At this point in the year, I am spending a good deal of my free time slurping down a lot of the green teas and lighter oolongs I have accumulated over the course of the year. I just can’t stand the thought of those fragile teas going stale before I get the opportunity to try them. This baozhong I picked up sometime toward the end of the summer was a product of the winter 2015 harvest. Though it is not a fancy competition grade baozhong, it does hold some appeal.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. Note that I am still using more or less mainland Chinese methods when it comes to preparing these Taiwanese oolongs. For this session, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 185 F water for 10 seconds following a quick rinse. This was followed by 11 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute 5 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 2 minutes 30 seconds, and 3 minutes 30 seconds.
Prior to the rinse, the dry leaves emitted a mild, pleasant vegetal aroma with a hint of floral character. After the rinse, the floral character became slightly stronger. I also began to note scents of cream and butter emerging. The first infusion presented more clearly defined aromas of sweetgrass, snap peas, soybean, violet, sweet pea, gardenia, vanilla, lily, lilac, and magnolia. In the mouth, there was a slight floral character on the entry, though it was nothing like the nose. I mostly perceived flavors of vanilla, cream, custard, butter, snap peas, sweetgrass, spinach, and soybean. Subsequent infusions saw the floral character become more assertive on the nose and more distinct in the mouth. At this point, I was able to pick out the individual floral components on the tongue that I was getting on the nose. Later infusions were smooth, creamy, and vegetal all around. The floral character began to fade, allowing aromas and flavors of sweetgrass, snap peas, soybean, spinach, cream, butter, custard, and vanilla to move to the fore once again. I also noted a slight mineral presence on the finish and a hint of ripe honeydew that I noted at no other point during the session.
I’ve had other farmer’s choice baozhongs this year and I have to say that I enjoyed them about as much as some of the more acclaimed competition grade teas. They were just so pleasant and easy to drink. While this particular baozhong displayed the thin mouthfeel that I do not always immediately appreciate and often associate with spring harvested baozhongs, it did display a nice, though simplistic layering of floral, savory, and vegetal aromas and flavors. I was also impressed by just how much character the tea retained over a fairly lengthy session. Though this was not my favorite non-competition baozhong that I have tried this year, I did find a lot to like about this one. I could see it making a respectable everyday baozhong.
Flavors: Butter, Cream, Custard, Floral, Gardenias, Grass, Honeydew, Mineral, Peas, Soybean, Spinach, Vanilla, Violet
Preparation
People who liked this
Comments
What is your favorite non-competition Baozhong? I wonder because I am on a green oolong quest. AGAIN.
Daylon, of the ones I’ve had recently, I really enjoyed the Wenshan Baozhong Reserve from Tealyra. I found it to be a pleasantly floral, basic baozhong with a bit of a bread character. I also really enjoyed the Winter 2015 Farmer’s Choice Baozhong from Floating Leaves. From the way it was described on the website, I was expecting a tea that was very fruity and vegetal, but I found it to be very creamy, buttery, and smooth with pronounced floral character and subtle fruity and vegetal qualities.
Nice. Tealyra usually has some great sales too. I was lucky enough to get the Gaoshan sampler that Floating Leaves offered. I especially loved the Da Yu Ling and the Alishan, but too pricey for me to get in larger quantities.
Daylon, I find that I enjoy a lot of the teas offered by Floating Leaves, but I rarely order them because of the pricing. They have recently released their winter farmer’s choice and competition grade baozhongs, but I can’t afford to buy either at the moment. While I’m thinking about it, would you be willing to recommend me some good high mountain oolongs? I’ve been craving them like crazy lately and will probably be looking to purchase some once I get a little more money in the bank and get the tea hoard down to a reasonable level.
A better person to task is LiquidProust. He’s the one that’s showed me the full world of oolongs in the first place. TeaDB also has a lot of reviews and mini-articles on High Mountain Oolong. https://teadb.org/taiwanese-oolongs/
Here’s what I can recommend based on preference. What-Cha’s Li Shan was pretty good though the steeping was slightly closer to Western, so you do not get as many steeps. I personally found it being fuller in flavor than other Lishans I’ve had, especially in regards to its fruitier qualities with the florals. oollo’s BaoZhong is good example too-especially heavy on the vanilla note for a natural greener oolong. Still a little too expensive for the quantity you get in my opinion. Berylleb offers a decent variety of Taiwan Oolongs, and a few of my friends has recommended me the DaYuLing that is offered. Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Old Style Dong Ding is also pretty good and a personal favorite. Beautiful Taiwan Tea’s Misty Mountain, a Shan Lin Xi is also pretty good, but I have not been as much of a fan of it this season. I also have not been much of a fan of Echo-Cha’s Shan Lin Xi despite it also being a favorite in the past season.
I need to research more about how this year’s weather is affecting the growing conditions and taste of this year’s oolong along with the specifics of processing. I am in a situation where I have not been as happy with the greener oolongs because they have not hit all the marks I usually like with them. Hence my insane search for “the one”. I was tempted to buy in bulk from Tealyra, specifically the Jade Oolong you wrote about earlier.
