Eco-Cha Club #34 Da Yu Ling High Mountain Oolong Tea

The September box surprised me as a green Da Yu Ling instead of the darker teas the company tends to release this month, and it was a pleasant surprise. The company wanted to introduce a fall harvest Da Yu Ling with a higher oxidation of 30%, and I am glad they did because it was personally successful.

I will say that my notes today are not going to be too deep in detail, but I’ve brewed this a few times differently. I’ve done gong fu with a 20 sec beginning, 15 sec 2nd steep, and 20 increasing over time and something more basic like 30 increments. The notes changed more here, and the tea has flavor, albeit mild overall. Eco-Cha’s description is on spot about it being vibrant and fresh-this tea is definitely floral and green like apple skin, but the deeper fruity qualities are in the aftertaste of the second and later steeps. The vegetal flavor matches fresh yellow squash. I personally got lemon balm and kiwi in most of the finishes and lilies in the florals, with some orchid, hyacinth and a little bit of osmanthus. Although the say it’s heady, that is moreso true again in steeps 2-4 without it being overwhelming and perfumy. Otherwise, it is a very mild tea with a smooth and full mouthfeel, and a dry finish.

Western was not as successful so far. It tasted more like a general jade or jin xuan than a Dayuling, which was a shame, so Gong Fu is the better way to go. The notes remained more floral than anything else, and the fruitier notes were lost out and more herbaceous. This tea is flexible and can hand some rough housing, but I’ve lost some of the more subtle notes going that way, so precision is the way to go to master this tea. I was hoping for sweeter fruit notes from the higher oxidation, but the evergreen, squash, lily, and watercress notes took over western and gong fu.

I have to say that tasting this tea made me think of the earlier notes on the company’s main supply of Dayuling here on steepster since this was such a mild tea. I am happy as a club member that I got to have a tea from one of my favorite terroirs at a good price, and that I got to try a fall version. I’m also happy to have 75 grams of it, and I will definitely enjoy drinking it. My only nitpick is the lack of strength, so I will give it my rating of 88-the designation for something that I could have easily loved, but was only steps away from receiving it.