Tan Xiang Oolong, Traditional Dong Ding Oolong Tea

Second tasting…thanks to Fong Mong Tea!

I have a new iPad…woo hoo! Bound to happen that I’d come home to Apple. My first computer was a Mac. I lived in Cupertino (Home of Apple) and worked off and on in Apple offices (not uncommon in Silicon Valley). After 4.5 years with a HP Laptop I’ve seen the light.
Yes, I have to pay for it over time…but it had to be done soon. My computer was whimpering, letting me know that a fatal crash was imminent.
My tea drinking is more like work today. I hate that!!!
In the middle of transfering ‘stuff’ from the HP to an external hard drive (for my iPad), setting up all the things I need on the iPad, erasing my personal ‘Stuff’ from my Kindle Fire to give to my granddaughter :) my tea review is going to sound aweful!

Sorry Fong Mong Tea!

Why didn’t I choose a crappy tea on a mentally challenging day? After all, my abilities are slow…really slow!
On stressful or busy days, everyone needs good tea!
Crappy tea fails to make you feel better.
Bad tea never stops you cold in your tracks and reminds you to take a second and reflect…
“Uh huh…I can do this task…I am drinking a very floral tea with a cool mint undertone that is wonderful. This is a tea I remember liking before…sweet and fruity.”
This is what I did.
I drank a really good tea on a stressful day! I drank several small steepings and smiled at the sweet floral flavor.

Then I went on with some clarity to finish more of my iPad setup.
I’m a step closer to a blog.

Fong Mong asked me if I liked dark oolongs before they sent this. I told them sure (I didn’t really know). Right now I am hoping it was not a mistake. I do love Yamamotoyama and Foo Joy Wuyi oolongs in bag form so I am not really too concerned.

I used half the six gram sample for my tasting. The leaf is rolled tight but not as tiny as the blue jade. It has a light smoked aroma. I held the first steep to 3 minutes. The liquid is clear and dark yellow. The wet leaf is dark green and smells ominously charcoal smoked.

The sip – interesting! Not nearly as roasted as it smells. It actually impressed me as more green than smoked. The taste has almost a honey like quality about it. The aftertaste has a neat cooling thing going on like mint or menthol but it is not in the taste. It is just a sensation. As the cup cools the sip becomes a bit creamy.

On cup two, also at 3 minutes, the leaf has relaxed enough to reveal some stems. How were they able to roll 2” long stems into those tiny little pellets? I am noticing the oolong floral notes coming through especially in the aftertaste.

The third cup @ 4 minutes is milder as the flavor is fading. The cooling sensation is actually more noticeable at this point.

There is some resemblance between this and the bagged Wuyi oolongs I have enjoyed in the past. Really, they are only a shadow of what is going on in this tea. It is as if you took the flavor knife and lopped off the ends, then cut what was left in half and discarded the bright happy side of the flavor. I say that, all the while admitting I like those bagged teas. Now that I know what I am missing, I am not as likely to rush into restocking them. I have no idea if this is a good quality example of this type tea. What I do know is I think it is really good.

It brings up a question in my mind. Why do I like the roasted/smoked taste in greens and oolongs but not so much in black teas? I have no answer other than preconceived ideas of how I expect a tea to taste.

Steeped 6 grams of leaf (full sample packet) in 2 cups (500ml) of water at 195 degree for 6 minutes.

I want to note that to me, the minty sensation others are getting does not come across to me as “minty” but more as a cooling sensation. When you take a sip, wait a few moments, then open your mouth and suck in some air, there is this breezy cooling feeling that ices over the inside of the mouth a little bit. Is that the minty sensation others are getting? I do not taste mint but FEEL it.

I absolutely taste the charcoal roasty flavor, very nice. Sort of tastes like a camp fire that has been allowed to slowly smolder out over the course of an evening when you wake up the next day and all that is left is a little smoke slowly lifting from the ashes.

The aroma of the dry leaf to me smelled of milk – slightly warm milk.

There is a creamy texture and mouthfeel to the steeped tea, and a milk flavor as well.

Only a slight vegetal flavor is present.

A light sweetness is present.

After taste lingers in the mouth nicely leaving a rock mineral flavor behind.

There is a juicy erupting throat feel to this tea – we often speak of mouthfeel but this tea has a throat feel as well. As if you just bit into a ripe juicy peach or apple and it has shot down your throat a little surprising you.

Mild sensation of drying in the mouth once the after taste dissipates which I find typical of most oolong tea.

Over all this is one of the finer oolongs I have sampled. It is unique yet true to what I think an oolong should be. Oolongs are my favorite guilty pleasures which I tend to save for moments I can take some ME time.

A very nice tea – thank you Fong Mong Tea for the sample!

I’m finally starting to feel human! YAY!

As for this tea…I’m really liking it! I don’t think it’s one of the more intense charcoal-oolongs I have tried but I still appreciate the process regardless.

This is sweet and cooling to the system!

OH! There it is! There’s the charcoal! It took approx 4 to 5 mins at room temp after infusion was complete – not at the beginning of the sip or the end of the sip – but – right smack dab in the middle of the sip! It’s not over powering but much more noticeable than it was at first sip almost immediately after infusing.

