GREEN HILL TEA: "JADE OOLONG (PREMIUM)"

{ That's some jade there, all right. }  

Jade Oolong, (Premium) by Green Hill Tea.

My students wanted to know what "jaded" meant. Of course, I knew the basic meaning: to be tired, cynical, unenthusiastic. But going to the more obvious meaning, it means a faded green, a pale echo of the bright color we see in our mind when we imagine that color.

Green Hill does not identify the source of their Jade Oolong, other than to say it's a high-mountain (2200 feet) crop from China. Generally speaking, I like to know where a tea is from, because I'm still learning and want to educate my palette as I taste. 

So in this case, I rely entirely upon my observations. I infuse with water just below boiling. Unfortunately,  here at work, I rely upon an electric kettle of filtered water, rather than my Japanese white charcoal setup I have at home. 

Dry, the leaves are tight and richly green, and quite fragrant. Wet, they take on a seaweed aroma, not unpleasant, which reminds me of the scent of the seashore. I depend on my sense of smell for my first introduction to a tea, and this is . . . okay, but not an unadorned delight. So this tea is not all about the aroma of the wet leaves, then. Good to know.

The wet leaves are a characteristic Chinese oolong: large leaves, which have readily opened up in the first steeping. So not very tightly twisted. Quite a bit of complete leaf, some broken, very little stem.

FIRST STEEPING. The liquor is -- wait for it -- a pale, jade green. You didn't see that coming at all, did you. The tea is good, quite good. It's a straight shooter, with a moderate vegetal quality, a flowery high range, and very little at the bottom of the register. Smooth, but with a hint of drying, a touch of an edge, which sharpens the senses. This tea wants you to stop and pay attention to it, rather than sitting good-naturedly and minding its own business. I enjoy its smoothness, and the huigan, or aftertaste (one of the few Chinese words I easily remember, so I use it often) holds in the mouth for minutes. Again, quite a straight shooter. The flavor of the tea and the huigan are closely linked, and I do not get a wide variety of flavors that develop in my mouth and nose over time. Though the tea liquor itself is green, it doesn't taste green, if you catch my meaning. It tastes golden-orange: mellow, a hint of brightness, burnished, open, not overpowering.

SECOND STEEPING. On the second steeping, I went rather long, with a moderate amount of leaf. The appearance of the cup is still a clean, pale green, as transparent as you would hope it would be. The cutting edge of the tea has arrived, and the vegetal note is more pronounced. This is not an especially assertive tea, so if you want a tea so strong you can stand a spoon up in it, you'd be better off with a meaty assam or an opinionated Ceylon mix. But even here, the smoothness and laid-back quality of the first steeping is long gone. This oolong is balanced between the acidic brightness, the slight dryness, and the overarching floral smoothness. Nicely done.

SO WHAT ARE THESE OBSERVATIONS ALL ABOUT? you may ask. I want to remember what I drink. I want to remember what I think when I'm cupping tea. Flavor and aroma are tightly bound to memory and place, and I want to capture some of my life I pass through it. This moment is green oolong, lightly sharp flavor, blue sky, end of winter, bare trees, deadlines I need to meet, anxiety I'm holding down, beloved by family, enjoying my teaching job, quiet moment in the midst of some familiar struggles, needing more sleep, wishing I were traveling, enjoying Shakespeare's "As You Like It," and trying to get back to work captioning. In other words, pretty much a normal morning, with a lovely cup of tea worthy of attention, rather than just let slip by unnoticed and unmarked.

A Surprise of Crocuses and an Alchemy of Tea

{ A Surprise of Crocuses }  

When I was, oh, 10 or 11, Dad had a secret. During early Autumn sometime, he made my sister and me PROMISE not to tell Mom what we were up to. Like spies or ninjas, we went to the backyard with a TOP-SECRET bag, and we dug little holes, into which we put what I now know are called, corms. We had no idea what these were, and Dad wouldn't tell us. Winter came. Christmas with its usual abundance of toys, fun, exhaustion, energy. New Year came and went. Snow was still on the ground. Valentine's Day. Every day, now, Dad would (secretly) ask us to look in the backyard to see . . . what? We didn't know, the little holes we dug having been long forgotten.

Then one morning in early Spring, all over the still-snowy yard were an abundance of crocuses, purple and yellow and blue bundles of flowers, scattered everywhere. This was the surprise for Mom that we had waited for all Winter long. A delight of crocuses, and snowdrops, and who knows what else we had planted as a way of being welcomed by Spring and of saying, "I Love You," to Mom. I imagine she still remembers that wonderful Spring to this day.

and now to the tea

Ah, yes, you've been waiting for me to write about tea again, not about flowers. Well, I had a surprise waiting for me this month. I had made an order from Chicago Coffee and Tea Exchange, who provide decent-quality tea without much ado. They were the source of my first true tea education, and I am forever grateful. Kevin handles the orders over there, and he's always helpful in locating something special hidden among the bins for me to try out.

So amidst my order, he had sent me something called Imperial Gold Oolong. Not a terribly expensive tea--in fact, quite affordable. (Which is why I love Chicago Coffee and Tea Exchange. On my limited budget, I can afford to get enough tea to last a few weeks rather than a few days.)

Imperial Gold Oolong is the surprise crocus in my story. I didn't expect it to be anything special, but it was, quite. Highly fragrant, the aroma wafts from the carafe as I let it rest before drinking. The leaves are typical rolled bundles, which open up into perhaps 1/3-inch-long leaves.

This tea's source is unnamed, and neither is its plucking date listed on the website. Honestly, in Chicago--a coffee-drinking city if ever there was one--there's really not much of a tea culture, so fastidiously sourcing an oolong would be meaningless information for pretty much their entire clientele. Who are in there for the coffee, anyway.

I prepare the tea in gongfu style-- lots of leaf, high temperature, short steeping times. I place my preheated Yixing pot into a wide bowl of steaming, then boiling, water. This helps keep the temperature high as I steep. In gongfu style, you don't allow a long steep to mix all the flavors together. You break up the drinking experience into chapters, in a manner of speaking, which lets you catch the drink at different points in its development. First, the introduction. Then, the characters introduced, the plot is introduced. The storyline comes to its conclusion, and then there is a nice epilogue as the tea can be resteeped as many times as your patience and interest allow, until the tea is a mere wisp of aroma on the clear water.

The first steeping of this tea is particularly aromatic, bright, complex, floral and fruity at once, with a bit of wildness hiding behind the more conventional flavors. If a forest walk smelled like this, it would draw you down an unfamiliar path to an unknown destination.

{ Tea is part science, part magic }  

The second steeping is even better. I oversteeped it only slightly, so it has a somewhat sharp--but not bitter--edge to it at first. But the fragrance is so bright, I wish I could share it with you right now. As the tea sits in the pot for a few minutes, it oxidizes slightly; and the deep gold, transparent liquor mellows a bit, with that almost tartness dissipating. HINT FOR TEA DRINKERS: If, like myself, you've ever oversteeped that delicious oolong of yours, just let it sit for a few minutes. The heat + biomaterials will engage in some alchemy while it "rests" and you wait, causing the flavors to deepen and mellow. Try it sometime, rather than dumping the tea and starting over.

SO . . . I have no idea where this tea comes from--though, if I bothered to pick up the phone and call Kevin, I'm sure he'd be able to tell me something more about it. But the beauty of this is the surprise element. Don't know where it's from. Don't know when it was picked. Don't know anything other than that it's a joy, made doubly so because it's affordable.

