What Oolong Are You Drinking

Semi-oxidized tea
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Balthazar
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Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:48 am

Rmt wrote:
Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:16 am
Today I used 8g/140 ml zhuni. Water off the boil. 10/10/20s and so on.
What was the tea to leaf ratio last time? Seems like a fairly low ratio for yancha to me.

Nice bird :)
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OCTO
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Location: Penang, Malaysia

Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:55 am

Balthazar wrote:
Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:48 am
Rmt wrote:
Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:16 am
Today I used 8g/140 ml zhuni. Water off the boil. 10/10/20s and so on.
What was the tea to leaf ratio last time? Seems like a fairly low ratio for yancha to me.

Nice bird :)
I would do 8g to 100ml water.

Cheers!
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Balthazar
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Sun Sep 20, 2020 11:02 am

That's closer to my normal ratio, although I often go as high as 10-12g per 100 ml for "daily drinker" yanchas (not that I drink much yancha at all these days)
Rmt
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Sun Sep 20, 2020 1:36 pm

Balthazar wrote:
Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:48 am
Rmt wrote:
Sun Sep 20, 2020 9:16 am
Today I used 8g/140 ml zhuni. Water off the boil. 10/10/20s and so on.
What was the tea to leaf ratio last time? Seems like a fairly low ratio for yancha to me.

Nice bird :)
Similar ratio in a smaller pot, but with a slightly shorter steep. I’ll try a higher leaf ratio the next time! Most likely in a small pot due to the price of leaf
Rmt
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Location: Northern Norway

Sun Sep 20, 2020 4:03 pm

Hmm, just made some more in the same pot. Was curious and figured I could brew some more while the last session was fresh in memory.
12g/140ml slightly longer first steeps. Same flat result. Transferred the leaves to a 100 ml gaiwan for the third steep to rule out clay variables messing with stuff (it’s zhuni so shouldn’t do much). Same flat result :/

It might just be a boring tea... I’ll revisit it again in a couple of weeks/months, to double check. These disappointing sessions are confusing though...
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debunix
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Mon Sep 21, 2020 11:03 pm

Just drank one of those steeps of a nice yancha that was so warm and rounded, mineralicious, mellowly earthy, with a hint of sweetness....an infusion I got just right. Shui Xian from Old Ways Tea. Mmm.
Ethan Kurland
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Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:32 pm

A return to the beginning: A medium-oxidized organic red oolong that gives satisfying drinks of smooth, toasty, beverage that has a fresh, rich aroma, a subtle silky finish, long pleasant aftertaste, a nice light dryness at the back of the mouth & top of the throat, & if one likes looking, it is a nice amber color. The drink feels familiar & is comforting because simple, basic, superior tea flavor grounds the complexity & high quality. Sometimes one appreciates tartness the most, sometimes one notices other characteristics more. One can vary preparation to highlight different notes. I also sometimes put several infusions into a server to drink at various temperatures: hot, warm, cool. Each change in temperature changes what I taste.

Western preparation provides 2 excellent infusions from a modest amount of leaves. Doubling or tripling the amount of leaves allows for quicker steeping of many infusions. I am selling this. It is at the end of the list of teas that I sell which is at the end of posts on my thread in the vendor section.

How did I get this tea?

Oragnic Jin Xuan Red Oolong: This is the first tea that I bought in wholesale quantity. I bought 10 kg. of this in Thailand a very long time ago. I was there for fun & business. I had tried so many teas because I like traveling in tea country. This was the only one that was special (the rest were not even better than fair).

In the North, my girlfriend, NIt, & I insisted on being let off a tour of tea country because she kept getting motion sickness (an early symptom of her brain tumor that unfortunately we did not recognize as such.) Anyway, after NIt was finished being sick, we soon realized that we were on a rarely traveled road in the middle of uninhabited tea farms (or at least, it seemed so.) We waited for vehicles to come down the road but none did. So, we walked for about an hour or so, then made our way to the only buildings in sight. We found people who were packing tea. We stayed with them for hours. During a break in their work, we gave them chocolate that I had brought from the USA & they shared their food with us. They allowed me to put some leaves into drinking water to make a brew. Even without hot water, 1 of those teas tasted good. I was allowed to take some of that tea. (A few ounces, nothing like the kilograms that were being packed into thick plastic bags & then into wooden boxes or large metal cans .

We were allowed on board a vehicle that came for the workers to take them to their tiny village; &, after that the driver took Nit & I (for a fee) to a town big enough to have a guesthouse. He also gave us some business cards which I thought would lead me to someone who would sell me some of that tea, but they did not. (He spoke no English & hardly any pure Thai. He spoke some local dialect which Nit could not understand at all.)

6 weeks later, I was in Bangkok with a businessman. I was having some garments made for me but was returning to the USA before they would be finished. This agent would inspect hand-painted banners of the Chakra symbols, then pay for the ones that were acceptable & ship them to me. (Believe it or not, the artists, would sometimes put the chakras in the wrong order. They would do such excellent work--beautiful--but make that mistake!)

