This tea is the first – and so far, the only – Oolong tea that I have tried apart from some of the cheap and nasty brands they sell in some of the Chinese supermarkets around town. And in a few short months, this has become one of my absolute favourites although I haven’t got round to adding my tasting notes.
After rolling up my sleeves to clean and re-organise my tea cupboard thanks to an infestation of pantry moths – goodbye fruit teas! – I was looking forward to settling down with this. I strangely find this both revitalising for an afternoon pick me-up as well as soothing for a nightcap. As I only have the one teapot, I tend to have this tea once every couple of weeks, and then continually re-infuse before moving on to a different tea. So far, provided the tea is never scalded or over-infused at any point, I have managed to get up to five infusions.
The leaves are whole, medium sized (I’m guessing ‘souchong’) and rolled into fairly loose but even sized balls. I’m not sure which region the tea is from and I wouldn’t even be able to guess. After infusing, the tea can probably be descriped as olive-green with a distinct mint fragrance. There is a slight nuttiness and sweetness that contrasts nicely with the earthiness of the mint. The mint isn’t overly strong and the flavour seems to be more of the mint leaf rather than the more intense top-note menthol flavour of oil/flavouring. Even after a couple of infusions, the mint is still present but the tea does become sweeter and the nuttiness more intense.
I must remember to add notes for the various infusions.