Thanks, Kevin, for including this in the package you sent. My UPS guy always wondered why my coffee packages from Coffee and Tea Exchange would arrive without a coffee aroma, and he never had any time for me to make him a cup to show him what he's missing. Too bad for him, but great for me.

note on coffee & tea exchange

Coffee and Tea Exchange is great for decent-quality and even high-quality tea on a budget. They take good care of their clients, and I've found them to be a wonderful resource in learning what the heck a Darjeeling is, or introducing me to something called Hairy Crab oolong, and so on. Go to their Website when you need a package of tea to get you through the mornings, but you just don't feel like writing an essay about everything you have in your cupboard.

Review: RARE TEA REPUBLIC, Phoobsering Special Oolong, 2011

Madame Dugazon Awaiting Tea and L'Amour  

I have only just heard of a new company, Rare Tea Republic. Their website says they focus on small-parcel, single-estate, fresh tea.

Their Phoobsering Special Oolong Organic, which comes from the Phoobsering Estate in Darjeeling, India. Interestingly, the package I received from them gives the plucking date, April 1, 2011. This is precisely the kind of information I'm looking for when purchasing a tea. I want to know who, what, where, when, how and probably the why of any serious tea. Even the best tea, if it's been sitting in a bin too long, will degrade to the point where you'd be better off drinking cheaper but fresher stuff (not counting puerhs or certain oolongs, which benefit from age).

So what do we know about Phoobsering? It's high: 6000 feet (though I hasten to stay, I used to live with my sister in Los Alamos, NM, which is at 7200 feet; However, Los Alamos is covered in nuclear weapons labs, not green tea plantations, so there's that.) It's one of the major estates in India, and has been around from the beginning of tea cultivation in Darjeeling, and it ranges from about 3000 to 6000 feet. Apparently, the Special Oolong Organic is from their higher slopes, which means it should have benefited from the harsher, colder winters, which help intensify the flavor of high-grown Darjeelings.

The April date indicates a first-flush tea, so you would expect it to be lighter in body and flavor, and also a bit less complex than the leaves from the same plant a little later in the season. First-flush Darjeelings are very much in vogue in Germany (and other European countries, I suppose, as well, though I don't know which ones), but it hasn't caught on in the United States as much. We're a coffee-swilling country; so something light, delicate, and subtle as a first-flush Darj. is typically not to our taste.

The directions given by the tea procurer call for 3 tsp per cup at 190F. Pfshaw! We are the makers of manners, and prudish customs bow before great tea drinkers! And me, too. I decided to take their "oolong" designation seriously and make the tea gongfu style: lots of leaf, lots of short steepings.

1st steeping: 92C, 50s
Light, not surprisingly. No trace of bitterness. Highly fragrant, as you'd hope from a Darjeeling. Tastes much like a beautiful-quality Darjeeling, but I can't really grab hold of how processing it as a Darjeeling sets it apart from other Darjeelings sufficiently to make much difference.

2nd steeping: 92C, 40s
More body. The cup is a rich amber, as most 1st-flush Darjeelings tend to be. Slight hint of a bite to the cup-- which is something I prize in a Darjeeling. (For I like my tea, cheese, wine, and women opinionated.) The complexity is starting to develop on the palate. Tastes rather green, a touch sweet-vegetal.

My second-tea-taster-in-house, Gregory, says it's good. And he's no slouch when it comes to high-quality teas, even though he's 9 years old. But now he's escaped his homework/tea tasting to play Legos, so I'm on my own.

3rd steeping: Just off the boil, 55s
Strong amber color to the cup, perfectly clear to the bottom. The leaves have unfurled entirely, with quite a bit of the two-leaves-and-a-bud. A bit more breakage on the leaves than I would expect. Leaves quite uniformly light-forest green. Buds floating about. There's a sort of faint but hot spiciness to the aroma of the wet leaves, underneath the sweetness. It's not a particularly floral tea, but the allusive aroma is so very attractive. Happily, the cup closely follows the aroma (which is not typically the case). The flavor unfurls in the mouth in waves, as one breathes. The huigan, which is what you sense mainly by the aroma coming up through the sinus passages, is pleasing, direct, strong in the middle register but without much at the high or low end. Because it's a light tea with a resonant middle register, if it were an opera singer, I'd classify this as a light mezzo-soprano, a jeunes dugazon, which is like unto a young mother, just past the first blush of youth but not yet into her full maturity. Lovely, light, a bit inexperienced, not overly complicated or carrying too much baggage.


4th steeping: Just off the boil, 1 min
My wife is making coffee in the kitchen, where I make my tasting today. SO . . . that means the tea currently steeping may just have a delightfully beany aroma, a strong, black, smokiness, and whatnot. I may have to evacuate to even sense the tea at all. As a side note: Any tea shop that also sells coffee will have to contend with this, and they'll have to choose robust teas that will stand out among the coffee scents, which are much more pervasive.

The tea is still going strong, and a bit of mineral flavor is starting to make itself felt. The flavor is a bit uninflected, without many complex overtones. Again, this is fairly typical of first-flush Darjeelings. If you are looking for overwhelming complexity, go for those second-flushes.

5th steeping: Just off the boil, 3 min
Well, at this point, the tea has lost its punchy interest; that is, it's still worth drinking, but there's nothing much to be added by further description. Subsequent steepings, if any, will most likely be the same, just progressively less so as the flavor fades into insubstantiality.


Overall Impressions
As a first-flush Darjeeling, it's lovely, and it survived a number of steepings. That being said, I don't quite understand this tea as an oolong. Perhaps the vintage needs a few seasons of rest to develop and come into its true character; or perhaps a light roast may help to bring out something hidden in its quality. Now, because I chose not to follow their directions, I missed the opportunity to have all the layers of flavor on top of one another like some complicated Austrian torte. However, I would rather drink my tea the way I read books: in chapters, with a story developing over time.


THANK YOU, Rare Tea Republic, for this first opportunity to get to know your tea. I do hope you'll continue to provide these higher-end teas and help with convincing Americans that tea can be amazing. This has been a good first impression of your work, and I'm grateful for your generosity.

Tasting Notes: Huang Jin Gui Wu Long, Canton Tea Co.

Though I've been in hiatus, I've been taking some tea notes along the way, which I can share with you now that I'm back up and running.



Tasting notes on Huang Jin Gui Wu Long, from Canton Tea Company


Steeping 1: 25s, all about scent.

Beautiful, golden liquor, with a distinctly fruit-floral aroma that eluded me until I read the liner notes, which stated that this tea is reminiscent and named after the osmanthus flower for both its color and scent. And, yes, this does somewhat remind me of osmanthus-infused oolongs, which I've tasted a number of times in the past.

Steeping 2: 20s, with attitude
The second steeping is quite often the best when drinking oolongs: the leaves have been awakened, but they still retain the potency and have not been diminished in any measurable way. When tasting a tea such as this, it's important to remember that the tea changes in the pot as you drink, revealing a changing character as it breathes. This tea definitely wakes up with the second steeping, and the fruity flavor is accompanied by an astringency that makes the golden infusion take on a brightness on the tongue. Quite delicious. If I were to give this tea a musical label, I would say she is a mezzo-soprano, with plenty of high (but not overly high) notes and a powerful middle register. There is little to no bitterness, and I can't discern any distinguishing low notes (which one would usually associate with, say, an Assam or other black teas). It's quite strong and bright, like hot sunlight filtered through a latticework screen.


Steeping 3 and onward: 20s, 45s, &c
[Author's note: I didn't take notes on the third steeping and onward, being that my life frequently interferes with a properly meditative environment for tea-taking. That being said, the third steeping was delightful, though thinning, stretching out a bit. True to form, that second steeping was the highlight of the gongfu session, and from then on I fought to keep the pot hot enough to extract the flavors from the tea. I was able to get about six pots of tea from this, until I got busy enough that I was unable to continue. The tea outlasted my life's ability to sit still in one place long enough.]

