2018 Mr. Su Charcoal Roasted Dong Ding Oolong

The dry leaf has some long stems and is a cross between balled and what looks like machine-rolled which give the tea a rustic, textural appearance. I smell raspberries, twigs, rye toast, blackberries, walnuts, charred food, forest floor and surprisingly a floral high note. The warmed leaf gives off a sweet aroma of brown toast dipped in honey-sweetened coffee, grain, walnuts.

First steeps are fruity with red apple and pineapple, mineral, spicy with cinnamon and darker tastes of caramel and rye. I pick up on strawberry hear and there. The tea has a good body and is oily, very clean. It reminds me of an Wuyi oolong. It’s roasty but not overly so, mineral, grassy and light, even; minty. Banana leaf-unripe apricot aftertaste. The tea fades pretty quickly after the fourth infusion, ending with the eighth infusion of 1 minute revealing only a gentle caramel-grassy taste.

I brewed the remaining almost 2 grams grandpa style and the most notable aspect was a very apparent nutmeg nose!

This is on the gentler end of dong ding. The roast is really nice and doesn’t produce those intensely nutty flavors I don’t like about a lot of dong ding oolong. The tea, though, doesn’t have a lot to give. It’s a mellow cup and would be a good no-think’um daily-drink’um.

Thank you Leafhopper :)

As all of you have been exploring new teas, I’ve been trying to sip down some old ones in preparation for my massive Black Friday haul. (Nope, I’m not envious at all!) Even teas I usually like are starting to get boring, however, so I broke out this 10 g sample, which is my last remaining oolong from my 2018 order from TheTea. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot in boiling water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma of these dark, loosely rolled nuggets is of charcoal, honey, walnuts, and flowers. The first steep has notes of rye bread, caraway, honey, walnuts, grass, and charcoal. The second steep brings a heavier roast, along with caramel, more honey, flowers, berries, rhubarb, and cooked pineapple, though these flavours are more in the aroma than the tea. The bottom of the cup has a lovely cereal/honey/fruity aroma. Sadly, the fruit isn’t as apparent in the next couple steeps, and the tea veers back toward honey, cereal, charcoal, and grass. The next few steeps concentrate on the honey, grain, and nutty flavours, with the session ending with notes of wood, roast, minerals, and walnut skins.

There was a brief moment in the life of this tea when it was amazing, but otherwise, it was a fairly standard Dong Ding. However, this review is pretty subjective, since I don’t have a great palate for roasted teas. In the future, I’ll stick to TheTea’s less roasted offerings, which I’ve found to be truly fantastic.