Mei Zhan

I’m starting to fall behind on my tasting notes yet again. Over the course of the past couple of days, I have been working on polishing off a lot of the samples I have received over the past 2-3 months. This oolong was one of them.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 5 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 208 F water for 5 seconds. I followed this infusion up with 10 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 8 seconds, 11 seconds, 14 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, I detected aromas of char and earth coupled with mild fruity and floral qualities. After the rinse, I detected aromas of char and earth, as well as more pronounced scents of orchid, blackberry, plums, huckleberry, dark chocolate, and roasted grain. The first proper infusion produced a similar, though slightly grainier, more chocolaty aroma. In the mouth, I picked up notes of char, earth, wood, blackberry, plums, huckleberry, dark chocolate, minerals, and roasted grain underscored by a slight floral quality. Subsequent infusions saw the floral aromas and flavors emerge in a big way. I began to detect more pronounced aromas and flavors of hibiscus and orchid, though the previously noted aromas and flavors were still very noticeable. Later infusions were very mineral and char heavy with traces of roasted grain, dark chocolate, plums, huckleberry, and oddly enough, roasted vegetables detectable in the background.

To be perfectly honest, this was both a difficult tea to rate and a difficult tea about which to write. For me, it was the sort of tea that makes in-depth analysis impossible. It more or less lets you know what to expect from the start and does not change all that much from there. All I can comfortably say here is that if you are a fan of traditional Wuyi oolongs, then you may like this on some level, but if you are not, I would urge you to look elsewhere.

Did a side by side with this and some Bai Ji. This is by far more along my taste preference. Strong mineral presence with a beautiful hue to it. Still a bit pricey for what it is since there are no complex notes occurring throughout the session. Maybe my taste is looking for fruit and sweetness in places that they don’t exist so I don’t enjoy the tea as much… but there are wuyi like teas out there with plums and stonefruits. This just seems roasty with minerals which are good, but in terms of what would I buy… Laoshan Roasted Oolong and dancongs multiple times before this again.

Although I haven’t been drinking much oolong lately, I do love wuyi oolongs and have a pretty nice collection of them. My neglect is not for lack of love, but for lack of time. I don’t really like to bring them out to play unless I have time to load up the yixing & savor cup after cup of wonderful nuance. But lately I’ve been thinking about them more, like dear friends I don’t see often. Sometimes my feeling that I don’t have enough time to drink certain teas is probably just a figment of my imagination. I mean, I’m self-employed, I’m home most of the day, unless I have a gig somewhere, and although I’m usually busy with one project or another, they are a perfect afternoon tea for me, especially when I have students coming and going, with the short steep time, the smaller cup, & the wonderful wonderfulness.

I like to preheat my yixing & then let the leaf sit in there for a minute to really release it’s aroma, and I was not disappointed from the moment I opened the lid & sniffed. ahhhh….
Tart like hibiscus, sweet, tart & juicy but slightly under-ripe stone fruits, but this tea also has a bass note that really appeals to me, because I tend to favor bolder teas. Kind of a dark unsweetened chocolate with a hint of coffee.

I started with 7G + yixing 5/8/11/15/20/25/30 seconds, then the flavor started to lighten, so I went to minutes 1/2/3 /5 Overall the flavor stayed the same throughout, just building layers & then fading down, until by the last steep, it was a mineral rich soup, with a pleasant chocolate bitterness & a little tanginess remaining.

Ensemble: Upright Bass, Bass Clarinet, Cello, Clarinet, Viola, Flute & Oboe & some high brass, sparingly. And Harp, of course! :)

A fairly floral aroma and a bit of a stonefruit taste. Nice mineral notes. There’s an aged quality to the flavor, too, despite the date of picking being May 2015. Not much of a finish. All-around a nice tea. Reminds me a bit of phoenix oolongs, though more subdued.

I’ve tried this both westren and in the gaiwan. Dry leaf smells sweet and roasted. Clean smelling. Nutty smell taste in 1st steep, little bit of sweetness. Flavor from following steeps never matured for me. I didn’t see any point in continuing with this tea.

Dark oolong with a roasted floral aroma. This tea has a rich flavor profile with notes of roasted floral, chocolate, and oranges. It is a very interesting mix of flavors.

This came as one of the TotM samples for November, along with four other wuyi style oolongs that I look forward to reviewing.

I tasted this one over the weekend so I don’t have formal notes. I provide those next time.

But I will at least say that this one caused the wife to suddenly say “you know, I’m realizing I really like these rock oolong teas”. She’s a serious tea drinker, but also “likes what she likes” and doesn’t try too many wild and crazy things, so finding a new category she knows can be a go-to is a big deal for her.

We’re looking forward to all these samples.