I love how teas can taste like so many things: osmanthus flower aroma, in this case, even though an osmanthus never came in contact with these leaves. If only people realized how teas are like roses, with more varieties and subtleties than a single person can experience in a lifetime.

Lovely tea, Canton Tea. Thanks!

Review: Tea Forté, Formosa Oolong '09

I didn't sleep last night, and I spent a big chunk of today outside, in the cold, at Goebbert's Pumpkin Farm, along with my baby girl and my little boy. Goebbert's is a farm that has gone the clever route of agritourism, in which they celebrate harvest with, among other things, the world's only Pumpkin-Eating Dinosaur, a haunted house, mazes, a couple giraffes (in north-central Illinois, no less), a pumpkin cannon, apple cider donuts, a cornstalk maze, and even pig races. (Hammy Faye Bacon won by a hair, incidentally.) The baby was warm because she was bundled emphatically, with all my bundling might; and my seven-year-old boy was racing around. So I'm the only one of the three of us who is cold and tired, and feeling just a bit old.

ANYWAY, to warm up and attempt to get through the long, dark afternoon of the soul, I am drinking Formosa Oolong by Tea Forté. It is in a clever nylon pyramid-shaped teabag, and I think the leaves within it are in pretty good shape.

THE LEAVES
Hidden within a tea bag, I can tell very little about their appearance. The steeped leaves have a pleasant enough, sweetly roasted aroma. I don't really think the nylon bag affected the aroma. The tea bags reside inside a pyramid-shaped card-stock paper wrapper, and they have a cute metallic string with a little leaf on the end. Stylish looking and neat. Typically, none of the teas I enjoy are distributed in tea bags, so I don't have much to compare this to.

THE PROCESS
I used just-under-boiling water (around 195 or so), in a covered, glass cup, for about 3 minutes. The Web site suggests 2-4 minutes, so I'm right in the zone.

THE CUP
A transparent, brown liquor with a roasty aroma. The flavor does not really work for me. I noticed an odd flavor note that makes me think of a paper bag. Now, I know that the nylon bag has nothing to do with this (not being made of paper, of course), but nevertheless there's something there I can't quite account for. Very light mouthfeel.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I don't really want to belabor this review with the history of oolong, or the significance of Formosa tea-making practice, nor the proper place of teabags in the enjoyment of my favorite beverage. The thing is, I don't enjoy this tea, and I find I haven't finished the cup. I wonder if the paper packaging failed to protect these unfortunate tea leaves from off-flavors it might have picked up in transit or in storage. I'd be interested to taste this again, if I knew it was freshly packaged and stored in airtight foil. I don't think my leaves gave me the same experience that was had by the distributor when they first received their shipment from the tea farms in Formosa.

REVIEW: Li Shan Oolong 2009, JING Tea

Li Shan Oolong, 2009
JING Tea

"Oh, this is going to be good."

The aroma of the first steeping greeted me with an intensity that I'd forgotten. I've had Li Shan oolong only once before (a Fang Tea offering), and it had knocked my socks off. When that first whiff of this intensely fragrant leaf hit me as I poured out, I was reminded that I like Li Shan, and I look forward to tasting what this has in store for me.

Li Shan is a high-grown (over 2000 meters) mountain tea, and the region was recently in the news because a horrible hurricane swept the area, and the mountain tea gardens were unable to hold the topsoil, which washed down and caused havoc in the communities below. The Taiwan legislature has a bill in the works that (if passed) will make it illegal to grow Li Shan oolong at these high elevations, for fear that global warming will cause more hurricanes and thus more havoc. You can read more about this here.


1st Steeping: 25s
For the first steeping, I chose 25 seconds of just-boiling, filtered water that has been soaking with Japanese charcoal, and tea made in my new glass teapot, courtesy of the very kind folks at JING Tea. What a beautifully fragrant tea, with a creamy, milky aroma. The lemon-yellow liquor is perfectly clear, with a tiny amount of broken leaf that has snuck through the filter into the fairness cup. Perhaps it's the power of suggestion by the creamy aroma, but the mouthfeel of the tea is thick, quite substantial. Creamy, in fact. The balled leaves opened into springy, summer-grass green leaves that are only partially unfurled. This promises a number of lovely steepings. The damp leaves are deeply aromatic, and they seem only lightly oxidized, with reddish-brown only at the very, very edge of the leaf. I'm fairly partial to lightly oxidized oolongs, and this is quite typical of the type of tea I've discovered I really love.

I admit, there is a faint bitterness in the cup, only a frisson, and I believe it adds to the attractiveness of the offering by Jing. I don't usually look for bitterness in a cup of tea, but it's one of the five tastes, and we shouldn't try to avoid it in every circumstance, but rather embrace it as part of the sensory experience. In this case, it adds an edge to the otherwise very smooth cup.

2nd Steeping: 20s
Again, the lemon-yellow cup, clear and lovely. As the wenxianbei [sipping cup] cools, the aroma moves from these creamy, thick aromas to a more autumn-garden kind of aroma: earthy but light. Still, a very hint of bitterness, though less than on the first steeping. It's possible I oversteeped slightly, and so I realized I had a word problem on my hands. So I asked for some advice on my tea math.

Word Problem: Stevie wants to steep his Li Shan oolong for 20 seconds. His new teapot pours out at 7 seconds. He does not want to oversteep. Should he (a) start pouring at 20s, knowing that the latter part of the brew will have oversteeped by 7 seconds? Does he (b) start pouring at 13 seconds, knowing that the last drop will be steeped at exactly 20s? Or (c) does Stevie start pouring at 16.5 seconds [if he is able to be this accurate], knowing that the tea will, on average, be 20s?

Solution: As of the third steeping, I am going to go with (c), on the assumption that the average of 20s (or whatever length of time I'm steeping) is better than under- or oversteeping. I'm open to suggestions if this is not other people's tea practice.

3rd Steeping, 20s
I find it's difficult for me to describe this tea. Li Shan oolong is memorable among a thousand flavors: rich, earthy, fragrant, sharp, bright, subtle, redolent of cooking herbs and buttery bread. There's an undercurrent, oddly, of unusual animal aromas I associate with a day at the zoo: exotic, pungent, musky. In other words, my description makes no sense whatsoever, and it gives you no idea of what I'm actually experiencing.

So I'll try this another way: The difficult-to-describe aroma and flavor have coated my mouth and throat, they're rising up into my nose from the back of my throat, and the aftertaste is lingering a surprisingly long time. I like it a lot, though I can't say I would need to drink it every day of my life.

A NOTE ON REVIEW WRITING
Michael J. Coffey wrote recently that it is a crime against tea (to horribly paraphrase him and invite correction) to drink while writing, or write while drinking. He maintains that converting the experience from the nondiscursive flav0r-aroma-texture-energy moment, into a carefully edited piece of language blunts the pure enjoyment of the moment, and it inhibits sense memory. I can't disagree. But that being said, I write to help me remember over the long run, what I had experienced at one point, and to help me make purchasing, drinking, and serving decisions. And hopefully to encourage others to open themselves up to exquisite tea experiences they might not have thought to try otherwise.

ADDITIONAL READING:
Again, thanks to JING Tea for very generously allowed me to taste their Li Shan oolong (also called Ali Shan), a high-mountain tea from Taiwan. I wrote rather extensively about LiSan oolong here, and invite you to read about my very first foray into this intensely beautiful type of tea. I will excerpt here from an excerpt there, which I took from Winnie Yu's blog:

Li Shan Oolongs are the most intensely fragrant, smooth buttery oolong there is, topping Taiwan oolongs growing everywhere else. Particularly, there is a pronounced taste of gan that lingers for an entire day, with less and less astringency the higher the elevation, no matter how strong a cup of tea you make. Incredibly sweet with a taste of fruit that's been cooked at high heat, Li Shan tea no doubt is so highly sought after, many unscrupulous merchants would try to dupe the unsuspecting consumer. It is highly unlikely to buy any Li shan tea less than $200 USD p/lb. at a retail level, and at that price, one is guaranteed that it came from the second-flush or 'second spring', or lower elevations at 1700 meters. Da Yu Ling oolongs are well over $300 p/lb., and difficult to acquire even if one would pay for it, for all of the crops are usually spoken for.

