What Oolong Are You Drinking

Semi-oxidized tea
User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1775
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Fri Sep 30, 2022 6:31 am

Teafortea wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 4:20 am
LeoFox wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:42 am
Teafortea wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:34 am


I love your teapot collection Leo! Is this one from Akira?
Yes. Joaka mumyoi pot
viewtopic.php?p=34536#p34536
Thank you! Been eyeing that teapot for a while
You can check out the pour in the second pic of this gram post

User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1775
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Sat Oct 01, 2022 8:00 am

Lazycat 2020 rougui from sample bag. This one seems to have gone pretty stale.

User avatar
debunix
Posts: 1811
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:27 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Sat Oct 01, 2022 4:55 pm

LeoFox wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 3:39 pm
It confirms to me that the heavy 3-4 infusion method endorsed by @Andrew S is simply not for me. Last time I tried it almost induced me to vomit from the caffeine hit and coffee concentrate aspects. Guess I'm just too wimpy.
Nothing wrong with liking your tea infused lighter/more dilute than average. If it is enjoyable to you, that's what counts. I also am a 'tea wimp', preferring my teas relatively more dilute, but I also get lots of takers at work when I share them, including lots of people who didn't think they liked tea. I think there are actually plenty of people who do not want tea that mimics expresso. And it means we get more tea from fewer leaves, so it's effectively cheaper for us to get our fix, and the really hard to get and rare treasures last longer.

That said, I have found one recently purchased oolong that is simply too lightly flavored for me to enjoy it unless I infuse enough leaf to actually fill my gaiwan when the leaves are fully open. Most of the time I aim for about 1/3-1/2 full when the leaves are expanded, but I have to push this one quite a bit to get anything out of it at all. Fortunately it was not very expensive.
User avatar
Victoria
Admin
Posts: 3041
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:33 pm
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Contact:

Sat Oct 01, 2022 8:08 pm

On the topic of infusion length and intensity, it’s always curious as to preferred range enjoyed by guests during our tastings. I also enjoy heavier richer steeps, but can understand how those steeps could be too rough and in your face for more delicate, refined, palates. Differences enjoyed must have something to do with taste buds, or cultural factors, and or overall body synergy. Dedunix describes the aroma of Wistaria’s Ancient Heights 80s DongDing exactly as I experienced it just now (it’s very aromatic) but leaf/water volume/time I used is about 65% more than you used :) … At 6g/90ml/212f/60sec liquor was a bit thin for me, so next time I’ll try using more leaf. Dry leaf aroma has sweet plum notes, with no sourness at all. A very clean elegant roasted oolong.
debunix wrote:
Mon Jul 12, 2021 1:32 pm
30 year old Dong Ding from Wistaria Tea House, a tea Victoria introduced me to recently and thank goodness more was still available.

The scent of just the dry leaves of this one is insane: fruity, earthy, spicy, sweet....clearly roasted, but not smelling of the roast. It's amazing. I'm prepping only a tiny bit of leaf because it's already warming up too much for a long session of hot tea, so it is just 1.9 grams, which will have plenty of room in Petr's treebark pot.

Image

about 100mL water just off the boil, 30 seconds or so: the smells rising off the liquor, enjoyed in a tallish Tetsuki Nakao Spring Galaxy yunomi to capture the scent, are just as promised from the dry leaf. It's sweet, honey and raisins and dried cherries, so nice.
User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1775
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:50 pm

Okay brewed that stale lazy cat rougui ( viewtopic.php?p=44923#p44923 ) with the strong way. Bitter bitter Chinese medicine with spicy aftertaste... better than stale infusions? Maybe- not sure. Aftertaste is much better for sure, but that bitterness ... and the nice mouthfeel is lost


User avatar
Victoria
Admin
Posts: 3041
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:33 pm
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Contact:

Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:15 pm

@LeoFox did you try a quick re-roast? Could perk it up for you. For quick freshen up re-roast I use a simple ceramic sesame roaster over the stove.
P.S. just looked this Rou Gui up, by the price looks like an everyday lower end yancha to be enjoyed casually, maybe even with a meal. Just going with the flow here, maybe price point expectations of yancha are out of line with quality desired? I have a Jing Rougui and Fukien TGY sourced by Adventures in Every Cup that is this kind of casual oolong to have with or after meals. Definitely not higher end refined stuff, rather having a rough and gruff personality.
User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1775
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:03 am

Victoria wrote:
Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:15 pm
LeoFox did you try a quick re-roast? Could perk it up for you. For quick freshen up re-roast I use a simple ceramic sesame roaster over the stove.
P.S. just looked this Rou Gui up, by the price looks like an everyday lower end yancha to be enjoyed casually, maybe even with a meal. Just going with the flow here, maybe price point expectations of yancha are out of line with quality desired? I have a Jing Rougui and Fukien TGY from Adventures in Every Cup that is this kind of casual oolong to have with or after meals. Definitely not higher end refined stuff, rather have a rough and gruff personality.
I am very familiar with this rougui as I have several tins of the 2019. It is pretty nice actually and superior to rougui much more expensive than it from other vendors like txs and old ways tea. This 2020 one has gone stale.

