More oolongs from Ethan Kurland
Da Yu Ling - High mountain, lightly oxidized green oolong. My first introduction of this was from a sample kindly gifted by Ethan on my ast order. This session was from ome that I had ordered. Originally I had planned on waiting until after my next round of kidney tests, but when the appointment was rescheduled for later...I could not resist openning this package. Beautiful notes of sweet spring gras freshly cut but without the vegetal aspect. Sweet pea and delicate florals. Perfectly balanced with absolutely no vegetal spinachy notes. About as far away from the modern nuclear green oolongs as one can get. The texture is thick and oily, contrasting with the delicate refined flavor profile. Even when pished, this tea never becomes vegetal or bitter..or even unbalanced.
Today's session was tasted backwards. By this I mean that rather than being part of the openning session of teas, I tasted this dead last after a series of shengs and one ripe...violating every tasting law imaginable. Despite this faux pas and tea saturated palate, the delicate flavors of this tea shone. I had literally just finished a coco laden ripe puerh but for some reason suddenly wanted to have some of this tea. I expected everything to be subdued, assuming the ripe puerh would still be dominating my palate (and after so many shengs). Instead this DYL tasted as fresh adn nuanced as if I had just started my tea session. I would recommend this to anyone who thinks they don't like green oolongs.
Oriental Beauty (Thng Fang Mei Jea) - I have written about this before and love it so much that I bought more. Proust has his madeleines as his muse for the Remberance of Things; this tea is mine. Memories of 1970's era NYC Chinatown: sweet incense, candied Chinese plums, molasses/dark sweet soy sauce, the fleeting aroma of salty sweet roast Pekin Duck, a green tart sweet sour apple consumed on the way for a repast of dim sum are just some of the memories evoked by this tea. Stunning and unique.
1998 Aged Lishan 22 Years - Tasted many times and yet still discovering new ways to brew this. This vascilates between ceder aromatic wood, golden plums, and honey, preserved lemon, and grain, chewy buckwheat honey. A wonderful example of an aged oolong that has retained its fruit flavors and not become muddled with roast flavors. In some ways tastes younger than it years for the preserved fruit notes and lightness yet still has deeperprofound aged note. The aromatic ceder and fruit notes remind me of Norbu's 2007 Mei Zhan against deeper more aged notes. Very unique and has challenged my concept of aged oolongs.