Dark Roast Anxi Tieguanyin

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Oolong Tea Leaves
Flavors
Burnt Sugar, Caramel, Char, Coffee, Dark Bittersweet, Espresso, Oak, Roasted, Smooth, Sweet, Roasted Barley, Sugarcane, Fruity, Grapes, Red Wine, Autumn Leaf Pile, Cocoa
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
High
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Whispering Pines Tea Company
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec 4 g 6 oz / 192 ml

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40 Tasting Notes View all

From Whispering Pines Tea Company

Brewed strong, this dark roasted o’olong has notes of oak, toasted seaweed, roasted coffee, and dark chocolate! Brewed light, you get notes of a smoky sweet caramel mocha! Dark Roast Anxi Tieguanyin is very bold and thick due to the multi-day slow-roast that gives it its caramelized flavor. Besides being incredibly smooth plain, adding a splash of coconut milk to this tea will transform it into a mouthwatering desert tea! There is no bitterness with even very long steeps, making this the perfect companion for the coffee lover or road-tripper!

Hint: Add vanilla ice cream to a strong cup of this tea instead of milk to make a fantastic treat!

*To intensify the notes, brew 1tsp of leaves in 8oz of boiling water for 10 minutes.

http://whisperingpinestea.com/dark-roast-tgy.html

About Whispering Pines Tea Company View company

Whispering Pines Tea Company is dedicated to bringing you the most original, pure, beautiful tea blends. We use only the highest quality ingredients available to create additive-free teas teas inspired by the pristine wilderness of Northern Michigan. Our main focus is on customer satisfaction and quality.

40 Tasting Notes

93
1015 tasting notes
The leaves are a beautiful and very dark – way darker than any roasted oolong I’ve ever had. The instructions on the package said to steep for 8 minutes, but I decided to just try 4 minutes to start with. This is one rich cup! As a former coffee drinker, this reminds me in the best possible way of a great shot of espresso. Okay, I can’t believe this doesn’t have some sort of added flavor. It really does have very strong notes of dark chocolate! There is absolutely no bitterness and I am so impressed. I think I may take some leaves to work tomorrow, keep them in my big mug and just refill throughout the day. This stuff is GOOD! And I was pretty such that I wasn’t too big on the darker oolongs – I just needed to get a hold of the right one.

On a side note, this company has GREAT customer service. My order was shipped quickly, packaged nicely, and even included a hand-written note thanking me for my order. Customer service like this goes a long way with me!

Preparation
4 min, 0 sec
Whispering Pines Tea Company

So glad you’re enjoying it! I’m on my way to Arizona and this is my roadtrip tea – I put a teaspoon and a half in my 17-oz bamboo bottle and pour boiling water in. It gets very rich over the hours it steeps :) And nope, no added flavors! :)

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80
149 tasting notes

Very dark and roasted, but not at all bitter. I can sort of detect a bit of cocoa, but honestly, all that my mind can register right now is roasted coffee minus the acidic bitterness of actual coffee. Rich and satisfying. Perfect for a coffee lover!

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97
353 tasting notes

This is AMAZING. I am in utter love with this tea and will definitely have to make this a staple of my tea cupboard. WOW.

This is a dark oolong, and the flavor is nice and heavy, tasting faintly like coffee, but not overly so – which is good because I HATE the taste of coffee. The flavor starts off subtle, and then gets darker and reminds me of roasted coffee beans. And then turns slightly bitter just before I swallow. SO GOOD.

Preparation
3 min, 0 sec
Whispering Pines Tea Company

So glad you’re enjoying this! :)

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82
109 tasting notes

New to gongfu style, so any tips are appreciated :)

4g leaf in 100ml, 96C/205F. Timing is approximate.

First infusion (15s) : Scents of earth, smoke, caramel, cinnamon and nutmeg. Taste is like watery espresso, colour a dull light brown. Maybe I should have poured away this steep as a rinse. I’ve read in another review that someone was rinsing these a few times over because the pellets are quite tightly wound.

Second infusion (20s): Scents of burnt coconut emerge. Slight fruitiness appearing. Sweeter profile. A little drying in the mouth.

Third infusion (30s): Smells and tastes like darkly burnt brown sugar with water aged in an oak barrel.