Also- this is not comparable to rough yancha as you describe it. For that, old ways tea has plenty of- broken glass astringency - a few sips makes me reach for the cough medicine.

This tea has very low astringency. It is just stale. I am attributing it to the paper pouch storage.
Ethan Kurland
Vendor
Posts: 1024
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:01 am
Location: Boston
Contact:

Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:38 am

LeoFox wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:03 am
Also- this is not comparable to rough yancha as you describe it. For that, old ways tea has plenty of- broken glass astringency - a few sips makes me reach for the cough medicine.
If you swish that around in your mouth, it might remove stains on teeth. :roll:
User avatar
debunix
Posts: 1811
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:27 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Sun Oct 02, 2022 11:16 am

858EA7E7-14EA-4030-A262-8ABE6861EBAC.jpeg
858EA7E7-14EA-4030-A262-8ABE6861EBAC.jpeg (196.71 KiB) Viewed 3206 times
Last night I finished off the last of a sample of Ba Xian from Wuyi Origin. I prepared it in my Chao Zhou pot from Tea Habitat, after I set up my new tea table from Friso Furniture.

The tea was delicious, floral and spicy and lasting, and as usual perhaps slightly muted by the Chao Zhou. And the tea table added considerably to the pleasure.
User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1775
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:48 pm

And now onto 2020 qidan from lazycat. This one is not stale. Actually none of the other 2020 yancha from lazycat sample bags were stale except for that rougui. I hope it is not that something was wrong with the 2020 batch.

Here is the qidan:

User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1775
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Sun Oct 02, 2022 1:15 pm

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:38 am
LeoFox wrote:
Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:03 am
Also- this is not comparable to rough yancha as you describe it. For that, old ways tea has plenty of- broken glass astringency - a few sips makes me reach for the cough medicine.
If you swish that around in your mouth, it might remove stains on teeth. :roll:
Hahaha they probably stained my teeth a lot more.
Andrew S
Posts: 704
Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2021 8:53 pm
Location: Sydney, Australia

Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:34 pm

Casually comparing two oriental beauties, both from Tao Yuan, both shui xian, both lightly roasted, but very different in character. I should have taken a 'before' photo of the dry leaves; they looked even more different than they do when they're wet.

The one on the left is one that I've been drinking recently (from Fu Xing, 5 April 2022); very nice, a strong shui xian character (for want of a better expression), some cool elements developing in the flavour, and a nice persistent aftertaste. I've enjoyed drinking this.

The one on the right is a small sample that I'm trying for the first time (from Jiao Ban Shan, 22 May 2022); much fruitier, even grape-y, starts on cool flavours, and the fruits continue on the aftertaste but balanced with slightly warmer elements (again, for want of a better expression). There's also some kind of interesting floral character when I exhale, but I won't pretend to be able to put it into words.

I don't usually compare teas directly; I tend to get much more enjoyment from simply drinking tea than from tasting (or testing) it, but this was a fun little comparison. I'll probably brew the second one in a more 'serious' fashion later today.

Andrew
Attachments
_MG_0414.jpg
_MG_0414.jpg (226.97 KiB) Viewed 3151 times
User avatar
LeoFox
Posts: 1775
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Sun Oct 02, 2022 9:10 pm

Going back to last 6g of lazycat gao cong shui xian after a week of airing out. The heavy roast impression is mostly gone but the rest i mentioned before is still there. Quite nice and thought provoking tea for a good price.
20221002_220001.jpg
20221002_220001.jpg (120.14 KiB) Viewed 3145 times
20221002_215753.jpg
20221002_215753.jpg (154.77 KiB) Viewed 3145 times




Initial impression:
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Tue Oct 11, 2022 2:45 am

Still working my way through a batch of Mark T. Wendell's Royal Red Robe -- it was already starting to have those slightly tired old oolong notes when I got it, but is still in OK shape. Really agreeable. I'm not sure how they do their oolong blends, so I don't know if eventually someone will order a batch and get smacked by a fresh version, or if they bulk their new oolong with their remaining old oolong before packaging. I would kind of be interested in a fresh version so I could understand how much is their storage conditions and how much is the tea when they receive it.
Ethan Kurland
Vendor
Posts: 1024
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:01 am
Location: Boston
Contact:

Tue Oct 11, 2022 7:09 am

mbanu wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 2:45 am
.... I'm not sure how they do their oolong blends...
A company in Somerville, Massachusetts which is a few miles from me, supplies about 800 restaurants in the USA w/ "upscale" tea. People working there will reveal how they blend & what they blend because the company is proud of what it does & how it does it. Most of us would not think the company has much to offer that would be a source of pride, but fortunately for the business, buyers for fancy hotels etc. would not agree.

So, I am saying, telephone & ask, & maybe you will be told how the oolong you like is packaged (blended or not, etc.).
Post Reply