Review: Simpson & Vail, Kenya Oolong 2008

Simpson & Vail. I rather like the cut of their jib. They are a fairly mainstream tea company who make the interesting choice to offer oolongs from unusual-- i.e., not Chinese-- sources, such as Vietnam, or in this case, Kenya.

Kenya is one of the biggest sources of tea worldwide. Most of the tea I see from them is commoditized-- it is sold to be blended into grocery-store brands, and the teas are not typically single-estate self-drinkers, intended to be unique vintages. Usually, the black teas from kenya are fairly robust. So when I see a Kenya Oolong, to be distributed by Simpson & Vail, I am intrigued. What in the world is this going to taste like?

THE TEA

Simpson & Vail has this to say on their Web site:

This delightful offering from Kenya features a new taste sensation in the world of Oolongs! The tippy, brown-black, medium sized leaves brew to a golden cup with an earthy aroma and a fresh, bold, slightly citral flavor. Brew tea at 195º - steep for 4-5 minutes

.

THE PREPARATION

I tried two methods of preparation: First, I did a gong-fu preparation (really, gong-faux, because I don't have all the gaiwans and Yixing pots one would ordinarily use). Then I followed the directions on the Web site. You will see below my results.

THE LEAF

This tea's leaf appears to be like a very typical, medium- to high-end black tea: smallish leaves, most certainly CTC (cut-tear-curl machine processed). The tea factory employed a machine to process the leaves, and they created a highly oxidized, nearly black, leaf.

THE GONG-FAUX FLIGHT

1 10s, rinse

2 25s

This cup seems most like a malty black tea, and is quite unlike the Chinese and Taiwanese oolongs I've been tasting of late. It's fairly ascerbic, and seems to want a bit of milk and sugar to cut it. The tea is a bit on the acidic side for my stomach, which is complaining. Interestingly, there is quite a bit of tea oil floating on the darkish-brown liquor, making it quite shiny. There is a faint hint of oolong-ness, though. I'll keep up with the next steeping and see where this goes. So far, honestly, I am not really liking this very much, as it tastes quite like a typically harsh, grocery-store black tea to me.

3 20s

The second steeping, shows me the leaf a bit better, as it reconstitutes. The leaf appears now to be maybe 60% oxidized: green at the centers of some of the larger leaves, but the overall visual impression tends more to the reddish-brown. The leaves have a pretty nice aroma of

The liquor maintains the deep brown (but transparent) quality of the first steeping. There is just not much flavor here (maybe this means I should have steeped for the full 4 minutes, rather than trying gong-fu method for this tea). The tea is just... flat. The bitterness has abated somewhat on the second steeping, but the flavor has not picked up where it left off.

4 20s

The flavor remains as it has for the previous steepings, and doesn't seem to be abating at all. Still like a black tea that is not particularly inspired. I quit, because I am not liking these results at all and want to abandon this preparation style.

. . .

AS AN EXPERIMENT, and a bit dispirited by the failure of my multiple-steeping method, I am now drinking the tea per the Web site instructions. It is better than the gong-fu style. There is a woodiness about it that is pretty appealing (at least, compared to the tea flight I was just attempting). A little sweetness to the aftertaste, and I detect a bit of nuttiness. ("Oh, I'm detecting nuttiness, all right," says the rat from Ratatouille, whose voice lives in my head.)

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

Meh. This is not the tea for me, because though it is supposed to be an oolong, it seems more like an average "black tea," which you might find in a grocery store anywhere. I've tried to enjoy it by employing a couple of different preparation methods, but I just can't.

Review: Simpson & Vail, Vietnam Imperial Oolong, 2008

Nope, not those Simpsons.

Simpson & Vail have been around awhile-- since 1904-- and have remained a small, family-oriented business all the while, as is evidenced by the History section of their Web site. While the history discussed their tea grinder, which they used to use to break down whole-leaf teas into particles usable in a teabag, bagged tea is now only a part of their overall catalog, with loose-leaf teas of various types available.

Vietnam Imperial Oolong is their most expensive, selling at $6.05/oz. at this time. Unfortunately, other than the generic nation name (we know the tea comes from Vietnam), the Web site is little help. I don't know precisely where the tea comes from, or what time of the year (or even what year, though I guess it is 2008) it was plucked; nor do I know details about how heavily it is fermented. The Web site says this, though:

Vietnam Imperial Oolong T0766
The tightly curled, deep olive-green leaves of this superior oolong unravel to produce a pale green cup with a refreshing sweet and smooth taste. The tea has outstanding notes of honey with a slight spice aftertaste. Brew: 4 minutes at 180°F.

PREPARATION
In my inimitable gong-faux tea stylings, I will use a fairly large amount of leaf in a lidded cup, around boiling, but for short steeps. Please, please, do not try this at home, using such an unsightly hodgepodge of tea equipment. I won't even show you a picture, such is my shame.


THE LEAVES
This is a very lightly oxidized leaf, rolled into balls. Lightly fragrant before steeping, but quite aromatic once the hot water hits. It smells much like a green tea, with high hints of maybe orchid, or

10s
Rinse and discard

Steeping 1: 25s
The tea is quite aromatic, and smells much like a nice green tea. The cup is a light green color, and the aroma is floral, roasted honey and green, without much vegetal quality. A sweet huigan [aftertaste] lingers, which mixes nicely with the clover scent coming from outside my window.

Steeping 2: 20s
The tea is still pale, transparent green, but not terribly strong. This tea does not knock me down and take my lunch money, if you know what I mean. There is now a slightly bitter quality to accompany an increasingly dry mouthfeel. There's a lemony, citrus taste haunting the huigan, which is mild but lingering and pleasant.

Steeping 3: 20s
Not an aggressive tea, though very slightly bitter. Very like a green tea. As the leaves open up more and more, I find the leaves show very little sign of oxidization-- no reddish at the edges of the very complete leaf sets of two leaves-- furthering my impression of this as a very lightly oxidized oolong. As the tea cools in the cup, the bitterness seems to dissipate, leaving a green, grassy flavor and aroma I most often associate with Chinese green teas. The roasted honey notes remain strongly in the nose.

Steeping 4: 20s
Much the same as Steeping 3. Light and refreshing, very much like a green tea. Aftertaste less noticeable, but I drank it with dinner. Gregory, my seven-year-old boy, squaffed his down quite quickly, once the temperature got down to where he could drink it.

Steeping 5: 30s
The leaves are quite full now, having absorbed about all the liquid they're going to absorb. I did see one leaf with a bit of red at the edge. Again, the exception proves the rule: this is a particularly lightly oxidized oolong. The flavor is much more elusive at this point, as is the fragrance. Pleasurable mouthfeel, with just a hint of green at the back of the throat.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I always wonder if people ever read to the bottom of the post. Anyway, pleasant enough, light oolong, which tastes much like a simple, not-too-flashy green.

EVENT: Tea Habitat 2nd Anniversary Open House Tasting

I've been reading Imen's posts for some time now, and drooling over her list of Dan Cong oolong teas. These are "single-bush" teas, with a very wide array of singular flavors.

