2003 Reserve Four Season Oolong

ETA: since I wrote this review a few months ago, I have almost gone through the 2oz I bought…Today, I lost count of all the gongfu infusions I made. I’M IN LOVE WITH THIS OOLONG!!
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Major backlog:

Last Thanksgiving, I won Stacy’s contest for a Gaiwan of my choice. I was super excited and chose one especially for oolongs cause it’s 8oz and it leaves plenty of room the leaves to expend. She knows how happy I was, thanks to her, I am no longer part of those whiny people who “never win anything”! I also bought from her a clear glass cup and saucer that I enjoy using almost everyday, here’s a few pics of both:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/8544559687/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/8545714720/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/8544559785/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/8544559745/lightbox/

Thanks again Stacy, love the Gaiwan, excellent quality and so pretty!

Now the tea. First aged oolong for me. Tommy the Toad’s raving reviews made it impossible for me not to buy it. Thanks Tommy, this is now one of my favorite tea and has helped me relax and focus lately.

Smoky ink black lustrous nuggets, they look like magic pebbles!

The rinse is super caramel and honey sweet with a faint mineral taste. ( yeah, I can help tasting my rinse, sometimes it turns out yummy like this one and it would be such a waste to just throw it!)

1rst steep: OMG! What? Really? Ahhh. I need more, this is so potent!

Fruity, slightly woody, strong burnt caramel. I also get buttery macadamia nuts, I get coffee, there’s so much going on, wow!

There’s also a very interesting texture to it, it feels like a silk ribbon in my mouth.

The smell of the wet leaf is very pungent, an acre smokiness that doesn’t reflect in the taste being so smooth.

The 2nd steep is still honey like, but loosing a bit of its sweet intensity, leaving room for those burnt roasted notes that are trying to emerge more strongly.

What is that “je ne sais quoi” everyone is trying to describe? It reminds me of that honeycomb crunchy toffee my mom used to make out of corn syrup and baking soda. It had a strong taste of sweet burnt caramel and a mineral aftertaste that came from the baking soda, put in there for one reason: create a chemical reaction that made the preparation look like a volcano in eruption! A pan full of lava, how cool was that?

Funny, cause in my adult life, I’m not a huge fan of sugar and desserts, but I have so many vivid childhood memories related to them! Maybe some shrink could explain that?

3 tsp Gungfu style will render about 10 steeps, all better than one another. Just like Tommy says, this tea is “Liquid Love” and is good which ever way you decide to brew it!

Because it is equally as good as it makes me feel, it well deserves a 100 rating!!

I have been literally steeping this ALL DAY LONG and it is lovely. I have had at least 8 good hearty steeps out of it and am still going pretty strong. It is lightening up now but the flavor is still very good and the leaves,,, they have not even fully opened up NOR have they become fully wet yet! I just love this tea with so many flavor profiles, woodsy, oak moss, nutty, earthy, slightly sweet … so much more but Im going to just keep sipping this one as long as I can! :)

mmmmm now this? this is an oolong i can get behind. This is dark and beautiful and there’s a woody, almost smokey but not quite flavour going on here. Yep, this is not your every day oolong, this is one for me! :)

I’ve had this one for a little while now ran out of it bought more and now that’s going to be a repeated cycle over and over with a bigger amount each time most likely, it’s taking me long this long to post about it really because I don’t know what to say about it really but I may have mentioned it in another post at some time I don’t remember honestly, you know how some oolongs (like a four seasons to me) can have that buttery yummy creamy mouthfeel and goodness that’s how this tea is to me so buttery smooth and delicious That much I can tell you and then you just really just got to get ya some and try it for yourself because I just can’t find the words to describe the flavor profile of this tea or the wonderful way that it smells or what the leaves taste and feel like when you put one in your mouth or the way it makes me feel, I just can’t find the right words. My cousin Kermit said this tea is like “Liquid Love” and I couldn’t agree more and I know that Kermit the Frog is not a Liar , So there you have it “Liquid Love” in a cup, please Love yourself and go buy you some of this tea. Oh yeah I have to mention also this tea has been fighting with DMS Shi Er Black Pearls tea over who is going to be my current fav now Pearl is out for the time being so she can’t defend herself but She Is on her way here right now and when She returns the fight starts back and I have to keep them separated far from each other on the shelves or else I may come in one day and find one of them spilled out all over the floor lol.

This is a lovely kind of fruity oolong, gently sweet & smooth, with a nice roasty wood flavor. I pulled this one from the HHTTB, & it’s a sipdown Sil!

This tea was probably not the best choice for last night, given that I burned part of supper but had to eat it anyways… and of course, this smells wicked burnt when infusing. Luckily, the flavour isn’t quite the same, so it was palatable. This time, I think I may have used a bit more tea (2 rounded tsp for 8 oz.), and got a tasty, dark, woody/burny, sweet-ish mug of yum. It tasted particularly good the next day, after it had sat cold next to my bed all through the night!

The second infusion is pretty good too, almost making me think chocolatey, like a very, very dark chocolate, perhaps with roasted cocoa nibs. What’s a bit strange is that it’s reminding me a fair bit of Malted ChocoMate, or more specifically, the taste of roasted mate. Though the two are totally unrelated, and there’s no flavouring here. Interesting!

Happy anniversary to me! I’ve been on Steepster one month now. I know, I know…it feels like ages since you’ve first started seeing my posts make my way onto your computer screen…kinda like when I’m talking to my wife about one of my many aches and pains and she says “you’ve been complaining about that for ages” or “it’s been ages since you’ve done something romantic for me”. Hopefully not too many of you associate me with a negative overtone but either way I’ll keep writing until I hear otherwise.

