same too, just greatly fainter (I added +10 seconds for each infusion). But the third infusion it was like this faint sweetness for a second, and then choppy flatness that made my throat really dry down my thoat. That was the only flavor I got out of it, a very faint almost one pinch of sugar dissolved into a little cup of water sweetness and then nothing.

But, with this tea I do now understand what an aftertaste is like. The sweetness that I mentioned earlier stuck to my mouth, and I don’t notice it until I drink water. When I drink water the water becomes smoother than normal and much sweeter than normal.

This tea makes me fearful of white teas, because if white tea is going to be as flavorless and bland as this, than I may aswell not bother.

I started into tea (or should I say researching tea) because I was browsing teavana and I stumbled upon their white tea section (I have since abandoned teavana teas and gone with Yunnan sourcing) but, when I saw this section it just awoke an interest in me. I just saw the picture of the brewed teas and read the description of how it is smooth and gives a honey like taste, I was instantly sold. So, then I went onto youtube to try and learn more, and found Don from Mei leaf. This is where I learned about Gong fu brewing, and the benefits of switching over from western style. His descriptions of the tea were amazing and I just had to learn more! He then introduced me to puer, and oolong teas, (something I never knew existed), and how they have differences in flavor and how they can calm the whole body. It just seemed like heaven in a glass. But, I have been brewing western style my whole life and drinking from tea bags, so it confused me how a tea could have all of these characteristics without adding any sugar! So, then when I saw the jasmine tea in the cabinet, I thought that I might try some, to see for myself how the teas don’t need any sugar at all to give all of these characteristics. But, this tea broke my heart, it had nothing and was very astringent, with only subtle sweetness, but mostly water. I really hope that tea is much more than this!

But if I am going to be honest, it wasn’t bad either, I probably just don’t like jasmine tea, but I was just disappointed at a lack of flavor.

However, this tea smells amazing with a fruit like, sweetish bitter smell. I wish it tasted as good as it smelled.

[UPDATE]

So, since I have a whole tin of this tea and I was kind of bored at home I decided to try and put some sugar into the gong dao bei when I poured the soup in. It made a world of difference! I could taste the nice jasmine flavors, and a very sweet fruit aftertaste followed it. It was very enjoyable! It also took all of the astringency with it, and the tea was very smooth and sweet. But, it still had a mouth drying effect.

The aftertaste is wonderful too! Every sip of water I drink turns sweet and tastes like how the tea smelled. It was very nice, but still kind of basic.

I find it very mild compared to other Jasmine green teas I’ve tried, and the green tea taste is a bit stronger than the jasmine taste.

This is a nice, inexpensive ($5 for 120 bags), convenient green tea option when I’m on the run and need a bagged tea. As long as your water is cooled down to 170-180 degrees Fahrenheit, this one doesn’t seem to get bitter. I usually use two bags for 16 ounces of water. I like my green teas a little stronger than this one, but the flavor is solid, and fuller than their Dragonwell green tea. I like the Dragonwell tea too, but definitely prefer this one.

This has been one of my “rushing out the door” morning oolongs for awhile, steeping two tsp of tea in about 10 ounces of 190 degree water for 3 minutes, then another longer steep for my second cup. The second cup is never very good, it’s like this tea gives up the ghost in the first steep. This is the first time I’ve sat down with this tea for a nice, slow gongfu session to see what I might have been missing. It does not disappoint! I’m rather astounded at how lovely this tea is with shorter steeps (30 secs). The aroma is sweet. The flavor is also sweet and floral, with no bitterness or astringency. The second steep is much stronger now that the leaves have opened up a bit more. Smooth, creamy mouthfeel. Increased steeping time to a minute with 4 and 5. Still going. Leaves fully opened now. Sixth steep, flavor has become more vegetal. I could probably keep going, but I’m going to stop here (my eyeballs are floating).

Not Bad. Has the characteristic earthy taste of a pu’erh. The Tea brews a nice reddish black. The tea feels very smooth in the mouth and has no bitterness or astringency. My only complaint is the lack of depth of the flavor. No matter how strong you brew the tea, the flavor still lacks. A good tea for a quick fix. All in all, a decent tea, but nothing special.

I’m almost done with an entire box. I went to the Asian market where I bought the Aged Yunnan Pu-Erh but this is what they had. It wasn’t terribly priced and sometimes you just need a decent bagged Pu for work….I know that could be taken many ways ;) I not opposed to chrysanthemum in tea, but not my favorite either. I think tastes like dandelions. This is decent. I don’t find it to be as dark and rich as the Yunnan from Foojoy. Most importantly it isn’t fishy. You can always spot cheap Pu-Erh if it’s fishy rather earthy. It’s good though and great in a pinch at work.

On Sunday Tony & went to the big import store (Global Foods) to get refills of his beloved Ahmad Earl Grey. They have a huge selection of teas, mostly bagged, but I did find a few loose leafs, so I figured I might as well give one a try. I’ve never heard of this brand, & I do enjoy Keemun.

My first session was on Sunday, using 1 tsp + standard mug X 3 or so min.
The dry leaf doesn’t smell very promising, especially when compared to some of my other keemuns, & the resulting tea was ok, but not particularly exciting.

Today I gave it a 2nd chance, using 1T + mug (10 – 12 oz) X 2.
Much better! It’s not going to make it to the top of my list, but is very drinkable, with a red wine & brown sugar kind of taste.