Her shop, Tea Habitat, which is located in Palos Verdes, CA (just south of L.A.), is having a 2nd Anniversary Open House Tea Tasting on June 20, from noon to 7:00. There is a 15% off sale for the month of June, which I hope someone out there reading this will take advantage of. Please read this excerpt from Imen's blog:

We have plenty of great teas to try for the day. One special tea I must mention is the mother tree of Ginger Flower Dan Cong. This tea was sold at a whopping $7k price tag a pound. After 2 years of persistent begging, I have a small sample of the 2009 batch. It's merely enough for 2 sessions. We will be tasting that on the 20th. I have not had this tea myself and anxiously waiting for the right gathering to share with tea enthusiasts for a special occasion. :)

Contact information:
TEA HABITAT
21B Peninsula Center
Palos Verdes CA 90274
Ph: 310-921-5282
e-mail: tea@teahabitat.com
We are located inside the arch atrium across from TJmaxx.

REVIEW: Fang Tea, Medium LiSan Oolong

PORTRAIT OF THE TEA ENTHUSIAST AS A YOUNG MAN

When I was a little boy, perhaps 10 years old, my sister Kate (the flautist formerly known as Kathy) and I went to Ponderosa Steakhouse, which we walked a number of blocks to get to. It was a big deal, and we had to cross the Big Street to get there. Ponderosa was a buffet-style steak restaurant, not at all fancy. I remember they had vanilla pudding with whipped cream on top, which I thought was the bomb. Anyway, I clearly remember the two of us sidling up to the buffet ordering line, and I noticed something I'd never seen nor heard of before: Teriyaki Chicken.

This is the first Culinary Moment I can recall. My taste buds exploded as I experienced a flavor palate I was absolutely unfamiliar with. I can remember even now the raw amazement I felt as this foreign-tasting, gloriously new thing was introduced to me. This was a turning point for me, one that changed forever the way I view food.

From that point on, whenever we'd go to a restaurant, I'd make sure to order something I'd never heard of before. I didn't like to read too carefully the menu descriptions, because I didn't like to spoil the surprise. Sashimi! Pho! Cambodian lime chicken soup! Bratwurst! Veal canneloni! Chicken croquettes Pozharski! Borscht! Beef carpaccio! Blue cheese! The only thing that keeps me from eating out every meal is my pocketbook. One of the great delights in my life that moment when I am introduced to an entirely new taste that my palette has never imagined.

And this brings me to tea. ("Finally!") One of the glories of the last year of my life is that I've been having this experience again, and again, and again. This makes me a somewhat uneven reviewer, because I'm approaching these teas with an open heart but not often enough experience to apply a jaded standard, "Well, this is a pleasant enough [insert tea here], but I really liked last year's much better."

And so I approach Fang Gourmet Tea's "Medium LiSan Oolong" in this spirit. Having tasted it the first time, my taste buds opened up to an entirely new profile of flavor I've never thought of before. This is so unlike other teas I'm familiar with, I'm absolutely delighted to have something new to indulge in. I am having the best time, right now, as I sip and type. Something amazing and new! LiSan Oolong!

THE TEA
Last week, Fang Tea in New York was kind enough to send me a package of this tea. I knew it was going to be special, so I waited until I had the right moment to unwrap the package. Fang's packaging was quite smart, with the tea leaves protected in a vacuum-packed foil packet, which was inside the tin. The leaves appear to have a medium level of oxidation (hint: the word, medium, in the tea's name), which implies a certain level of body and complexity.

To research this subcategory of oolong tea, I read the blog by Winnie, who is with Teance, a high-end San Francisco tea shop. Winnie's blog, Tea Adventures, gave me the following:

Li Shan means Pear Mountain, and in the past, the most sought after fruits, particularly pears, came from there. Today, such famous heights as Da Yu Ling, and Fu Shou Shan, has dwarfed the fruits and made tea the most profitable and sought-after crop from this region. Li Shan oolongs generally refer to elevations of 1700-2000 meters,... The mountains are impossibly dangerous, downright scary in its steepness. One look at the prospects of tumbling down the hill from harvesting makes one understand all the fuss.

She goes on to write:

Li Shan Oolongs are the most intensely fragrant, smooth buttery oolong there is, topping Taiwan oolongs growing everywhere else. Particularly, there is a pronounced taste of gan that lingers for an entire day, with less and less astringency the higher the elevation, no matter how strong a cup of tea you make. Incredibly sweet with a taste of fruit that's been cooked at high heat, Li Shan tea no doubt is so highly sought after, many unscrupulous merchants would try to dupe the unsuspecting consumer. It is highly unlikely to buy any Li shan tea less than $200 USD p/lb. at a retail level, and at that price, one is guaranteed that it came from the second-flush or 'second spring', or lower elevations at 1700 meters. Da Yu Ling oolongs are well over $300 p/lb., and difficult to acquire even if one would pay for it, for all of the crops are usually spoken for.

Okay, check. Great tea, often at least partially faked up by opportunists. Now, in a lovely note in my Fang Tea package, Kyle Shen, the proprietor of Fang Tea, wrote:

Pear Mountain, or LiSan, is located in a highland climate region with an altitude of more than 2,000 meters. Tea quality from this region is especially superior, and LiSan Oolong has the highest index among the Taiwan high mountain oolong tea.

I hope you'll enjoy this tea as much as I do.

So I'm primed for this tea to be a pretty special experience. While I typically focus on the Darjeeling and other Himalayan teas, I have slowly been coming to truly love these Chinese-style teas. From Fang Tea's Web site, I find much the same information provided in the letter. Fang doesn't detail the name of the tea master, or tea farm, from which they get the tea. Would it pass the Teance test of authenticity? I can't be certain, but at this point, I would certainly guess that it does.

So I opened up the Hao De blog, which gives a very detailed description of a good way to steep Oolongs. I do want to derive the greatest pleasure I can from this experience-- I would hate to mess it up because of my own lack of knowledge-- so I follow his directions to the letter. The results are delightful, amazing.

THE LEAVES
The largish brown-and-greenish leaves are in big, complicated wads. When the package was cut open, there was such an unusual scent-- fruity, earthy.

MY GONG-FAUX PREPARATION
I haven't yet purchased a proper gaiwan and associated hardware, nor have I been trained in their use by a Chinese tea master. But I try to approximate the process I read about by using porcelain covered cups and careful attention to temperature and timing. Following Hao De's advice, I filled a cup 1/4 full of the balled oolong leaves. I did a number of short steeps, and I slowly increased the length of the steepings until the tea stopped being pleasurable. The notes below, I took as I tasted. I'll leave them as is, only editing the most egregious errors.

steeping 1: 30s
not very flavorful tea liquor yet
the scent of the leaves is outstanding, so unusual

Because the tea hadn't taken on the flavor yet, but the leaves were so brightly scented, I held up my steeping cup near my nose while I drank, sort of borrowing the aroma to flavor the tea. Very harmonious, though probably not something I'd do when people are watching. I couldn't keep my nose out of the steeping cup, away from that aroma.

steeping 2: 20s
totally unique flavor. now the tea begins to taste like the scent of those leaves.

steeping 3: 20s
Noticeably stronger flavor!
what is this aroma/flavor combination?! almost a mint/pine brightness, slightly dry in the mouth, like rich fruit and and perhaps a bit floral, but like no flower I'm familiar with.
just a hint of bitterness now developing
bright, amazing savor

steeping 4: 20s
best steeping yet. glorious. my wife and I are sharing the tea between us, and i am having a hard time believing how good this is. or keeping up with her demand for tea.

steeping 5: 35s
flavor maintaining its profile very nicely

steeping 6: 45s
(same)
I am enjoying just sipping, not writing. This is definitely a tea to be savored, and probably writing this post is taking away from that. The next time I make this, I will write nothing and taste everything.

steeping 7: 60s + 5m
60s is not enough, the taste is too weak. I will now follow another tea master's advice and start using longer steeping times. Don't be horrified! I poured the water back on the leaves and steeped this time for 5 minutes. drinking alone now, and wanted to get the most out of the tea.
at 6m, the tea tastes great again, though the mouthfeel is getting much weaker.

steeping 8: 15m
Just too weak to be enjoyed anymore. Faint hint of flavor, but not enough to compel me to fill up on more liquid.

