Wenshan Baozhong

Sip down! If you can call a forty ounce pot a sip down, that is.

I have all the young folks at my house again for the weekend, so five people between the ages of 14 to 22. We did yoga together this morning and I made a huge pot of this and put my tetsubin on a warmer so we could all enjoy it all morning long. Then the young folks did Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred while I cooked! I am glad I had the cooking as an excuse because it sounded like that workout would have shredded me.

Maybe it is because this is old, but I am not getting tons of floral notes from this. Holding it out to each of the kids to sniff, I got “vegetal”, “fresh cut grass mixed with woods”, and “fresh cut grass with honeysuckle.” What I taste is a little vegetal, lots of walnut. This was tasty!

I will be repurposing the tin to hold my remaining loose leaf Tower of London by removing the clear printed name label on the gold label and replacing it with a computer printed clear return address label so it blends nicely on the tea shelf. Yes, that is a bit OCD, but my house is pretty messy, really. :D

This tea was absolutely delicious. I got off work a little early yesterday. It’s eerie when you’re the only one left in the office at 3:30. So I thought I’d make a little excursion to SoHo to use the ScoutMob coupon someone posted on a discussion thread.

I get there and these all sorts of noisy construction going on right outside. Then you enter a quiet, dimly lit interior filled with the smells of baked goods and tea canisters all around the walls. Is this heaven? :)

While I’ve always been a fan of Harney’s teas, I rarely ever bought from them because I always felt they were a bit over-priced. Maybe the flavored blacks were decently priced, but I’m not a fan of blacks so it wasn’t for me. But this coupon for 50% off makes it all worthwhile! Figuring I’d make the most of the coupon, I asked to look at three of the more expensive oolongs they have. Ali san, Li shan, and Wenshan Baozhong. The first two smelled amazing. I was pretty sure I’d love it even though I haven’t tried it yet. This Baozhong however…very intriguing scent. Like savory herbs and vegetables. Yet, my experience with baozhong (also called pouchong (?)) has always been creamy and sweet. Since they only let you sample one tea from the shelf, I picked the one I wasn’t sure about.

Let me tell you, this tea tastes nothing like it smells. It’s creamy and sweet with light fruity/floral notes. yummy first infusion. They made a second infusion for me upon request and that one was also wonderful. More creamy, less fruity/floral and more vegetal.

If I ever get another chance to buy a fancy expensive oolong from Harney, I’d get this one. But yesterday, I bought the Li Shan, the most expensive option. I’ll be writing a review for that one when I get to drinking it. :)

Excellent green oolong, with a strong buttery component and a wonderful flower-sweet aftertaste. The smell of the cup is sweetness, kind of like honey and bananas (?) and just barely gardenia/jasmine-y. Perhaps this all, combined, is what honeysuckle smells like?

I was expecting the flavor to be like a green Tie Guan Yin, but this pouchong is more alike buttered sweet vegetables than the magnolia and gardenia bouquet of TGY. The sweetness of this cup is amazing…it’s making me think of honey drizzled on french bread, for some reason.

This is one of our flights this weekend in the Tasting Room.

The wisps of steam rising from the leaves is so fragrant, it’s hard to stop smelling the blend of gardenia, jasmine and butter. The light gold liquor is enchanting, drawing you in for a sip, allowing you to appreciate it’s medium body and light creaminess that coats the tongue. The freshest of BaoZhong tastes of nothing but honeyed flowers. After a few infusions it loses some of that sheen and takes on a lovely seriousness. If the tea is more than few months old, Baozhong begins to taste much more like a vegetal green tea.

The way BaoZhong is made, every step results in a lighter, gentler, and greener oolong. First harvesters pluck tender leaves that are larger than most green teas but not as big or tough as most oolongs. Then the leaves are withered in the sun, but only briefly (15-30 minutes), where they wilt and begin to develop some of their aromas. After withering indoors for an additional half day, the leaves are placed in a heated tumbler resembling a clothes dryer. The hot air completely fixed the leaves, preserving their green color. The partially fixed leaves are then rolled. Since they are so tender, they cannot withstand the pressure needed to twist them into the more common oolong ball shape. Instead, the leaves are rolled into tight coiled twists. The twisted leaves are left to oxidize, but only for a short time and only to 10 or 20 percent. Finally, the tea is fired only to stop the oxidation and to dry the tea for preservation.