I’m not picking up on the ‘minty’ sensation others are referring to – probably because I take MINT literally as I am a MINT FREAK. I can taste how it is cooling, tho! That’s a neat characteristic!

As it cools even more at room temp – a bit warmer than luke-warm – I can start tasting a semi-nutty flavor at the beginning of the sip-process!

This is a neat tea that morphs and changes often! That’s what I like about it!

It has taken me way too long to get around to reviewing these samples that FONG MONG TEA graciously sent me to review. Sorry FONG MONG TEA! I really wish that I had gotten to this tea sooner… It is amazing… Really!

The little gold sample packet was nicely packed with dark green rolled leaves. The green was so dark and deep that it looked almost black, like a forest in the moonlight. The scent was deliciously sweet. It smelled of hints of honey with pine-nuts. Just in case you aren’t familiar with pine-nuts, they smell and taste nothing like pine trees, but more like a mix of walnuts and cashews… It was nuttier and smoother smelling than most oolongs. The scent was thick and inviting with undeniable sweetness.

Once steeped, the tea was a golden color with a tint of olive green. It smelled delicious, with the honey notes becoming more prominent without overcoming the nuttiness of the oolong. I couldn’t wait to sip it. Something about it seemed almost magical.

The first thing that struck me the most was that as soon as I sipped it, my mouth was filled with a sweet nutty flavor. It is the sweetest tea I have tasted so far. Absolutely surreal. I really had never experienced a tea that could fool me into thinking that sugar had been added… I am pleasantly shocked by the sweetness in each sip! I taste a tiny hint of smokiness towards the end of each sip, adding depth to the natural nuttiness of the Oolong.

Also unique and worth mentioning is the cooling sensation at the end of each sip, almost like what you feel after sipping peppermint tea. It is a great combination of flavors and sensations. It is by far the most unique tea I have tasted so far. Delicious and surprising all at once.

My taste-buds feel like they just came back from a SPA all pampered and relaxed. I think that this Oolong should be tasted by anyone who is a fan of Oolongs or sweeter teas. You really need to try it… Trust me… :)

This one is good, it steeped up a light color with a vegetal aroma but the taste was very refreshing and bold almost floral at first with charcoal baked flavors come out after the second steep. Not my favorite but still quite nice. I didn’t pick up any minty notes that others are getting. What I got was this is a nice Dong Ding and I would enjoy a cup anytime :-)

This sample courtesy of Fong Mong Tea – thank you!

Steeped 3 grams of leaves for 6 minutes at about 187º. This produced a lovely honey-gold colored liquid. I can smell the roasted veggies, and the taste reminds me of roasted asparagus. Delicious! There’s a slight coolness that fills my mouth after the roastiness subsides – fun!

Resteeped at 190º for another 6 minutes the roastiness is still here, but a tad less so now.

The third infusion is probably where I’ll draw the line. The taste is still there, but falling to the point where I won’t peruse it more.

Thanks again to Fong Mong Tea for sharing a sample of this tasty tea!

So I messed up… The original review that I posted for this tea was actually for Peony Tea’s Dong Ding Oolong (my bad). I got my dong dings mixed up like the ding dong I sometimes am. Anywho…

This is fantastic! I can really taste the difference between the charcoal baked oolong and the dong dings that I have tried that aren’t. This one really brings out some pleasant earthy tones and provides delicious smokey hints. I got a cute little teacup with a basket for my birthday (as well as a cast iron teapot, which I didn’t bring to work so have not yet tried…), and I made 7 cups with the same leaves and made myself pee 12 times today because I could not stop re-steeping this tea…

Thanks to Fong Mong Tea for this sample!

I’ve been on a bit of an oolong kick lately, but at the moment my permanent collection is mostly greens and herbals. I dug through my sample box until I found the last one from Fong Mong.

The leaves are dark brown and tightly rolled, and there are little stems mixed in with the leaves. It smells dark and kind of earthy, (the word “snail” comes to mind) but I’m also getting the feeling of seaweed, like ocean rocks covered in bracken and barnacles.

Steeped 6g/10oz, 180deg, 3min.

It tastes dark to me. There’s an earthiness, woodsiness to it that I’m not entirely fond of. I can certainly taste the charcoal flavoring here. I think it’s just my personal preference for the lighter, greener oolongs speaking. I’m also getting some honey notes and a toastiness not unlike a genmaicha.

All in all, it satisfied my oolong craving, but it’s not something I have a burning desire to keep in my collection.

Dry leaf smells a lot like roasted seaweed.

Buttery hints on the sip. Roasted and seaweed after-taste. Very slight saltiness in the background. Hints of floral on the finish. Reminiscent of a full green tea flavour.

I am personally not a fan of teas that remind me of salt but I love the roasted seaweed flavour coming out of this one.

For the second infusion, I increased the infusion time by about 1 minute. All of the flavours from the first infusion seem more subtle with an added oolong creaminess that comes out a bit. I think that I’m getting that minty-cooling feeling in my throat as the tea cools. I didn’t find it to be very apparent in the first one (I thought that I may have feeling it only because I had read about it so much). Buttery and vegetal qualities.

This tea would not likely do well past the third infusion.