Eco-Cha Tea Club #17: Award Winning Alishan High Mountain Oolong Tea

Two very nice gongfu sessions, one with shorter steeping times and one with longer, closer to Leafhopper’s parameters. I’m finishing off this swap tea brewed 2g in a 100mL teacup and think I prefer it this way!

There are 2 layers of aroma in the dry leaf. The first layer is perfumey florals while a closer whiff presents sweet cream and fleeting peach and pine. With a deeper smelling of the leaf in my hand, these notes all sit on top of the second layer: a molasses ginger cookie. Warmed and rinsed leaf are similar to each other with daffodil, gardenia, spinach, walnut.

Intense, heady and sweet indolic daffodil, gardenia and orange blossom florals well integrated into a clean and soft mineral water broth. Body has notes of dewy grass, crisp lettuce, mild spinach, walnut, cooling fir and the light acidity of sweet lemon mixed with sugarcane. Spices are revealed as clove, sweet cinnamon and a hints of allspice and nutmeg when brewed longer. Light butter on the swallow gives way cleanly to an aftertaste of peach skin, grass, candied orange rind and orange blossom with intense sugarcane returning sweetness. Spiciness and warmth is felt in the throat and chest. Bottom of the cup smells like sugarcane, tarragon and cherry blossom.

Leafhopper, this tea is from 2017? It’s incredible and balanced despite the intense florality. This tea reaffirms how an expert light roast can take a high mountain oolong to a stratospheric experience for me. Thank you <3

I received this back in 2017 when I was an Eco-Cha Tea Club member. Thank goodness it has some roast on it and can presumably survive a few years in storage! I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

Dry, these tightly rolled nuggets smell like a floral gingersnap. The first steep has notes of sweet pea, orchid, cookie, butter, nutmeg, grass, and light roast, with a floral and grassy aftertaste. The second steep adds nuts (maybe pecans?) and even more florals, though also, sadly, more of that grassy taste. Cookie, honey, mild spices, honeysuckle and sweet pea florals, nuts, and grass persist into the next couple steeps. I find the tea to be smooth and a little viscous. In the fifth steep, herbs and spinach peek through the cookie goodness. The session ends predictably with walnuts, butter, roast, spinach, and grass.

This is a pleasant, though perhaps not extraordinary oolong with some tasty spice cookie notes. (I’m getting those a lot with lightly roasted oolongs lately.) I’ll have no trouble finishing my 75 g package, though I won’t miss it terribly when it’s gone.