Third infusion (1min 15s): Burnt coconut is back with a woody aroma. Sweet and surprisingly refreshing. I wonder why my other steeps had a drying quality to the mouthfeel and this one not so much.

Fourth infusion (1min 45s): More balanced aroma, very sweet. This one tastes like a good quality batch brew of light coffee. Favourite infusion so far.

Fifth infusion (2min 15s): Taste is same as above, but a tad lighter and a little oakier. Bit of dryness coming through again. Colour of liquor gets slightly brighter with each steeping, which is interesting.

Sixth infusion (3mins): More or less the same again, but lighter still.

Seventh infusion (5mins): See above.

I’m inclined to believe that any more steeps would be quite similar and I’m rather full of liquid now haha so I might stop here..

Oh what the heck, I’m gonna try for one more.

Eighth infusion (7mins): Yep, same but lighter.

Overall, I’m glad I got to try this tea as the session was quite enjoyable, even with my lack of experience in gongfu brewing. It was my first darkly roasted tieguanyin and it was quite educational to see the different levels of roasting in an oolong.

Will use Western method next time and see if it brings out that golden coffee note I liked so much.

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1113 tasting notes

Finally got to try this yestrday and it went for 6 hours at work which was great. The first thing that anyone should notice while steeping this is how highly balled up this tea is. For at least 8 steeps this stayed in its shell before opening.
This is the coffee ewuivlitant of tea for sure. Wonderful roasted notes with as deep flavor as you like. Steep it 20, 45, 90, 300…. how ever many seconds you want and you will taste the difference. While this is a premium roasted tgy, I will say the one downfall is that it caused me to pee more often than normal. Considering I drink a lot and daily, it is something I notice.

Daylon R Thomas

I’ve been trying to see if I could find any dark roast tgy like it because it was so naturally sweet and coffee like. Otherwise, it’s one of may favorite darker teas from Whispering Pines. Also, coconut milk does not take any of the flavor away when you splash some in it.

Cwyn

Peeing more than normal is a plus on a tea for me :)

t-ching

I had the same experience, went 14 steeps before it thought about opening up. Delicious tea though!

Whispering Pines Tea Company

This should be back next month :-)

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100
266 tasting notes

Finally after having this tea around for a few weeks and a cold that I could not fully shake I am recovered, so it is safe to open up the really good stuff. I’m brewing this tea gongfu in my small dark Tieguanyin yixing pot in the manner that works for my teaware and water.

The first thing that sands out to me about this tea is smoothness of the dark roast with a bit of lingering sweetness. While I personally would no call it as being like cocoa or caramel, I can also reasonably see where they are coming from. Beyond that I am not sure what else there is to say as I am one that generally tries to focus upon enjoying the tea as compared to trying to analyze it which in my opinion takes away some of the enjoyment in the moment. My final verdict on this tea is clearly a very good quality dark roast Tieguanyin, which are sadly becoming more rare as time goes on.

Preparation
Boiling

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88
526 tasting notes

This a great example of a heavy roasted oolong. The leaves are tightly curled black pebbles. They carry a lot of weight in a small amount, so you don’t need too many embers. They give off a deep charcoal and roast scent, yet there is some lingering sweetness in the background. I placed them inside my warmed gaiwan and let these little guys relax. I opened the lid and inhaled a warm roasted aroma. I was picking up fresh espresso, burnt sugar, and a brief background of dark bitter chocolate. I washed these a few times;because of how tightly wound they were. Finally, the liquor began to darken, and I took in a hearty sip. The flavor is smooth and light bodied. The characteristic I love about this tea is that it’s not poorly roasted. I’ve experienced numerous heavy roasted oolongs that taste like licking a burnt out campfire. This a nice crisp roast with plenty of curbing flavors such as; caramel, burnt sugar, and underlying oak. This tea has the nice roast to warm you up, but it also carries the oolong sweetness that keeps you steeping. Personally, I like to brew this heavy and with longer steeping times, for I want a drink that packs a punch. This was really good; however it took awhile to full open up. Don’t give up on this tea; it just needs to be pushed a little. In my experience the rough brews need to be treated rough; boiling water, longer steeps. This is a nice experience, and the brew lasts for a long time. The tea offers tons of flavor and complexity for a heavy roasted TGY. I’m planning on trying the treat version of this with some heavy brewing and coconut milk. I’m pretty excited to try it!