I told him about my disappointment with tea. He introduced me (by phone) to a French Canadian, Germain, who shipped tea from Thailand to China & Taiwan. I met with Germain eventually at his abode/office/storeroom & there we identified the tea that I liked. (It being red & rolled into small pearls helped narrow it down.) I was able to purchase no less & no more than 10 kg. Germain gave me 1200 grams then & later sent me 8.8 kg. (I was not so completely lucky. The 1-kg bag inside my checked luggage disappeared somewhere between Bangkok & my home in Boston. Only what I had in my carry-on made it to Boston from that plane ride.) Before that 8.8 kg. of tea arrived, I had already started trying to sell some via Teachat. I did not imagine that I may not be able to buy that tea again.

Now, so many years later, not involved with any jewelry or garments etc.; out of touch etc,., I found an old card of Germain's with a Canadian phone number handwritten on the back. I called it & Germain answered. It was the home of his parents whom he had come to visit & got stuck there because of Covid 19. He referred me to a lady in Chiangmai, Thailand. A few months later, I have my favorite tea. This year can have a bit of good luck! Cheers
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Bok
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Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:50 pm

@Ethan Kurland what a nice story!
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debunix
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Location: Los Angeles, CA

Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:11 pm

Excellent!

I've been drinking tea just barely long enough now to have had a handful of 'old favorite' moments, but none with such a backstory. This morning I had a lovely grandpa-brewed session with one of your 'flavor explorer' teas, so rich and tasty. I can't my hand on the bag right this moment to say which one it was, but it was lovely.
carogust
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Location: Finland

Fri Sep 25, 2020 4:28 am

Drank tillermantea's spring 2020 muzha TGY. Taste has pleasant roasted notes and overripe stone fruits along with a certain hard to name taste that I get with high-quality roasted oolongs. Aroma is fairly muted. Still a bit too fresh, but starting to open up slowly. What is really pleasant and interesting is the aftertaste, which has this very interesting interplay of masculine and brash roasted sweet notes and feminine mint notes. Exquisite stuff. Brewed 180ml/3g/3-5m in a nixing pot filled halfway.
Ethan Kurland
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Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:35 am

carogust wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 4:28 am
..... very interesting interplay of masculine and brash roasted sweet notes and feminine mint notes....
In Boston you would be "roasted" more than the tea for calling some notes masculine & some feminine! :D

It's been years since I had roasted TGY. Don't remember mint flavor. Interesting. Thanks for post.
vuanguyen
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Location: San Jose, California

Fri Sep 25, 2020 7:59 pm

With all the talk about Global Tea Hut and aging Oolong in recent posts, I was excited and motivated to purchase some aged oolong from GTH.
I bought their 1998 Cloud Freedom from Lishan mountain. Shipping was super fast. Less than 5 days.

Unfortunately, the tea was not great. I experienced this sour taste in my tongue. Not pleasant. If this is typical of aged oolong then I’m not impressed. Not my cup of tea. On a positive note, it had a calming effect and did not cause agitation like the aged Pu that I have been drinking. Also, that celadon jar is very nice :)

Maybe I will give aged oolong another try before giving up. Maybe purchasing from another vendor like TWL or from Ethan Kurland.

@Ethan Kurland @Teas We Like does your aged oolong have a sour taste?

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Last edited by vuanguyen on Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:19 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Victoria
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Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:00 pm

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 11:35 am
carogust wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 4:28 am
..... very interesting interplay of masculine and brash roasted sweet notes and feminine mint notes....
In Boston you would be "roasted" more than the tea for calling some notes masculine & some feminine! :D

It's been years since I had roasted TGY. Don't remember mint flavor. Interesting. Thanks for post.
Yes, contemporary gender stereotypes are pretty different than in the past, there are many more aceptable grey zones and interplay’s now than even in say twenty years ago :) .
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StoneLadle
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Location: Malaysia

Fri Sep 25, 2020 10:39 pm

@vuanguyen

Did the tea have any body or mouth feel to speak of?

Was your water hot enough?

For aged oolong, a decent tea to water ratio is desirable.

The first steep should be 20-30 seconds, or so, I tend to err towards the higher side of things, with the second steep a touch shorter after given some time to rest with the lid/cover off....
Ethan Kurland
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Fri Sep 25, 2020 10:48 pm

vuanguyen wrote:
Fri Sep 25, 2020 7:59 pm


Ethan Kurland Teas We Like does your aged oolong have a sour taste?
I am not Teas We Like. I sell tea under my name, Ethan Kurland, via a thread I have in the vendors section of TeaForum. Last post on page 5 has my current list of teas that are available.

My aged oolongs do not have a sour taste. I imagine that for some drinkers, aged, roasted oolong that is flash-brewed or prepared with only a a tiny amount of leaves, will taste tart (because a very weak roasted flavor is similar to a tart flavor). This is much different than a sour flavor that one may taste as foul. Use of a more normal amount of leaves and/or steeping for more than a few seconds, leads to a truer, developed taste created by roasting. Moreover, the years these 2 oolongs were undisturbed as they aged in relatively small ceramic urns made specifically for aging tea, helped them produce a smooth & mellow cup. Also top quality leaves were selected for careful processing & traditional roasting.

Cheers
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