One of the oldest Taiwanese oolongs, BaoZhong grows just outside bustling Taipei. The gardens lie to the south of the city, in a quiet mountainside spot where the air is clear of urban smog and mist almost always cloaks the gardens. For over 120 years, almost the length of Taiwanese tea history, the tiny town of PingLing has devoted itself to making BaoZhong for Chinese expatriates around the Pacific Rim. When the Japanese occupied Taiwan during World War II, they sent BaoZhong from Singapore to Saigon to Manila, often in beautiful paper wrappings decorated with lovely, intricate stamps.

PingLing is so tea centered, it boats several tea factories, a tea museum, and even streetlights shaped like teapots. Restaurants here serve wonderful foods cooked in BaoZhong tea: pork belly braised in it, fresh trout poached in it, even tea puddings sweetened with BaoZhong and condensed milk. Before you cook with it, get to know its delicate floral flavors.

Harney day! I’m sitting here at the Soho tasting room, and I ordered a pot of his tea because I couldn’t resist the description. This tea definitely smells floral in a very oolongy way… Not like true florals or scented teas, but light, vegetal florals. I agree with others that the flavor is buttery and vegetal, but I think it definitely retains some of the florals. It doesn’t have that sweet note at the end of the sip really, but as it cools the florals come out a bit more. A very smooth and tasty tea, definitely!

As a side note, I got some of their tea-flavored macarons, and they are delicious. Not quite as technically good as Laduree in Paris, but the flavors are great. Jasmine, rose, and sencha with raspberry today.

My eternal gratitude to ASHMANRA for introducing me to this tea by sending me a beautifully packaged sample.

It has all of the spring-like vegetal qualities of the best green teas, but the spicy quality is the one that most captures and enraptures me. It’s almost as if somebody has grated a touch of fresh cinnamon and nutmeg into this tea. This is the kind of tea that has launched a thousand ships! It’s meditative and wise, if that makes any sense. It’s like the wise uncle of a capricious little Buddha child.

This is not a tea to just slurp up and run with; it’s a tea to gaze at and to swirl around in your mouth, and to sit still and appreciate it.

Thank you!

Thank you, ashmanra for this lovely tea!

I am an oolong lover, so when I received this tea in a swap, I was thrilled! It’s scent when dry is very much like that of a lilac in full bloom. It smells very floral.

Once steeped, the floral scent is still there, but it is deeper and richer. The taste, while slightly floral, tastes much more vegetal, like steeped vegetables more than flowers. It’s a deceiving tea. Your nose tells you to expect one thing and your mouth receives another. This is not a floral tasting tea. Moving on… the taste, in addition to being vegetal, has a very nice, grounded oolong base. It’s ever so slightly earthy, yet smooth. There’s a touch of a roasted flavor in this one.

Thank you, ashmanra!

The aroma is extremely complex. While descriptions give it lilac I certainly note it’s gardenia counterpart. There’s a buttery sweetness to the aroma here as well as a hint of stewed chard.

The flavor is creamy, coating the tongue and mouth. A slight astringent bite when you breathe in is left to tease the senses. This tea certainly knows how to play!

While not very bold, this tea’s subtle pleasures and unique aromas and textures provide for a very interesting brew. I’d recommend this tea for Oolong fans of all kinds, enthusiasts of darker green teas such as Gyokuro or lighter ones such as Pi Lo Chun should find this an equally pleasing brew.

A very nice oolong. This one has been sitting in my desk drawer for awhile at work and this morning seemed like the day to sample. It is light and buttery and floral with the first steep. Even on a busy morning when the tea has grown cold it continues to have a lovely flavor. I think I even abused it with using a water temp that should have been too hot. I must thank Ashmanra for sending me this sample.

Steeped this tea 4 or 5 times and each steeping delivered amazing taste. Tea has yellowish light green color and had a buttery flavor that tasted of flowered honey. Its flavor kept making me go back for more.