Taiwanese High Mountain (Gaoshan) Oolong

Spring cleaning day at home, mostly because we have someone coming to stay with us for a week so our house had to look presentable. Now that it’s mostly done, I am relaxing with this tea from the Verdant Reserve club package from March.

I typically like Taiwan high mountain oolongs, but I don’t typically looooove them. They should be among my favorites (I love floral, green oolongs) but they are typically maybe a little too green for me. Of course I was still very excited to try this one from Verdant. The dry leaves are tight little balls and smell fresh and green and floral, and an interesting, almost licorice note comes out when the are warmed. After a brief rinse, the leaves smell vegetal and floral, like I would expect from a Taiwan high mountain. The flavor of the first steep is like sugar snap peas and very sweet corn, with a floral aftetaste of light lilacs.

Later steepings were much more vegetal, light leafy greens with florals dancing around the edges. The leaves have expanded so much that I am no longer getting that much liquid out of the pot.

This is a very good example of a Taiwanese High Mountain oolong. Like I said before, I tend to like these teas but not love them, and this one fits the pattern. A pleasant and very spring-y tea that makes me look forward to upcoming nicer weather!

I know i’ve had this one before, but apparently my tasting note is gone. Another tea i was drinking in an effort to try and drink my reserve club teas that I’ve been hoarding. While i don’t generally want anything to do with green oolongs, this is a relatively decent green oolong. It’s lacking that weird oolongy taste that i hate and there’s a sweetness to this that is quite delicious!

In the first steepings there were those floral notes…waiting to come out, which they did more so in the later steepings. It’s those later steepings i really didn’t like. too floral and vegetal for my tastes. If every steep tasted like the first one, i’d be golden haha. As such, I think i will pass the rest of this on to a tea friend to try out :) especially since there aren’t very many reviews of this one on steepster

My friend Lisa is visiting & she picked out one of my Gaiwans & said, “What can we brew in this?”. That particular Gaiwan is one I like to use for the greener oolongs in my collection, so I handed her the box & said pick something. This is the one she selected, & we spent the next 30 – 45 minutes laughing, sipping, & enjoying this tea together.

Admittedly, I’m not as big of a fan of the greener oolongs. It’s not that I don’t like them, there is nothing about them that I dislike. That just don’t excite me as much as other teas do. But I do have a quite a few of them, this one being a remnant from the Verdant Reserve TOMC, which I really enjoyed being a member of.

This tea is delicate, with a light bread like taste, some buttery-ness, & lilac florals. There is just enough of this for one more session, & I’ve started a new Sipdown Extravaganza box, for some future sip down event, so into the box it goes!

This was one of the teas I took to work today. i don’t normally do well with green oolongs, but as I always say – if someone (Sil) is generous enough to send me a tea, I’m willing to try it. I was really expecting to drink a cup or so and then move onto something else. I actually drank this all day. Not something I would buy more of, but definitely better than I was expecting.
There wasn’t much floral to this one, wasn’t too grassy, didn’t have that weird green oolong taste that most of them have. For my tastes this was more green tea than lightly oxidized oolong.
Thanks so much Sil for sending this to me, different experience in green oolong – I learned something today.