What Oolong Are You Drinking

Semi-oxidized tea
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LeoFox
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Sun Nov 14, 2021 11:01 am

JournalerMarie wrote:
Sat Nov 13, 2021 7:29 pm
Wow I was thinking of buying this. Thank you for sharing!
You might find this thread interesting

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1859
JournalerMarie
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Sun Nov 14, 2021 1:55 pm

LeoFox wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 11:01 am
JournalerMarie wrote:
Sat Nov 13, 2021 7:29 pm
Wow I was thinking of buying this. Thank you for sharing!
You might find this thread interesting

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1859
Thank you- I skimmed through to get an idea of what it was about. I do enjoy learning about tea history, tea processing, and modern tea production, especially as it concerns the environmental impact of the tea I drink. I look forward to reading it more thoroughly later today :)
maple
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Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:34 am

Image

2021 Spring/ Wuyi Yancha - Special Cultivar: Jing-Mau-Hou = Golden Hair Monkey
It's interested tea name for anyone who familiar to pinning tea. (especially for me)

I follow this tea from 2017, it’s really similar to Bai-Mao-Hou (White Monkey Paw) from North Taiwan.
White and Golden in Yancha meant Albino species. And most of these species is early maturing variety. Like baozhong, early maturing variety always had some special taste/ notes in trend. You can find these kind of character in this lot.

Notes: Jin-Mau-Hou - Balance. Good throughput in 10 flushes. Pekoe Notes. Fruity notes/ Oily body. Some herb medicine notes will reveal in nearly future (my experience)
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LeoFox
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Thu Nov 18, 2021 6:49 am

I've been playing with Tillerman's light roasted tea by Andy's family for a few sessions now. This is the one I found to be clean but quite mild when tested in a thin gaiwan:
viewtopic.php?p=39904#p39904

After a few trials, it is clear to me this tea shines brightest when pushed HARD. Best results have been 9g in 150 ML wood fired pot starting at 1 minute and then 1 minute again. After that - adding 30s and then 1 minute more.

In that same pot, when brewed "normally" starting at around 35 or 40 seconds, the tea is still quite mild, but thicker. But when punished, this tea sings like a completely different class of tea! Thick! Mouth coating! Dynamic! With tons of umami from the first brew that evolves into something quite complex and nice - plenty of honey (bug bitten?) notes as well that harmonizes with everything else.
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Bok
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Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:15 am

Aged Lishan after a long meal… good to wind down in deliciousness.
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Ethan Kurland
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Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:42 am

What a great photograph, Bok! So evocative!

Does preparation in this pot, or type of pot in general, highlight what you like and/or temper what you don't like much?

Thanks for sharing.
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Bok
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Sat Nov 20, 2021 10:35 am

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:42 am
What a great photograph, Bok! So evocative!

Does preparation in this pot, or type of pot in general, highlight what you like and/or temper what you don't like much?

Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Ethan. In this particular case it was the simple requirement to quench the thirst of more people than I usually serve… one of a few larger pots I have that is capable of serving a group of people.

It’s Zhuni, so it showed the tea as it is, a little rounding of some faults the tea has would have been ideal, but our palates were not neutral enough after all the food to be able to detect the finer points (good and bad) of this tea.

Advice: leave a lot of time pass after Indian food if you plan to drink a special tea. This one was very good, but it’s a daily kind of tea for me so still ok to have it nonetheless.
Andrew S
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Sat Nov 20, 2021 3:26 pm

@Bok: that teapot looks very proud on its stand.

I'm trying a sample of the 2019 Liu De Xi (De Xi Gu tea factory) rou gui that EoT offered a while ago.

Its emphasis is on mouthfeel, throatfeel and aftertaste, rather than upfront flavour and aroma, with an unobtrusively deep roast, a pleasant and persistent numbing feeling, and a kind of salty tang to the aftertaste.

I'll push it harder next time to see what happens.

Andrew
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Bok
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Sat Nov 20, 2021 6:05 pm

Andrew S wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 3:26 pm
Bok: that teapot looks very proud on its stand.
It’s for me a good example of how subtle shifts in the proportions can make all the difference in how a pot looks.

This style of Biandeng always looks a bit “stupid” to me, especially when they are large. But being one of the rarer large Zhuni and of a more advanced age, it’s still earned it’s keep.
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Bok
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Mon Nov 22, 2021 7:13 am

Today is a day of brewing in “another kind of wet“ style as @tjkdubya so aptly put it elsewhere.

Small pot, big pleasures. Yancha.
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BriarOcelot
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Mon Nov 22, 2021 6:08 pm

Such nice teapot pics as ever @Bok

Any tips on brewing up a roasted Lao Cong Shui Xian in a pot?

I almost never brew dancong... or it's been a long while.

I tried 5g of it in a 100ml DQN chubby ShuiPing pot - flushed with boiling spring water.

I figured with the heavy roast 20 seconds for the start would be good.

It does taste nice - it's the Sacred Lilly from TeaHong.
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Bok
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Mon Nov 22, 2021 6:47 pm

BriarOcelot wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 6:08 pm
Such nice teapot pics as ever @Bok

Any tips on brewing up a roasted Lao Cong Shui Xian in a pot?

I almost never brew dancong... or it's been a long while.

I tried 5g of it in a 100ml DQN chubby ShuiPing pot - flushed with boiling spring water.

I figured with the heavy roast 20 seconds for the start would be good.

It does taste nice - it's the Sacred Lilly from TeaHong.
Thanks!

5g in 100ml sounds a little too little for my personal preference. I’d go for a 80ml pot, or 8g in 100ml.

I don’t flush and I don’t time for any oolong. I do a longer first steep instead. Not sure how long but just under a minute, but it depends on the particular tea.

If your Laocong is of good quality it won’t matter too much how long you brew it, if not adapt accordingly, with shorter steeps or a more rounding clay.

Dancong I mostly prefer in Chaozhou pots, it brings something out in these teas that Yixing (often) doesn’t. But I can’t explain it…

Sorry for my vague and probably not very helpful tips - some fly by parameters some like me, by gut feeling.
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BriarOcelot
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Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:20 am

Thanks @Bok - it's useful to know. I'm like that with the tea that I'm more in the habit of brewing - I'm just quite unfamiliar with this roasted twisty stuff. 5g was a bit on the weak side - upped to 8 or 9 and it's much nicer.

I see these videos of people doing demoing 'Chouzhou brewing' (usually with a gaiwan and three cups) but it's usually lighter leaf and it's hardly any steep time. I'm definitely brewing the first steep for, like you say, just under a minute. The tea doesn't seem too sensitive to oversteeping.

I'm making do with a spare Yixing while I wait for delivery of a Chouzhou pot and more Dancong and yancha samples. It will be interesting to see if I can notice the difference when that arrives.
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Bok
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Wed Nov 24, 2021 7:08 am

@BriarOcelot glad if it was of some use!

One pot, one small cup tonight. Yancha again. A relief after a long and tiring day…
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mbanu
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Wed Dec 01, 2021 8:32 am

Still drinking a couple of Wing Hop Fung Tieguanyins I picked up back in August, the #1240 and the #1395. Initially I preferred the second one one, as the first one, labeled "Grate Aroma", had very little aroma by the time I got it (ambiguous age), but as the aroma on the second faded I think I've come to slightly prefer the Grate Aroma. :D Not really memorable teas, but drinkable roasted teas. That said, they suggest gongfu brewing and I have not been gongfu brewing, so I may not be getting the proper experience out of them.
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