What Oolong Are You Drinking

Semi-oxidized tea
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Victoria
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Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:35 pm

LeoFox wrote:
Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:35 pm
Victoria wrote:
Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:13 pm
LeoFox wrote:
Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:55 am
Wow looks like a great session! Is this a tie luo han - rou gui blend? I only see the tie luo han available on their site
https://txs-tea.com/collections/tea/pro ... uo-han-50g

Very nice juxtaposition of generational jozan pots!
You are right LeoFox I didn’t even notice I’d done that. The flavor profile is so similar to Rou Gui that I tacked that on to the name :). Edited my post to make correction. Your link is correct. The last time I had a Tie Lou Han was from Origin Tea from Guidong, that was planted in Hui Yuan, in the region of Feng Fe Keng (still trying to find that exact location). Was a mind glowingly excellent yancha. Unforgettable really.
I wonder if this TLH is actually a rougui since TLH is supposed to be rare and very very expensive.

Here are links to images of rougui and tieluohan leaves

https://oldwaystea.com/tea-info/tie-luo-han

https://oldwaystea.com/tea-info/rou-gui
TXS site says - “This iron Luohan is produced in the Shui Lian Dong mountain field and belongs to the core production area.” I’ll have another session with it in coming days to see if Rou Gui notes are as pronounced as in my last session. I’ve seen Tie Lou Han sold even cheaper that was produced outside the protected area of Wuyishan. Thanks for the leaf comparisons, very interesting to see how similar the two cultivars look.
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Victoria
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Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:54 pm

Andrew S wrote:
Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:59 am
I've started re-training myself on Taiwanese high mountain tea. It's been a while...

Seeing these posts contributed to getting me back, as did enjoying a bit of some 1988 or thereabouts vacuum-stored high mountain tea that I got quite a while ago.

Do people age much wulong by themselves? It seems like it should be simpler than ageing puer, and with no need for particular storage conditions if it's stored in a sealed bag, but I haven't yet seen people discussing DIY wulong storage.

And Victoria: have you tried many TXS yan chas? Would you say that they're on the lower- or higher-roasted side of things? I haven't yet tried them and some of their photos don't show the wet leaves.

Andrew
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Hi @Andrew S. I’ve been going through a large(ish) order from TXS mostly all Rou Gui. The roast level is high. The style is bold. @tjkdubya shared a good description in a TXS thread we recently started. I’ll share more tasting notes in that thread as I sample the various yancha.

Regarding aging oolong, if it’s vacuum sealed in a aluminum mylar bag, even high mountain which is only very lightly roasted can last several years and maintain freshness. Higher roast oolong mellow out, with charcoal roast notes subsiding after a year or two.

What can you tell us about your teapot? Another non-reduction example :) ?
Andrew S
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Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:25 pm

Thanks @Victoria, I'll have to get around to trying some of their yan chas I think. My preference is for the medium- to strong-roast levels rather than the lighter ones, so it sounds good so far.

As for the pot, I rely on wiser minds to teach me. It's my only dark zini, so I have nothing to compare it to.

All I know is that I've tried it with old puer, heavily roasted tea, white tea and high mountain tea, and it makes the latter taste fresh, vibrant and with a pleasantly mineral aftertaste, so I've got to respect the pot's choice and feed it more high mountain tea.

Andrew
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Bok
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Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:41 pm

@LeoFox TLH in the Zhengyuan area can be expensive and difficult to find, not exactly rare. Then you can also plant the same cultivar outside of that area and make available at a cheaper price. That’s why Yancha also usually includes a location description in the name.
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klepto
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Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:02 pm

LeoFox wrote:
Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:14 am
Continuing to enjoy Hojo's ban Tian yao.

viewtopic.php?p=34573#p34573
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That is a beautiful pot, I'm jelly.. :mrgreen:
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LeoFox
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Wed Apr 21, 2021 6:38 pm

klepto wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:02 pm
LeoFox wrote:
Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:14 am
Continuing to enjoy Hojo's ban Tian yao.

viewtopic.php?p=34573#p34573
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That is a beautiful pot, I'm jelly.. :mrgreen:
And I'm jelly of your LQER pot hahahaha
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LeoFox
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Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:11 pm

Just loving this pot with yancha hahaha
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polezaivsani
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Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:25 pm

I've been having some high mountain oolongs from Swiss Alps recently. Well, it was only stored and procured from there, the leaves where picked at the real deal.

