High Mountain Gui Fei Oolong Tea, Lot 432

I brewed this at 97C with 5gr, first in a 150 ml porcelain gaiwan with steeps starting at 45 seconds and then in a 75 ml yixing pot with steeps starting at 20 seconds. I think it responded slightly better to the latter, bringing out the spice notes, but both very pleasant. Full of sweet spices, baked peaches, lychee and citrus peel with a very long and lingering aftertaste that is distinctly a bug-bitten note.

1st steep of 1 minute: almost smelling cinnamon from cup. Very light, sweet flavour. Very subtle flavour with short steep time.

2nd steep of 1 minute 45 seconds: roasty oolong scent. Slightly deeper flavour, not quite as light, but still light for drinking.

3rd steep of 3 minutes: roastier still and even more lovely. This may be my favourite steep.

Taiwan Tea Crafts is amazing. I have so many black and oolong teas from them that I haven’t even opened yet, but already I want to place another order. I can’t say enough good about them!

If you over steep this tea, this is what you would taste: Imagine taking two day old tree bark removed from someones backyard and accidentally fell in your only cup of Sprite you were going to drink that week. Well, you forgot to dump it out and left it there as you and a friend laughed so it went flat. A few days later you take the bark out and notice the liquid is darker so you are as weird as this guy named Andrew and strain the liquid to make a woodsy soup. Noticing that it taste like a roasted/woodsy oolong, you realize you created an over steeped gui fei.

Anyways: This tea is suppose to be similar to what happens when honey notes meet an interesting oriental beauty, but something is lost in translation; the truth is, these are my taste buds and I am not a fan of oriental beauty. The flavors are a bit confusing when you brew this the way I find best, being 30s steeps. This tea just has this odd mixture of woodsy notes that taste like someone tried to sweeten bark. Not for me.

A very nice deep honey flavored gui Fei oolong. Fairly sweet, just a touch of roast.

After resting these balled up tea leaves in a preheated gaiwan, the dry leaves emanate a rich scent of honeyed tropical fruits, magnolias and irises.

After the first infusion, the wet leaves give an intense and sweet floral aroma, like osmanthus and roses, with a huge splash of candied apples. The tea flavor is incredibly lush, fulling my mouth with the taste of passion fruits and plums. I have never had a tea this incredibly lush in flavor and yet clean tasting with not a hint of bitterness or over-roasting. As the wet leaves cool in the gaiwan, their scent sweetens and shifts from primarily floral to primarily that of (almost sickly sweet) candied fruits, mostly peach or nectarine. The sweetness lingers.

The second infusion tastes more floral, with strong notes of apple and honey. There’s a hint of dryness this time and the lingering taste is of apple peels.

In later infusions the floral note became a more subdued orchid and the roasted flavors came out more.

This tea is one of the best I’ve ever had. Taiwan Tea Crafts has some kind of spell on me. At first I couldn’t stop myself coming back for their unique and amazing selection of teawares, now I’m swooning over their teas, the more samples Phillip sends me with my orders!

Tip: brew this tea at 205F. I tried it at 196F as well and the flavor was nowhere near as bold or complex.