Magnolia Oolong

I was reading the water sourcing thread in the discussions, and it made me start to question the water I use for making my tea. See, I have a sink in my office that bascially was never used before I moved in, but the water that comes out of the regular tap is disgusting, often slightly brown or yellow. Also it is clearly extremely hard because a slow drip has left the inside of the black sink covered in a whitish scale that doesn’t respond to any kind of acid. I wouldn’t even want to drink it after running it through a Brita filter. My whole time here I have always drank the deionized water that comes out of the other tap; it’s clear and tastes fine. It’s also what I use to make all of my teas. But deionized and/or distilled water is supposed to be really bad for making tea because it’s very “flat”, lacking dissolved ions from minerals and such. I find it hard to believe that the water I am using is very deoxygenated because it comes out of the faucet with such pressure that it must immediately reoxygenate itself, and I don’t know for a fact that the water is truly deionized; someone in my department tested it from a different faucet and found that the pH was off from neutral. Anyway, I started thinking about how it would affect my tea, so I wanted to try a back to back with it and some bottled water I had left over at home from the “hurricane” a few months ago. I wanted to try a somewhat delicate tea I thought might show off the differences, so not a heavy black or something, but also a tea that was inexpensive enough and that I had in a large enough quantity. This fit the bill, so it will be my guinea pig tea.

All of these cups are brewed identically except for the water source (new leaves each time of course), so I’m putting them all in this note. First, the “deionized” water from the tap. This is my baseline, so right now it just tastes like it always does. Floral, a bit vegetal. When I had this tea a while ago it was still early in my oolong journey, and coming back to it now is interesting; the buttery sweetish flavor that I really love finding is only very faintly present. I do still really enjoy how floral this is and the magnolia, which is such a lush, rich floral.

Next, bottled water (Dasani, “purified and enhanced with minerals”). Can I tell a difference? Yes. Is it super dramatic? I am relieved to say no, not to me. The flavor is a bit brighter, somehow, like this water brought out the “greenish” notes more. I can’t even say that I prefer this water; I like the bolder florals I got with the first cup. Also I can kind of tell that this bottled water is harder than my DI tap water, but the extra minerals weren’t necessarily an improvement to my tastes. Like I said, I don’t know that the water is actually deionized that’s coming out of my tap, so it may not be as “flat” as it normally would be, but I don’t think it’s seriously affecting the taste of my teas, and that’s really what I wanted assurance of.

Loose
Appearance: bi color light, medium brown bicolor oolong kernel
Aroma when Dry: floral, sour fruity
After water is first poured: honeysuckle, fruity notes
At end of first steep: honeysuckle, fruity notes, peach, apricot
Tea liquor:
At end of first steep: clear
Staple? likely
Preferred time of day: any
Taste:
At first ?: sharp, floral, sour, mineral notes
As it cools?: tea gets bodied, brothy, notes open up and mellow slightly
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? barely, hints of salty broth

Second Steep (3 min):
At first: Brothy, floral, salty
As it cools: notes mellow, tea gets deeply bodied

Thanks KiwiDelight for the sample! I am fond of oolongs and love the smell of magnolia blossoms so I was very curious about this tea! I agree with other reviewers that 1 tbs seems like a LOT of tea. I wish I had only used a tsp or 2 in my cup! I feel like this would be MUCH better if I had done that. I like the floral scent and sweetness of it but I’m getting a heavy almost bitter taste from the vast amount of tea leaves I used! I may rate this differently if I try it again with a different amount of leaves…

Freaky, I thought I tea logged this?

Anyways, I got a sample of this from Kasumi no Chajin, yay ty!
First time, I cold steeped it. Very very good! I saved the rest of the sample for a hot round, which did not happen. The last of my sample is me drinking it as another cold steep.
So good! I love the floral in this tea – its like jasmine but much better as it is also sweet and light. Why isn’t there more magnolia teas? The oolong is so crisp and refreshing and the cold steep works very well!
Gah, I should of tried this hot! Oh well, I might just have to order some myself!

I had bought this nearly three years ago, when I was still a newbie to pure loose tea. To finish it up quickly, I cold-brewed the remainder. Surprisingly, it still held up event though it was a couple years old (???).

As far as an oolong of which I know nothing about – except the fact that it’s rolled and seems to have gone through ~35% oxidation – I found this delicious cold-brewed and then poured on ice. A simple scented oolong suited this brewing method. The flavor profile isn’t complex: sweetly floral and light, very refreshing and hypothetically relieving for the summer heat (I drank it in an icy office the entire time hehe).

Got this in a swap from KiwiDelight. I figured I would probably be into it because I love oolongs and floral teas, and I was right. The floral taste is very similar to jasmine, like the description states. It’s also very naturally sweet. I will probably buy some of this for my stash, I think I’d like to try it again with a little more dry leaf for a stronger flavor.