This was the second tea that I tried from teakruthi – I made it on the same day that I tried Lemon Kandy, but instead of just making a cup for myself I actually made it as a large teapot of tea to be shared among everyone else working in the lab with me for the day.
I chose it in particular to share because one of my coworkers is Sri Lankan and worked as a plantation manager for a period of time before moving along to do other things in the tea industry – he knows Sri Lankan teas very well and I was curious to get his perspective on some of these teas. When I asked him which he would most want to try he identified the oolong, as it’s a tea type you don’t really see produced all too much in the country.
I was riding a pretty nice high following the Lemon Kandy, and I have to say that made the fall all the more rough. To be honest while also being kind, this was not a great oolong. There were four of us who tried it, and we were all within the range of feeling like it was average to feeling it was just bad – but no one who loved it.
I didn’t really get any off notes from the infusion itself, but following steeping the tea the infused leaf had an almost fishy/oceanic aroma that wasn’t really bad but highly weird for an oolong tea. The appearance of the leaves look somewhat mulchy, and have a relatively uneven oxidation. The tea was pretty flat/dull and just didn’t have a lot of flavour to it in the first place – kind of a stagnant greener note, like plucked dandelions lying on pavement on a really hot summer day. I could see it being something you’d drink to still have some caffeine intake/hydration while doing other tasks that otherwise command your attention/focus – it would be easy to mindlessly consume this tea.
In my honest opinion, this is a tea I would recommend passing on if you’re considering placing an order though – of the five teas I’ve tried thus far it’s been the least pleasant. It’s a nice sort of novelty, and I can understand wanting to be able to cross off “Sri Lankan Oolong” from your ‘tea bucket list’ but you’re not missing anything flavour wise in not trying it…
Sorry, this one was a miss. Surprisingly this one is one of our more popular ones given the general popularity of Oolong teas. Admittedly Oolong isn’t the main staple from Ceylon, our homeland Sri Lanka. Glad you’re enjoying the rest of the teas :-)