As I walk around after the tasting, the complex, lingering aftertaste follows me around the house, clearly and distinctly, and much longer than I expected.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Awesome tea, and one of the best experiences I've had yet with oolongs. I am very anxious to get back to this tea and just drink-- no typing-- with my eyes closed and some music playing. Thank you, Kyle at Fang Tea, for the gift of such excellent LiSan Oolong. I'm a convert, and I will obviously have to search out more of the tea from Pear Mountain.

Review: You, Me and Tea, Quangzhou Milk Oolong

The flavor of this Milk Oolong from Quangzhou is quite singular, and though I've used up my sample, I'm already wanting more.

With this review, I hope to pique your interest so you might explore a rare tea that will surprise and intrigue you. I will be reviewing a pretty rare type of oolong from Quongzhou in China, the elusive creature known as the Milk Oolong.

You, Me and Tea gives rather little information about this tea on their Web site. Here's what they write:

Quongzhou Milk. Luxurious, that's what you can call this tea. It has a most unique character best described as sweet milk. It has impeccable orchid notes.

Okay, not much to go on, but sounds delicious. Note to the writers for You, Me and Tea: Because the tea has such an interesting backstory, you may want to write up more complete and interesting descriptions.

BACKGROUND
As I searched about online, I discovered that two of my favorite reviewers, Cinnabar at GongfuGirl, and Troy at TeaViews, have already written eloquently about this tea. I'll quote Troy here, who did some research into what this tea is all about.

Milk Oolong, according to the common story, is the product of leaves harvested during special seasonal temperature drops. These temperature drops, one would assume, infuse the leaves with a thicker milkier sap that curdles slightly during normal Oolong processing. I have, however, heard that the flavor is actually achieved by the addition of milk during the steaming of the leaves. I put a bug in David's ear, a voracious all consuming bug, when I asked him if he could find out whether this was the case, or not. What he found was at first a chorus saying that their products were Au-natural, followed by admissions that most of the producers do add milk to “enhance” the flavor. Clear as mud, eh?

Searching my memory, I do remember something about this. This is typically a limited-edition tea, because Milk Oolong can only be produced when there is a sudden drop in temperature, just at the time of the harvest. Very little of this tea can be created each year, because the conditions that give rise to this are quite rare.

THE TERROIR
Where is this tea from? Quongzhou (Guangzhou) is part of the Wuyi mountains, and has a very ancient tea culture. I'll quote from a local tourism Web site for the region.

Lingnan's tea culture is one of the four main tea cultures in China.

Lingnan Area consists of provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and Taiwan and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region with Guangdong as its core area.

Lingnan people began planting tea in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). A man called Cao Song brought some seeds of tea from northern China to Guangdong and planted them in Xiqiao Mountain. Since then, Lingnan's tea culture has become an important part of life here.

Because of the hot and humid climate, tea is a must-have daily drink for Lingnan people.

In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Lingnan people started a special Cantonese-style breakfast Yam Cha, or Dim Sum, which is popular little snack steamed, deep-fried or boiled.

Tea and dim sum? I'm sold. The site goes on to say that the practice of gongfu tea brewing also began in this region. Brilliant!


THE PREPARATION
Filtered water, rolling boil, 2 minutes maximum, porcelain teapot.

THE LEAVES
Dry, the leaves appear green-to-black, in little wads and a fair amount of broken leaf dust in the pouch. It does have a very unusual scent, very rich and thick. I could definitely imagine this scent being associated with sweetened, condensed milk, rather than the typical green or sharp smell one gets from the teas I've been driking. It has a silky nose to it, if that makes any sense at all. In fact, if I hadn't been told that this was a tea that I was smelling, I may not have figured it out without looking. As many good oolongs do, the tea opens up into full, deep green leaves. There are high floral notes I can discern in the tea leaves, which help me pick up that aroma in the tea itself.

THE CUP
This tea is a pure, pale-gold tea that is clear to the bottom of the cup. The tea perfectly carries the aroma from the leaves-- rich, creamy, with the faintest bit of flower very high up in the aroma, set against the heavy thickness of the lower aroma.

For this tea, the aroma and the flavor are indivisible: like springtime irises and slightly carmelized sweet cream. One could see this flavor infused into a complicated dessert by Gale Gand. I enjoyed the tea the most when it was fairly piping hot, and liked it progressively less as it cooled in the cup.

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH INFUSIONS
For this tea, I performed multiple steepings, and each was fully as enjoyable as the first, with even more complexity of flavor, with a faint dryness in the mouthfeel appearing for the first time, and the caramel aroma heightening.

This tea's giving just goes on, and on, and on. Third infusion, the mouthfeel is not quite as silky as before, but the taste and aroma are still bright, with that milky and floral flavor very pronounced.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I do wonder about whether this tea was soaked in some kind of milk, or if they achieved this effect completely naturally. The flavor of this Milk Oolong from Quangzhou is quite singular, and though I've used up my sample, I'm already wanting more.

(Picture by Conservation Journal Online.)

DID YOU KNOW: How did Oolong get its name?

My Facebook friend, Daniel Hong, works with Yunxiang Tea, who have this description of the "Legend of Oolong Tea" on their Web site. I will share the whole thing here for posterity. I did have to type the entire thing, which was embedded in Flash. But I'm a good transcriptionist, so have no fear: the ESL charm will remain intact.

The Naming of Oolong Tea
Oolong tea's homeown is a small village in Anxi county of Fujian Province. In this village lived many tea planters. At that time, people knew little about making tea. They just picked up fresh tea leaves, then baked them directly to be dry tea. One day, a boy named Wulong (similar spelling of oolong) who also lived in this village saw a pretty little bird perching on a tree. Wulong was so excited that he shot the bird with a catapult [I think they mean slingshot. --Ed.] on his way back from picking tea-leaves. The little bird dropped off the tree with a screaming of sadness. Wulong then run up to pick up the bird. However, the bird was just inquired and moved hard its wings to fly away. Wulong who is determined to capture the bird, run after the little bird. When he is running, the pack basket was sliding up and down. So the tea-leaves in the basket kept rolling and knocking each other. Wulong run for quite a while but failed to catch the bird. At the sight of the sunset, Wulong had to give up and returned home. He got so tired for tracking the bird that he didn't make tea at that day. The day after tomorrow, Wulong made tea and took a taste try. Surprisingly, the tea was so different from before. The new tea had strong aroma and tasted sweet and mellow. People were curious about how he can made such a nice tea. At first Wulong had no idea about the reason. Finally, he remembered that when he was tracing the bird the tea-leaves kept knocking and that such tea-leaves was left away for a day before being processed. He told people about this story. Although people had doubts about this story, they did try and got the same good result. From then on, thanks to its special aroma and mellowness, tea produced by this village sold very well. The village people named this tea Oolong to express their gratefulness.

What's funny about this legend is that it has the ring of truth to it, because it's so uneven and prosaic. The great sage This-or-That, or Emperor Whosit did not have a flash of divine wisdom to suddenly invent oolong; rather, a hungry little boy who chased a bird for dinner, until he had-- he thought-- ruined his day's labor of tea picking. And he never even caught the bird!

Thank you, Yunxiang Tea, for giving me this story to share and enjoy the next time I drink a cup of Wulong's tea.

(Image is called, "Birds," and was painted by Emperor Sung Huizong.)

