Huang Guanyin (Yellow Goddess) Wuyi Rock Oolong Tea

Gongfu!

Steeped this one earlier in the afternoon! Earlier this week I got some tea mail with several oolong and black teas that Teavivre was kind enough to gift me. I couldn’t resist diving into the Jasmine Black Dragonballs immediately to steep grandpa style, but this is the first of the samples I’ve sat down with to brew gongfu and it’s really lovely! Though a bit more nutty and mineral with heavier roast in the early infusions, I love how this oolong settles into something more floral but still with that darkness to it. The thing that came to mind was, like, if you grilled a rose? Delicious and super accessible!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc8gHILO8oR/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv1k4HQk7k4&ab_channel=LimeCordiale-Topic

TL;DR: A roastier version of Teavivre’s Honey Orchid Oolong, in the best way

This tea is seriously fantastic. It starts off quite floral in scent, and then has a roasted quality in the steep to go a long wit it. It works really well in terms of the flavor to have the roast and the floral mix in the mouth. Definitely a floral aftertaste. Has some stone fruit-type sweetness, maybe some darker brown sugar. It also has a great mouthfeel, but it mostly is a component of the floral scent that stays in the palette.

6 g of leaf in a Gongfu2Go (150 mL), for 10 seconds-ish per steep. Then added as needed as it got a bit weaker.

I was very curious about this tea. You all know how the descriptions can catch your eye, and you think – HMMMPH- what’s -—- taste like? In this case, ORCHID, they don’t smell, they are not fragrant flowers, so???? HIGH FRAGRANCE, lightly roasted and somewhat sweet rock tea. The second brew, less fragrance less sweet and fell flat… I’m still figuring this one out, (I’m glad it was a sample) I wasn’t that impressed because it came on strong and left me hanging with a blank WTHeck?

This is an intensely fragrant tea, smelling like very dark chocolate and flowers. The taste is, for the most part, very different from the dry aroma: roasted, charcoal, and tobacco flavors mixed with savory grains, plus a mild sharpness at the back of my throat that reminds me of black pepper. Sometimes I get some fruity notes out of this tea, but not this time. The mouthfeel starts out thick and sticks to the back of my throat, but it gets thin fairly quickly and starts feeling more rough and roasty. Early infusions have a minty cooling sensation in the finish that I usually only get in green oolongs. It’s still present in later infusions, but it’s more subtle.

I have mixed feelings about this tea. I prefer oolongs that are roasted but don’t actually smell or taste very roasty, so I’m not a fan of how dominant the roast notes are here, and the mouthfeel thins out a little too quickly. I was also disappointed when I got this that nothing I did produced tea with a taste or aroma that compared to that of the dry leaves. However, I have had good sessions with this tea, when it tastes sweeter and more fruity. If you like roasty tasting oolongs, this is a good value, but it’s not really my kind of tea.

151/365

I love this one, entirely unexpectedly. It’s not really like any oolong I’ve tried before, tasting mostly like brown sugar with the tiniest hint of wet wood and a background hint of charcoal. It has a pleasing caramel smoothness, and is nowhere near as mineral as I was expecting given that it’s a rock oolong. It reminds me most of some of the more upmarket roasted oolongs I’ve tried from LP’s group buys, although the flavour profile is unique even by those standards.

The sweetness develops as this one cools, so it tastes almost like brown sugar spooned straight from a fresh bag. It overtakes the woody smokiness completely, but there’s also the beginnings of a menthol-like coolness in the aftertaste – not super powerful, but there nonetheless.

I’m impressed with this one – unique and delicious!

A good base to enter the family of rock tea, not very pronounced with a slight torefaction, tea that on the whole and quite round in the mouth.

roast, light bitterness, mellow, round, tobacco, toast, something that evokes heat, plus a flowering touch as a last infusion.

Gongfucha 100°c 8 infu 5/10/15/20/30 Secondes, 1/2/4 min

Well, the smell is good, very good actually. The appearance is promising too: it looks like a typical rock oolong with coal-black fat leaves. But the smell what is the best about this tea: very intense, malty, baked bread with the strong notes of rose and sweet fruit like apricots. And all of these fragrances blend together extremely well. It feels good just to savor the smell: it is so uplifting and comforting. This tea is a pick-me-up-when-I’m-down kind for me.

That is another way to say that the taste is not nearly that remarkable: the pale yellow-orange liquid has as the main component maltiness, mineral and some lingering rather sophisticated bitterness. It is the kind of tea that you have stop whatever you are doing and pay your full and undivided attention to get all the nuances besides the maltiness , which makes it a tea for special moods: quite contemplation, wakefulness, introspection.

A good tea but not for everyone and not for every day.

My five free samples from Teavivre came in the mail yesterday, and I was really craving a roasted oolong so I brewed this one up. The flavor is fairly nice. Mineral, red clay, roasted barley, and ripe plum flavors with an unripe plum tang and astringency. Slightly burnt tasting though. The aroma however is awesome! My cha hai smells of osmanthus and daffodil flowers, burning candle warmth, and something being baked with lots of butter and brown sugar.

This is a nicely aromatic and economical Wuyi oolong with very “warm” tastes and aromas.

I do wish the roast was a little more subtle. I’ve read that a little aging can help heavily roasted oolongs to “calm down” a bit; perhaps this one would benefit from that.

2023 Ode To Tea – Part II – H

Not a sipdown, but I chose an ‘H’ tea that I tend to ignore because I really don’t reach for roasted oolongs. Of course, Teavivre probably has the best roasted oolongs, but they are still probably lost on me. This one is aging well, at least! It was actually more enjoyable than I would have thought. Either I haven’t had this type of tea in a WHILE or my tastes are changing. I doubt that. I think Teavivre just has a really solid tea here, much like most of their other offerings.

This tea was surprisingly nice. The leaves are frail with sweet roasted scents of caramel, roasted fruits, plum, and tobacco. I grabbed my wee lil jianshui and warmed it up. The sauna’d leaves give off distinct roasted oats, dark wood, and a burnt sugar aroma. I was really diggin this tea. I washed the leaves once and began my steepin. The taste was of sweet nectar with some mild roast underneath. The base was heavy brown sugar and a yielded a nice oily aftertaste. Also, I noted a hidden peach tone that peeped up later on. This was really good, and I liked this tea. The price is superb, and this makes a wonderful daily drinker.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRemBKmgf3I/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel&hl=en