I hope that this gave you a few solid ideas to go off of.
Also, I personally prefer Qing Xin varietals. Eco-Cha’s Four Seasons is very fruity, however, and may be another target for me.
With that Jade Oolong, I wish I had done more than the flash steeps. I was favoring that method at the time because I felt like it shaved considerable time off of each session and allowed me to conduct more sessions over a shorter period of time, but unfortunately, I also came to feel that I wasn’t getting as much out of the teas I was preparing that way. I’ve noticed that I get more out of each tea by not increasing each infusion by the same set number of seconds. Right now, the method I favor is sort of based off of a beginner’s pu-erh method for gongfu. I can’t remember where I found it, but it works for me. I’m still not at a point where I can go more than 11-14 steeps regularly, but I’m also not someone who gets to a point where I’m steeping exclusively for color. I cut things short when most of the flavor has faded. That jade oolong is one I hope to come back to within the year.
On the subject of Tealyra, I kind of think they’re a vendor that flies below the radar for a lot of people. The name change and their reputation as a generalist probably have a lot to do with it, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of the teas I’ve had from them. I particularly find that they do a good job of sourcing accessible Taiwanese oolongs.
What is your favorite non-competition Baozhong? I wonder because I am on a green oolong quest. AGAIN.
Daylon, of the ones I’ve had recently, I really enjoyed the Wenshan Baozhong Reserve from Tealyra. I found it to be a pleasantly floral, basic baozhong with a bit of a bread character. I also really enjoyed the Winter 2015 Farmer’s Choice Baozhong from Floating Leaves. From the way it was described on the website, I was expecting a tea that was very fruity and vegetal, but I found it to be very creamy, buttery, and smooth with pronounced floral character and subtle fruity and vegetal qualities.
Nice. Tealyra usually has some great sales too. I was lucky enough to get the Gaoshan sampler that Floating Leaves offered. I especially loved the Da Yu Ling and the Alishan, but too pricey for me to get in larger quantities.
Daylon, I find that I enjoy a lot of the teas offered by Floating Leaves, but I rarely order them because of the pricing. They have recently released their winter farmer’s choice and competition grade baozhongs, but I can’t afford to buy either at the moment. While I’m thinking about it, would you be willing to recommend me some good high mountain oolongs? I’ve been craving them like crazy lately and will probably be looking to purchase some once I get a little more money in the bank and get the tea hoard down to a reasonable level.
A better person to task is LiquidProust. He’s the one that’s showed me the full world of oolongs in the first place. TeaDB also has a lot of reviews and mini-articles on High Mountain Oolong. https://teadb.org/taiwanese-oolongs/
Here’s what I can recommend based on preference. What-Cha’s Li Shan was pretty good though the steeping was slightly closer to Western, so you do not get as many steeps. I personally found it being fuller in flavor than other Lishans I’ve had, especially in regards to its fruitier qualities with the florals. oollo’s BaoZhong is good example too-especially heavy on the vanilla note for a natural greener oolong. Still a little too expensive for the quantity you get in my opinion. Berylleb offers a decent variety of Taiwan Oolongs, and a few of my friends has recommended me the DaYuLing that is offered. Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Old Style Dong Ding is also pretty good and a personal favorite. Beautiful Taiwan Tea’s Misty Mountain, a Shan Lin Xi is also pretty good, but I have not been as much of a fan of it this season. I also have not been much of a fan of Echo-Cha’s Shan Lin Xi despite it also being a favorite in the past season.
I need to research more about how this year’s weather is affecting the growing conditions and taste of this year’s oolong along with the specifics of processing. I am in a situation where I have not been as happy with the greener oolongs because they have not hit all the marks I usually like with them. Hence my insane search for “the one”. I was tempted to buy in bulk from Tealyra, specifically the Jade Oolong you wrote about earlier.
I hope that this gave you a few solid ideas to go off of.
Also, I personally prefer Qing Xin varietals. Eco-Cha’s Four Seasons is very fruity, however, and may be another target for me.
With that Jade Oolong, I wish I had done more than the flash steeps. I was favoring that method at the time because I felt like it shaved considerable time off of each session and allowed me to conduct more sessions over a shorter period of time, but unfortunately, I also came to feel that I wasn’t getting as much out of the teas I was preparing that way. I’ve noticed that I get more out of each tea by not increasing each infusion by the same set number of seconds. Right now, the method I favor is sort of based off of a beginner’s pu-erh method for gongfu. I can’t remember where I found it, but it works for me. I’m still not at a point where I can go more than 11-14 steeps regularly, but I’m also not someone who gets to a point where I’m steeping exclusively for color. I cut things short when most of the flavor has faded. That jade oolong is one I hope to come back to within the year.
On the subject of Tealyra, I kind of think they’re a vendor that flies below the radar for a lot of people. The name change and their reputation as a generalist probably have a lot to do with it, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of the teas I’ve had from them. I particularly find that they do a good job of sourcing accessible Taiwanese oolongs.