Advice for Steeping Oolong Tea

If you brew or review Oolongs, here is some very smart advice from the Hao De Tea blog. These guys really, REALLY know their stuff. Their advice for what to look for in a good oolong, and the way to steep it, lead to very good results.

http://houdeblog.com/?p=136

REVIEW: The Tea Spot, Vintage Oolong

http://theteaspot.com/vintage-oolong-tea.html

THE TEA

The Web site reads:

Our Vintage Oolong is a pure Taiwanese, single–estate, medium–bodied oolong. With a sweet, nutty flavor, this tea captures the subtlety of what amazing, full–leaf tea should taste like. Hints of ripe apricots and lilacs combine to produce a tender, timeless green oolong; hence the name! This tea yields a bright, amber liquor and should be re–steeped multiple times. Each successive steeping will unveil new flavors & aromas, until the leaves are fully opened. Delicate, refined, and understated - this is the true connoisseur’s tea!

My only complaint is that the Tea Spot people didn't let us know on their Web site which vintage this tea is, nor which field is comes from, nor what time of year it was picked. For my personal education in tea, I long for this information.

THE PREPARATION
Because this is a green oolong, and it's fairly dense (the leaves are small crumpled balls, rather than long twists), I will use 1 tsp with 1 cup filtered water, boiled and allowed to cool to 90C, for 2 minutes, in Great-Grandma's Japanese porcelain teapot. Well, that was the plan. In practice, a sudden interruption meant that I actually ended up steeping for 3 minutes, which is a bit long for a green oolong, in my opinion. Let's see how it worked out.

THE LEAVES
These leaves when dry are highly fragrant, green smelling, with nutty and floral notes. The very tightly bunched, little balls opened up upon steeping into beautiful, large leaves of a very rich, summery-dark grass green. They have a buttery, rich scent, almost like buttered popcorn or rich cooked greens.

THE CUP
This tea has a terrifically golden cup, transparent and very shiny. Drunk very hot, the flavor is a bit difficult to discern-- slightly woody, with a mineral tone. As the tea cools, the flavors start to show up on the scene: a floral flavor, sweet like lavender, perhaps, but quite subtle, with green grass and hay. There is a dry, grassy or woody mouthfeel, which nicely counterpoints the sweetness of the aroma. The flora aroma and flavor continue to develop as the cup cools, creating a very complex experience for me.

THE SECOND CUP
As I say every time, I always love to try the second cup in the first infusion, because time and heat have allowed the tea to oxidize further and develop its flavors more fully. For this tea, the second cup is definitely drier than it was before, and the flavor is fully-formed, with great floral, grass, and wood notes. This tea has distinctly green characteristics-- grass, hay, dryness-- with a fruitiness as of maybe apricot or peach, which is that semi-oxidized oolong character.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Even though I don't know where the tea is from, it's still quite lovely, and the fragrance is really quite something.

REVIEW: Tea Gschwendner Formosa Fancy Taifu Oolong

Photo from the lovely Web site, taipics.com.

TeaGschwendner Formosa Fancy Taifu Oolong, 2008

This offering by TeaGschwendner is the winner of the 2008 Best Dark Oolong, from the 2008 World Tea Championship.

The Fancy Superior grade is bestowed only upon exquisite, tippy teas such as the Taifu. Known as “Five Color Tea,” northern Taiwanese Oolongs are oxidized around roughly 60% and take on various hues of brown—from beige to sienna. The Taifu is a heady cup, a nuanced sketch of wood and stewed plum. Infuse multiple times.

THE LEAVES
The dry leaves in hot pot: smells like roasted honey, like sweet black currant jam (and I'm proud of myself for figuring out what that elusive smell was-- but it's currants, on the nose!). The leaves are large, black, tightly twisted, with bits of dark-reddish tippiness showing up. After steeping, I can see why they call this "five-color tea," because the leaves take on many hues of reddish- to greenish-brown, with large open leaves. As the leaves cooled in the pot, they took on a mineral and muscatel aroma, a very complex scent that was rather heady. I love the smell of good wet tea leaves!

THE PREPARATION
2 heaping teaspoons per cup @ 2 cups boiling water, in Great-Grandma's Japanese porcelain pot. (It makes me happy to use this pot that had been sitting fallow all these years.)

THE CUP
This is a nearly transparent but quite dark brown tea, and highly fragrant and strong. The aroma, though, is very weak to the tea liquor itself. There is a hint of bitterness on the tongue and a complex, almost medicinally herbal flavor, with a very smooth and creamy mouthfeel. To me, the most enjoyable aspect of the tea is in the long aftertaste, which keeps shifting on my tongue. It goes from herbal, to cream, to chocolate, to dark honey, to something sharp and ascerbic....

SECOND CUP
For this tea, the second cup was much the same to me as the first, without a great deal of new flavor development. I'll be interested to find how multiple infusions play out. Drinking alone, I think I'll have to just taste the infusions and just allow some tea to go cool, because otherwise I'll be floating. Seems like a waste!

MULTIPLE INFUSIONS

• The second infusion: 4 minutes, boiling water. The cup is still a deep brown, with a hint of fogginess, perhaps, as I peer to the bottom of my cup. When drunk very hot, the tea has a distinctly metallic characteristic, as though it was steeped in spring water with a high mineral content, instead of simply filtered water. The flavor is somewhat subdued, and a bit earthy, though perhaps not as smooth as the first steeping-- a bit ascerbic, a dry mouthfeel. Although the directions say that I can do multiple steepings, the second is really not so amazing that I feel compelled to try a third. As the tea cools, the flavors declare themselves (again, primarily in the aftertaste)-- a bit like honey in the throat, some greenness up in the high register, some ascerbic dryness in the middle.
  

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
This tea has won the Best Dark Oolong award for 2008. This means that this tea has been judged one of the world's great teas. It pains me to say so, but I don't love it. The reason I don't like to say so is because doing so obviously displays the limitations of my palate or my execution, rather than any weaknesses inherent in the tea. Nevertheless, I was expecting a much more complex tea, and one that would really please my senses. Though the first steeping was quite a powerful experience, I didn't thrill with pleasure as I felt I ought to do.

REVIEW: 2009 First-Flush Oolong from Soureni Estate, Darjeeling, FreshDarjeelingTea.com

2009 has been a very special year for me, because after all these years of learning about tea, I finally feel as though I'm coming home. This is because of the happy combination of proximity to and attending an influential tasting by a first-class tea vendor, Tea Gschwendner; plus the friends I have made through the Facebook group "A Cup of Tea Solves Everything"; and discovering a host of tea bloggers and writers I did not know even existed a couple years ago. And now being part of TeaReviews.com, I am also given the opportunity to savor teas I would not otherwise have been in a position to enjoy.

One new friend in particular, Sonam Paljor Lama, who operates FreshDarjeelingTea.com, has sent samples to me from my beloved Darjeeling, which has been a delight and an education. I've never tasted such fresh tea from a first-flush. Being in the States, teas typically take a little longer to get to us.

THE TEA
Sonam sent me a brand-new 2009 first-flush Oolong from the tiny Soureni tea estate, which is wedged between the large Singbulli and Phuguri estates. I have high hopes, because the Phuguri Darjeelings have long been my favorite. (Though, this year, the Arya first-flush Darjeeling was so spectacular... but back to this tea!) This year the growing season was cut short because of a late start, which means the first-flush Darjeelings are more rare. Sonam writes that most of the highgrown, exotic Darjeelings are still yet to come. Yay, this should be an exciting season.

THE LEAVES
What an interesting scent awaited me as I opened the package and stuck my nose into it. It wasn't really the scent that I'd later find in the cup-- rather earthy, almost; woody. After steeping, the cup's scent differed dramatically from the spent leaves, which had a sharp spicy smell. The leaves themselves were very beautiful-- small leaves and buds, perfectly shaped, usually in the classic two-leaves-and-a-bud configuration. They were predominantly an olive-green color with a reddish hue overlaying it.

