Ginseng Oolong

I love ginseng oolong, and Mandala’s offering is a good one. Had several infusions this morning. After about four 15-second infusions in the gaiwan, the ginseng coating fully yielded to the unfolding tea leaves. The flavor is as Mandala describes, “slightly sweet and always satisfying”. The expected licorice-root sweetness is present, especially in the beginning when the ginseng is dissolving, and especially in the aftertaste. It’s not as strong on the sweet side as some others I’ve tried, but that’s fine with me. I feel I can count on this tea to be reliably enjoyable.

I’m curious about the origin of the oolong used for this tea, and think I’ll probably ask the owner of Mandala Tea if he knows. I recently tried an exquisite example of ginseng oolong that was made, I believe, with high quality Dong Ding. That was superb! But cost-prohibitive. Also had the chance to try the same Dong Ding without ginseng coating and it was so good by itself that you’d wonder whether using it to make a flavored oolong was really a good idea…

Anyway, this Ginseng Oolong from Mandala Tea is delicious, and will be good to have with me through the cold Minneapolis winter.

Drank this one Gongfu on my first day back in the office, post vacation, while I caught up on the 100+ emails that I had received since I’d left. It’s good to have a nice tea to sip on while doing something annoying like responding to that many emails…

Thanks to Kawaii433, I was able to try my first ginseng oolong :)

I was amused by the dry goods because they looked like aquarium pebbles that smelled like ginseng and syrup. With the Mandala-recommended rinse, the pebbles hadn’t yet cracked open but they smelled of ginseng and cooked vegetables and greens.

After the rinse, I did 7 steeps western style at 30/30/30/40/50/60/? seconds. It started off really pleasant, with a nectar sweetness and light ginseng-herbs. The nuggets finally cracked open in the second steep and were fully unfurled by the fourth. The brew stayed pleasant with its nectar and ginseng-herbal qualities. It had some light oolong grassiness, hay impressions and butteriness came forward in the mouth and the aftertaste. The tea made me really warm!

I was hesitant about approaching this tea since I’ve read some reviews about ginseng oolong being very vegetal and obnoxiously sweet from licorice root mixed into the ginseng coating. That was definitely not the case with this tea. It was very clean with no grit from the coating (what made it through my strainer settled in a very thin layer at the bottom), lightly sweet and grassy, a bit mineral. To repeat myself: light and pleasant. Very easy sipping. Thanks again, Kawaii433.

Talk about root overload hehe. I’m eating a big bowl of congee with tons of ginger and been drinking Ginseng oolong along with it.

After I finished my Ginseng Oolong sample, I had bought some more so I can enjoy it often. Nothing really to add to my previous review except it is a really good Ginseng Oolong and once the little nuggets open up, you get steeps of really good Oolong.

Porcelain gaiwan, 6g, 110 ml, 10 steeps, 25s, 35s, 45s, 55s, 1m5s, 1m15s, 1m25s, 1m35s, 1m45s, 1m55s

Sipdown. I was never able to reproduce that great first impression.

It takes a couple of infusions to start to unfurl, but I was still finding unfurled oolong during later steeps. Steeps were gritty from ginseng powder and I felt that it overpowered the tea. Pretty sure I don’t like it as well as I thought. Sweet, almost overly so, eventually drying at end. Dropping my rating. 80

Tried this one out a few days ago but didn’t find anything particularly pleasing about it. Trying again and on this beautiful morning where that gorgeous MN blue sky is finally showing itself, I am finally tasting what I had hoped. Even so it’s still not quite as strong of an after taste as I like. Just a lot more faint then I am used to. Good base. Some creamy flavors and textures. Hay. Grass. After the ginseng oolong I had in China I haven’t really found one that compares. But unlike that one I think this one has a better leaf. And yea…. The resteepablility is amazing.

This is the first decent quality ginseng oolong I’ve tried. The last one I got was from an Asian market, and all the ginseng powder just disintegrated into my pot and there wasn’t much actual tea. It wasn’t all that great. So… gongfu, water just under boiling, 1 tsp tea, 30 second steeps (as per Mandala) and increased to a minute in later steeps. The first thing I notice is the cool mouth feel and pleasant aftertaste. I can see where this would be lovely for a sore throat. Quite refreshing. I think this would make a great iced tea as well.
EDIT: I had to come back and edit this review to make the score higher. I love this tea. I lost count how many steeps I’ve done. My eyeballs are floating in tea and I’m not going to stop. You get a lot of wonderful licorice camphor bang for your buck with this tea. I don’t know if it’s possible to get tea drunk on this stuff, but I might be.