The one i liked the most is 1999 Ali shan. It feels like sticking your nose into an big old leather handbag to sniff what might've had been in there before. There is pleanty of leather and lining smell to it. After pulling out of it, i might as well wonder why anybody has been using it to carry pomelos around - a good deal of it still present in the brew. Old wood is somewhere here too. With honey. Not sure how to wire it all into a cohesive image, but the feeling it leaves in the mouth is plenty harmonious. It'd be nice to give it another decade to mature, but alas, once the bag is open, the pomelos will be eaten pretty fast.

The empty cup is great - concoction of sweets and incense and i didn't waste a single moment inbetween steeps, sniffing at it.

I've been brewing it on saturdays and it has been giving me a short kick of euphoric mood. Pleasant bodily feeling, but brisk in duration, fading mostly before i had finished the whole session. I've been curious how much of self induced lie it might be for a suturday morning high feeling, and so tried it one one particularly bleak monday morning - and there was this rush once again, almost ignoring my overall down cast mood. Now this last time i've tried leaving the dry leaves in the pot the night before the action (as i've been trying to imbue a pot i'm raising with the sweetness), and while all for the most it was the still this morning, but this uplifting effect was more mild, or maybe thinly spread over longer period, but i didn't register it as evidently.

Nice drink, and i'm looking to soak myself in older oolongs this year.
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Bok
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Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:57 pm

@polezaivsani sounds like you found a good one! Aged Taiwanese oolong is not so easy to find, either nasty or boring, rarely pleasant.
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LeoFox
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Sun Apr 25, 2021 10:36 am

Laoshi frozen summit on rainy day
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Bok
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Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:07 am

Have been playing around with Daxue Jiadao’s curation of Yancha by @tjkdubya and partner for the last couple of weeks.

Having sampled almost all of them, the selection criteria – house style, so to speak, become very obvious: clean – very clean, well crafted teas with subtle, but potent expressions of their respective kind of Yancha. No roughness, or obvious faults that many other Yancha on the market have. I’d say elegant is what many of them have in common.

I did push them quite a lot, crammed to the brim in tiny spaces and scalded with hot water and then let them sit in it. They can all take it. < Parenthesis: makes me again question the often cited need for fast pour for Yancha brewing – if the tea is good it doesn’t need to be flash brewed, even if leaf to water is maxed out >

I do especially like how the curation is set up in sets to explore different qualities and styles.

Their Laocong Tieluohan is probably the closest anyone in the west can get to drink premium Yancha, without leaving their sofa and crossing pandemic infested airspace…

Anyways, highly recommended.
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Andrew S
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Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:20 am

@Bok: I assume that they don't have a website, though I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong...

Andrew
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Bok
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Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:27 am

@Andrew S You can contact them via IG https://www.instagram.com/daxuejiadao/ – Tjkbuya is also on the forum here.
Andrew S
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Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:39 am

Thank you; I'll report back. I'm still going through my last EoT yancha order, though. I'll be playing next with their gui dong tie luo han for a few days or so.

Andrew
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LeoFox
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Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:44 am

Not a very popular tea on here but when nuclear green TGY is made well, it can hit the spot.

Not sure where this tea is from, but my dad sent it to me a while ago and just said his friends like it.

5g in 80 mL - the leaves pop right out. The usual floral perfume is strong but not overbearing. The flavors are well balanced between nuts, floral sweetness, toffee and fresh, young celery. The mouthfeel is thick and much of the flavors emerge in the aftertaste. Going up 10+ infusions and the flavor is still nice.
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