Again I had an errant expectation about today’s tea. I hadn’t read the maker’s description and was unaware that this was a greener oolong. I’m still in an inexperienced state so I’m not sure if the spring picking is why it is that way, but can only assume it to be. The liquor was somewhat a darker brown. Dry leaf was floral and once infuzed it took on a wood/dry grass aroma.

First sip I found to be pretty grassy with a bit of nutty notes and it left a faint sweetness I noticed when I licked my lips. A few drinks later and the nutty had transformed into a wood/acorn note while the grassy notes had increased. More and more I’m seeing the greener tastes phasing out of my personal selections, though this being an oolong and not a straight green tea has made it much more tolerable. I can definitely say that there is little to no astringency.

All in all it’s a fine cup that I could keep on drinking but won’t steep past the second steeping because I have darker oolongs to drink instead. I’ve read online a little about oolongs trying to decipher the greener from darker ones but haven’t seen a formula yet.

Wife was going through her old college CD’s, so the selection of music hinged on that.
tunes-Dave Mathew’s Band=Captain/Grey Street/Two Step/The Stone/ Granny/Minarets

I’ve been drinking almost exclusively green and herbal teas for the last three weeks due to cold turned flu turned cold and lingering crud. No fancy oolongs or pu-erh for me until today. This is nice, smokey, roasty, sweet with a parchment-like quality. I did three short infusions, mostly offered at our kitchen shrine, but I got a few sips of each.

I’m a little shaken at the moment, my dad is going to be having quadruple bypass surgery sometime this week, they just did the analysis this morning, he did not have any sort of cardiac episode, just some tightness in the chest which led him to take a stress test and another test which showed some blockage, turns out its 80% in two areas. So he’s fine and in good spirits and hopefully it will all go smoothly, though he will have to rest for 4-6 weeks and not travel for his work. I’ve had two uncles who have had stints put in, my dad’s brother has had more than one heart attack, their father survived several though he had some very debilitating strokes, but I’m trying not to think about that as a possibility.

Any positive thoughts or prayers for our family would be appreciated, though no worrying please. Hope you and yours are all well.

I don’t want to write what I think about this. I’ve pretty much decided that there is some force/entity/spirit that just will not allow Butiki tea to work in my world. I never get the same experience as most of you on here.

Thank you ifjuly for sending me a sample of this.

1.5 tsp for 4 minutes makes this undrinkable for me. WOW way too smokey – offensively smokey. 2nd steep – 1 minute better but still too much smoke in the nose – I can’t “taste” if for the smoke smell. 3rd steep a little over a minute continuing to improve – it is definitely deep dark oolong. 4th steep 2 minutes – aged dark oolong – just as promised, but it seems “flat” to me like it’s been too much. Fresh leaves 1 tsp/10oz mug – 45 sec first steep – still crazy smoky but at least drinkable – 2nd steep 45 seconds – this is the only steep off all that I tried that I enjoyed – smokey rich, dark oolong – I liked this steep quite a bit. 3rd steep just over a minute – and I’m back to the “flat” taste even though these leaves have been steeped a lot less than the first try.
I don’t know. I’ve been enjoying aged oolongs recently but this isn’t one of them. It’s mostly the smoke – and yes I’m the one that was “complaining” earlier about a Lapsang not being smokey enough…. :((

Thanks Stacy for this tea sample

I’ve come to the realization that I am a person who loves the flavors associated with Autumn.
I love to oven roast Apples and Root Vegetables.
Caramelized Brussel Sprouts in garlic butter, tossed in seasoned bread crumbs.
Short ribs slow cooked in wheat beer (New Belgium) with caramelized onions, beef broth and buckwheat honey.
RIBS! My family has RIBS for our Christmas Feast!

Somewhere mixed up in all these thoughts of favorite foods and feasting I can see a preference for roasty flavors.

I evidently associate flavor and family. Well being with a log on the hearth, a cup of a warm beverage, and lots of cooking going on in the kitchen.
And noise. Lots of talking and noise. Scrabble games, Boggle and Football.

At this time a year ago, I was still mug deep in coffee living my one dimensional life. Every 4 months a box of coffee came from my coffee club in New Orleans and I was thrilled. I had 3 kinds of coffee. WOW! (This makes me laugh!)
I used to think of tea as a flowery drink, a sweet thing in a flowery cup. I had no idea how varied and complex tea was.

Now I know better and I’m learning that Oolongs are much more complex and varied than I assumed at first.

Lately I’ve discovered Roasty Oolongs like this one that I’ve been drinking today. Not just a little roasty either, but VERY ROASTY!

When I saw the dark color of the leaves, I knew I was in for a treat.
I had tasted another Oolong recently called Strong Fire that had a cinder taste and I liked it. I was hoping for a similar experience.

The liquor brewed to a clear Rootbeer color and had an amber honey scent.
The flavor was sweet and woody. It was clear that the leaves had been roasted many times because you could taste the roasting and a cinder flavor that was like ancient trees.
I imagined myself in a log cabin around a very small stove after a storm sipping on this tea. The scent of oak and cedar wood from the woodbox and me shuddering off the dampness. A pan of onions, potatoes and bacon sizzling on the stove.

The sweetness of this tea was extraordinary. There’s woody sweetness that you might get from chewing on sugar cane.
The sooty fire roasted flavor is what I loved the best.

So wild.

Thinking back, I remember melting some butter in a little of the previous Fire Oolong, making a sauce to drizzle over some yams.
Experimentation pays off. This Oolong would be good the same way.

If you like savory roasty flavors, this would be your kind of tea.
It’s not full of flowers or delicate nuance. This isn’t smoky either. Roasty.

Delicious!