Yellow Gold Oolong (Huang Jin Gu Wu Long)

The number of varietals of oolongs out there will never cease to amaze me. I got a sample of this one from KittyLovesTea, thanks! I’ve never tried a Huang Jin Gu oolong, unless of course it has another name, which is totally possible.

While it was steeping the most amazing buttery, sweet, floral aroma was wafting out of the cup. It smells amazing and its making it hard to wait until it is cool enough to drink. The flavor is less sweet and buttery than it smelled, but it is still pretty floral, with a lot more leafy vegetal notes coming out. It’s a little sugar snap pea, but not quite so sweet, more like sauteed leafy greens with lilacs. Fresh and green and pleasant.

Oolong, Oolong the song of my life
Will it be bitter or will it be nice?
Oolong, Oolong will you be true?
Please be tasty because I love you.

Alright enough randomness for the time being. Lets get down to the review.

The raw tea consists of small loosely rolled leaves that are dark and light green in colour. They smell very sweet and vegetal but unusual in a way … not good or bad just … well different.

Two teaspoons worth are placed into my gongfu with just below boiling water poured over the top and left to steep for 3 minutes. This is as the instructions state on the package.

Once steeped the tea soup creates a yellow gold colour with a sweet pea almost peony like scent.

Funnily enough it tastes as it smelt raw … very hard to put my finger on it. It is sweet, vegetal, a little floral but it’s something I cannot describe exactly. Is it turnip like? Swede? Butternut? Like I said it’s hard to define but it’s not your average Oolong vegetal taste that’s for sure.

The sweetness advances with a touch of the roasted vegetables and it smooths itself out quickly and before you know it the flavour has gone. Maybe that means I can add misty to it’s description. The more I drink the more I like it and start to taste it’s strength a little better.

Very delicious.

I had a lot off this oolong when i first tryed out the oolong sub-category but i kind off lost its magic. Don’t get me wrong i love this tea, but if i need to choose in the green oolong category i’m going for ali shan!

But i’m going to give a heads up about this tea. The leaves are rolled beautifully in tiny balls or pellets. When they unfurl they are pretty big in size and give a nice light green brew. I’m usually getting about 4 cups out off one teaspoon of these tiny balls of tea. Western style brew that is first cup 2 min and then i’m upping the brew time each time by one min.

Taste wise this is very refreshing and with alot off citrus hints like the discription says. Its nice and fresh but i’m missing the special quality’s i’m getting in a ali shan oolong…

But its a great tea for its price, very great indeed! To bad my taste buds are choosing for a more expensive oolong these days! Maybe because i drank about 200 gram off this tea in the last year or so… don’t know but well tastes changes over time!

I find this tea to be clean and bright with a nice floral tone but lacking in any real depth. It is however a great tea to serve to people who’ve never really adventured much away from generic tea bags; it show how naturally sweet and flowery tea can be and is unlikely to elicit any strong dislikes. It also has pretty tolerant brewing paramaters so is easy enough for the uninitiated to brew.

Had this at a cafe, and I tell you…the main difference between making tea at home and going out to a cafe is the preparation. They dumped boiling water on top of this, turning the liquor into a musky, dank, mustardy cup of gross. Maybe I’ll sample this on my own one day, but it’s highly unlikely.

took a while for me to get the hang of making this, but now that i have i love it! tasty and mellow.