THE PREPARATION
5.5 minutes with water just below boiling, in Great-Grandma's Japanese porcelain teapot. I approximated Sonam's steeping time, which I found on his blog.


THE CUP
Beautiful peach-amber color in the transparent cup. The scent! I love the smell of a fragrant tea. This smells of cherries and honey, maybe a smell of roasted sugar, and a bit of something floral high up in the aroma. Again, why has no enterprising perfume artist created a first-flush Darjeeling-scented aroma? It would be intoxicating.

This tea is an oolong, but to me it just says, Darjeeling! The terroir seems to define the tea to me, more than does the method of its preparation. Its Darjeelingness-- that lightly fragrant and complex scent; its astringency and brightness in flavor; its long finish-- that's what I come for.

THREE STAGES OF THE CUP: HOT, WARM, COOL(ISH)
The cup seems to move through several stages as it cools slightly in the cup: Hot, it's all about the scent, which I described above. Complex, fascinating, sweet, slightly floral, amazing. As it goes to Warm, there is rather a bit of bitterness that develops. Perhaps its the long steeping time that Sonam said he used (and I would typically only steep a first-flush Darjeeling for maybe 2 to 3 minutes, rather than a full 5 to 6), but I would rather have skipped that part. On my next time around, I think I'll steep 2 minutes and perhaps employ a larger number of steepings. But then in the slightly Cool stage, the bitterness almost completely vanished, leaving this almost winelike honey flavor that is indescribable, with a dryness in the mouth and a long finish that makes me think more of savory-sweet herbs like tarragon.

TASTING THE ECHO
Hot, the second steeping is very smooth, with the sharp elbows tucked in. The scent of the cup is sweet, more restrained and relaxed. There is still the astringency in the back of the throat, with no bitterness to speak of. Same brightly golden-brown color. The flavor is more haunting and ethereal, with layered notes of cherry and honey that rise up and meet you in an almost shy way, rather than assertively sticking their hand out and pulling you in. As the tea cools, it develops the characteristic dryness in the mouthfeel.

By the third steeping, I am not noticing the tea's increasingly elusive flavor while sipping, so much as the memory of her voice echoing sweetly after she has already left the room. In the aftertaste, the flavor characteristic to this tea makes itself felt.

When reading this to Suzanne, I tell her the tea reminds me of her. She said, "Sweet and layered? Like an onion? [laugh]" I responded, "No, like a parfait!" MY WIFE tells me it is delicious, and though she feels she doesn't have a palate that can pick out subtle nuances, she loves how fresh and clean the tea feels in her mouth.

REVIEW: Jade Oolong Tea, from Green Hill Tea

Jade Oolong tea, from Green Hill Tea
http://greenhilltea.com/id23.html

Thank you, George, for sending me this tea. My wife is requesting some tea, and I thought I'd make your Jade Oolong as this afternoon's review.

The Web site reads:

Jade Oolong Tea

Oolong tea is a partially oxidized green tea, and has some of the qualities of both green tea and black tea. Jade Oolong is not baked as long as Dark Oolong, the steeped tea has a light golden hue, sweet flora aroma, fresh initial flavor, and a sweet floral aftertaste which lasts after the sip. Oolong tea is a world famous natural health drink that is loaded with anti-oxidants and thus, many health benefits.

Brew hint: Place one tea spoon into a cup; add boiling water for 3-7 minute.

Okay, I'm surprised that we add boiling water to an oolong, but I'm certainly game.

THE PREPARATION
4 tsp tea leaves, 4 cups, steeped in cast-iron Tetsubin at boiling water temperature, with filtered H2O. Rinse leaves first in near-boiling water for a few seconds, before steeping.

I wish I had a decent Yixing purple-clay pot to prepare the oolong in, to allow it to control the temperature better. But the tetsubin shall have to do!

THE LEAVES
The dry leaves are various shapes, from irregular balls to oblongs, but the leaves seem to be a quite large size. They range from a light sage green to more of a dark, forest green. They are nicely aromatic, like freshly mown hay, and like spearmint, and grass. because the leaves are large, I'll have to use big, heaping teaspoons to keep the mass about the same as smaller, denser teas.

Nope, I can't do it. I can't pour truly boiling water on these beautiful leaves. I'll let the water cool down a bit, to maybe 200F, before steeping.

While I wait, I am aware of a very strong scent of honeysuckle. The leaves are waking up, and they are quite large-- some as large as the final digit of my thumb.

APPEARANCE
The cup itself is a very pure orange-gold, with only the barest hint of green. Pure, clean all the way to the bottom of the cup.

AROMA
the smell of the tea is that same honeysuckle scent. Quite fragrant.

THE FLAVOR
Very smooth, tasting of hay and grass. There's the faint bitterness I associate with green teas.

My lovely wife had the following interchange:

Me: "How do you like it?"
She: "It's good."
Me: "But how do you like it?"
She: "I like it."
Me: "But HOW do you like it?"
She: "Tastes like oolong."

At that point, I gave up and came back down to finish my review.

THE SECOND CUP
I know that typically with oolongs, you do multiple steepings. I will probably experiment with that next time I review this tea. But this time, I will follow my own advice and not pronounce on the tea until I've let it sit a bit, and then review the second cup. By letting the tea sit, it allows the complex catechins and flavinoids and theanine and other Tiny Tea Molecules to combine and recombine, making the taste richer and fuller.

The second cup is very grassy and clean, with just the faintest hint of the burn at the back of the throat. (Do I just have a sensitive throat? Who knows, but I like the sensation.) It really makes me think of being outside by a stream of clean water. There's a vegetal flavor up front, under the grassiness, followed by a taste of green apple, perhaps; or maybe other sweet fruit. The aftertaste is achieved by the slow diminishment of the vegetal and slightly bitter notes, leaving behind a sweet honey and grass flavor. But this tea is most alive at that first vibrant instant when the tea hits the tongue (whereas some teas are best discovered by the development of the flavors in the mouth over time). It's great as it hits the nose and mouth simultaneously, right up front.

Thank you, George and Green Hill Tea, for sending me this gift of tea. I've very much enjoyed slowing down my afternoon and listening to my senses, with a pot of your tea. I'll try a more gongfu approach (with multiple short steepings) in future, to see how this tea behaves.

REVIEW: China Fancy Oolong, Tea Gschwendner

CHINA FANCY OOLONG

Okay. I know there are like 10 million amazing oolongs out there. I used to drink lower-quality oolongs in the early days of my tea imbibing, and I just couldn't love them. Undoubtedly, I was steeping them at too high a temperature, and I'll have to look into them again.

The China Fancy Oolong is not really what I would think of as a top-drawer tea: it's rather an ordinary oolong. I've read serious and scary tea connoisseurs who have much to say about oolongs, and I know I'm a complete rube about this topic. Nevertheless, forge on! Drive the last remaining reader to tears of boredom!

THE LEAVES
These are dark brown, huge leaves, with a reddish cast and lots of stem. When dry, the leaves had a greenish tinge with silver stripes on the leaves.

THE CUP
Golden-brown in color. The flavor is very different from the other entries here: it has a very big mouth feel and a very complex flavor. Which I like, if I haven't made that obvious yet. The first impression is one of fruit-- perhaps orange, or peach, or other citrus. It also has a cedar or woody flavor floating.

This is a pretty heavy, malty cup (compared to the others here, at the tea tasting at Tea Gschwendner in Algonquin). Apparently, it's a Yunnan province tea, which is supposed to be heavier and darker than your Taiwan teas.