After a long layoff, I am back again with a couple more reviews. Now that I’m slowly getting back into the swing of school, I should be able to start posting a little more regularly and get everyone who reads my stuff up to speed on more of what I have been drinking over the course of the past month. I think I finished my sample pouch of this tea sometime during the second half of May. Though I found this to be an excellent tea, I must express my irritation with it being advertised as a black tea. I get the reasoning on the part of the vendor. Though this was an oolong, it did, in fact, look, smell, and taste much more like a black tea. Still, I am notorious for (gently) calling out vendors on nonsense like this, so, for the record, there was absolutely no need to advertise this as a black tea. Just saying.
[Note: Alistair, I’m not trying to rip on you here. I have seen a lot of this “this tea is ____, but think of it more as ____” stuff from several vendors over the course of the past year and it is totally unnecessary. I see where you were coming from, so I do understand why you would have found this tea to be more similar to a black tea than any sort of traditional oolong. As a matter of fact, I would not have realized this was an oolong had I not read the product description.]
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 13 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted pleasant aromas of raisin, prune, fig, and nectarine. After the rinse, I detected aromas of wood, roasted almond, and honey. The first infusion brought out some hints of brown sugar and malt on the nose. In the mouth, I found flavors of raisin, prune, fig, malt, roasted almond, wood, and honey chased by a sweetness that reminded me slightly more of caramel than brown sugar. Subsequent infusions saw the nose take on characteristics of chocolate, cream, and caramel. New flavors of eucalyptus, camphor, cream, chocolate, minerals, and butter emerged, while fleeting impressions of nectarine belatedly showed themselves along with hints of orange zest and stewed apricot. The final infusions offered lingering mineral, cream, malt, honey, and roasted almond impressions balanced by subtler notes of butter, chocolate, and caramel.
As stated in the note section above, I would not have known that this was an oolong had I not read the product description. In this case, I may not like the way this tea was marketed, but I can totally see why someone would choose to think of this more as a black tea. As a matter of fact, it may actually be helpful for some people to consider it as such because, if you do not have a ton of experience with a variety of more heavily oxidized oolongs, this tea could be one hell of a hammer curveball for you. I may be a bit of a weirdo, but I loved this tea. In terms of aroma and flavor, it occupied a perfect middle ground between an orthodox Yunnan black tea and a more heavily oxidized oolong. This was a unique offering and a little odd, but totally lovable nonetheless.
Flavors: Almond, Apricot, Brown Sugar, Butter, Camphor, Caramel, Chocolate, Cream, Dried Fruit, Eucalyptus, Fig, Honey, Mineral, Orange Zest, Raisins, Stonefruit, Wood