https://www.instagram.com/p/8Da3-OzGV_/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

https://www.instagram.com/p/8DosFlzGe5/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Comparison Shot
https://www.instagram.com/p/8DxlHgTGRz/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Caramel, Char, Coffee, Dark Bittersweet, Espresso, Oak, Roasted, Smooth, Sweet

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 30 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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93
1184 tasting notes

This tea is roasty and toasty with notes of coffee and caramel. The dark chocolate notes are far away in the background but make an appearance every once in awhile. The vegetal notes are minimal. There is a slight underlying sweetness and smoothness to this dark oolong. The leaves once brewed remain slightly curled up and very dark.

Resteeped at 7 and 10 minutes.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 45 sec
Daylon R Thomas

That one is probably one of my favorites from Whispering Pines. I’ve yet to find a darker oolong like it. Most of them have either been too char like or too salty (if that makes sense).

tigress_al

Yep Daylon R Thomas, I get what you mean, and this one is not charred or salty!

TeaTiff

This one is pretty yummy!

tigress_al

Yes TeaTiff it certainly is!

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90
1704 tasting notes

Thank you so much Whiteantlers for letting me enjoy this tea two cups more. Michigan is a cantankerous Goddess, and she decided to snow and keep the snow in April after a few weeks of blooms, sunshine, and breeze. And of course my blood sugar is high this morning, so coffee is not an option. Even black, the caffeine from coffee raises my insulin resistance and renders my veins throbbing with sugary sweet blood. Fortunately, I can enjoy this tea on this white Saturday morning of “spring” getting the roasted profile of coffee I love.

I reread some of the notes on here, and I forgot how people contended the chocolate or cocoa notes of this tea. Then, there’s the “chocolate notes” debate that I’ve recently been a part of and have complained about before with certain oolongs-I’m looking at you Dahongpao. I’ve been able to pick more up on them lately, but for this tea, the cocoa is more in texture and the tea’s bitter-sweetness. But barley and carob are the things that I personally taste more, maybe with a hint of toasted coconut. I’ve had this in conjunction with a carob-barley coffee replacement and they are pretty darn close-only this tea is naturally smoother, lighter, and less bitter (still bitter sweet anyway).

As much as I like this tea, I’m not sure if I could get a large quantity of it. When I crave it, I crave it, but when I’m not in the mood for it, it’s just bitter and roasted. And I noticed that I liked it on cold days. So this tea might be a seasonal one for me. I still have yet to come across a Dark Roast Tie Guan Yin or other dark roast oolong that quite compares.

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 1 g 5 OZ / 147 ML
White Antlers

Daylon, we are having a lovely snow storm here today, too. My next cup is going to be WPT North Wind.

Daylon R Thomas

North Winds is nice. It also happens to be one of the teas that I had an issue with cocoa notes at first. Over time, I grew to really like it. Ailoashan and Second Breakfast remains as my favorite blacks, though I’ve been partially curious with Ancient Spirit. The price is just a little bit too high for me…though I’ve paid higher for tea before.

White Antlers

I enjoyed Ancient Spirit. It reminded me of honey and raisins, depending on which steep I’d done. I have a package out for you, but can send some Ancient Spirit in the near future. Snow continues to fall here-but not stick. :-D

Daylon R Thomas

You are spoiling me rotten :) Sounds great. The snow is slowly melting here. Still white as ever.

White Antlers

I have been spoiled by many random acts of kindness, especially by the Steepster community, so the pleasure is mine! :-D

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100
673 tasting notes

i’ve been under the weather lately, however it wont stop me from making reviews

an awesome tea!

little glass pitcher thingy: Grandpa style

when i smell the leaves, dry they smell roasted and fruity.

when i smell the leaves wet, they smell roasted and like grapes.

when i smell the brewed tea, i smell grapes and roasty aromas.

when i taste the brewed tea, it tastes like. strong wine, grapes and roasty.

i rate this tea a 100 because i don’t taste grapes or wine often in teas

Flavors: Fruity, Grapes, Red Wine, Roasted

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 5 g 7 OZ / 210 ML

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