What Oolong Are You Drinking

Semi-oxidized tea
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Baisao
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Fri Nov 18, 2022 10:48 am

Teafortea wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 6:45 am
Way more floral and more sweet, less aftertaste ...
Very interesting :)

Thx for the tip!
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How has the texture of the body changed?
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Teafortea
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Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:58 pm

More lighter i guess less strong but more sweeter. Does it make sense?
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Baisao
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Fri Nov 18, 2022 1:29 pm

Teafortea wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:58 pm
More lighter i guess less strong but more sweeter. Does it make sense?
Yes, that’s about what I’d expect. Mumyoi makes the texture smoother and thicker-feeling to me. So glazed would be lighter and have a less smooth texture.
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debunix
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Fri Nov 18, 2022 1:33 pm

2022 Spring high mountain Alishan from floating leaves tea, enjoyed grandpa style from a Petr Novák Chawan.
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Rich, spicy, lightly Floral, delicious. This is a lovely tea, however infused— today, grandpa style in glazed Chawan, yesterday in glazed shiboridashi, the day before cold brewed in a thermos. Mmmm.
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Teafortea
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Fri Nov 18, 2022 3:25 pm

Baisao wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 1:29 pm
Teafortea wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:58 pm
More lighter i guess less strong but more sweeter. Does it make sense?
Yes, that’s about what I’d expect. Mumyoi makes the texture smoother and thicker-feeling to me. So glazed would be lighter and have a less smooth texture.
Yes you expressed it better :).
Andrew S
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:45 pm

Another baijiguan session in the morning, with a moderately-roasted example from 2021, very different to the fully-roasted one last time, followed by an afternoon session of EoT's Zhang Hui Chun gushu with a friend.

The former had a bright refreshing character and mouthfeel throughout the infusions, but with lots of changes and complexities in the flavours from one infusion to the next; fresh and fruity, then very 'saline' (in a nice way), then fruits and spices, but then with a strong aftertaste of nuts and herbs. Very interesting.

The latter was just a very relaxing and calming tea, which paired well with some music...

Andrew
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maple
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Sat Nov 19, 2022 12:49 am

Andrew S wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:45 pm
Another baijiguan session in the morning, with a moderately-roasted example from 2021, very different to the fully-roasted one last time, followed by an afternoon session of EoT's Zhang Hui Chun gushu with a friend.

The former had a bright refreshing character and mouthfeel throughout the infusions, but with lots of changes and complexities in the flavours from one infusion to the next; fresh and fruity, then very 'saline' (in a nice way), then fruits and spices, but then with a strong aftertaste of nuts and herbs. Very interesting.

The latter was just a very relaxing and calming tea, which paired well with some music...

Andrew
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I am very obsessed with Baijiguan. The major reason is that I have drunk it from the same tea farmer over the past ten years, some aged after roasting, and some aged after "moderate" (midium) roasting. Each has its own style, but at the same time, I am more attracted to aging after high roasting (from this farmer).

I also bought some moderately roasted and aged BJG from other tea farmers. The floral fragrance mixed with the fragrance of Chinese medicinal materials is very fascinating. I highly recommend that you age it yourself. Aged BJG experience is very different as other yancha.
Andrew S
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Sat Nov 19, 2022 1:35 am

maple wrote:
Sat Nov 19, 2022 12:49 am
Andrew S wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:45 pm
Another baijiguan session in the morning, with a moderately-roasted example from 2021, very different to the fully-roasted one last time, followed by an afternoon session of EoT's Zhang Hui Chun gushu with a friend.

The former had a bright refreshing character and mouthfeel throughout the infusions, but with lots of changes and complexities in the flavours from one infusion to the next; fresh and fruity, then very 'saline' (in a nice way), then fruits and spices, but then with a strong aftertaste of nuts and herbs. Very interesting.

The latter was just a very relaxing and calming tea, which paired well with some music...

Andrew
I am very obsessed with Baijiguan. The major reason is that I have drunk it from the same tea farmer over the past ten years, some aged after roasting, and some aged after "moderate" (midium) roasting. Each has its own style, but at the same time, I am more attracted to aging after high roasting (from this farmer).

I also bought some moderately roasted and aged BJG from other tea farmers. The floral fragrance mixed with the fragrance of Chinese medicinal materials is very fascinating. I highly recommend that you age it yourself. Aged BJG experience is very different as other yancha.
I was surprised by how fruity the heavily-roasted version was for me, and how many herbal elements there were in the medium-roasted one today.

I've only had one aged baijiguan so far; a lightly-roasted example that I forgot about for a decade, which became less floral and gained more dark fruits, but it was a bit simple and didn't have these interesting herbal and nutty elements that I got from this one today, and didn't have the tropical fruits that I got from the heavily-roasted one.

It'll be interesting to see the heavily-roasted style after a bit of age. Perhaps tomorrow I'll compare the 2018 heavily-roasted baijiguan to the 2021 version.

Andrew
Andrew S
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Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:58 pm

And so today I tried the 2021 heavy roast baijiguan again, followed by the 2018 version.

The 2021 presented similarly, although I did appreciate the complex herbal sides more this time. Fruits again for me as well, although I realise now that my previous description of fruits might have been misleading, since there's fruits, and then there's fruits (so to say). The best way that I can describe it (with my limited ability to describe flavours) is that it is fruity in the same way that a heavily-sherried whisky can be 'fruity' without tasting like a platter of fruits.

The 2018 was remarkably different, despite having a similar kind of overall profile if I try to describe it at a general level. It felt like there was greater differentiation between the flavours. The herbal aspects were there, especially in the first few brews, and ripe fruits were there, but the elements presented differently; perhaps more focussed and less broad, with more apparent changes from brew to brew, and the flavours seemed more 'evolved' without being 'aged'. There were also other little complexities that emerged over the course of the brews that I'm not good enough to describe. The second brew was particularly interesting; as if some of the roast had integrated into the tea to reveal hidden flavours, and so too with the long aftertaste. Nice calming feeling to it as well.

Very interesting comparison, and very nice teas. Maybe I should age a bit each year and start drinking one batch per year, starting in a decade from now...

Andrew
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Baisao
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Sun Nov 20, 2022 3:08 am

Andrew S wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:45 pm
…then very 'saline' (in a nice way), then fruits and spices, but then with a strong aftertaste of nuts and herbs. Very interesting.
I was enjoying a TeiLioHan yancha the other night and was surprised by its saline flavor. I didn’t notice it at first but it became stronger after 5-6 steeps.

I had assumed that the minerality that people describe is simply glutamates but this tasted distinctly like NaCl.

I did a small amount of research and found that a number of plants will either accumulate or excrete salts when grown in soils with high salt content, like coastal marshes and rocky soils.

I am tempted to reduce a small amount of this tea to ash and taste that to find if it still has a noticeable saline flavor, since the salts would be retained in the nearly flavorless ash.
Andrew S
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Sun Nov 20, 2022 3:49 pm

Baisao wrote:
Sun Nov 20, 2022 3:08 am
Andrew S wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:45 pm
…then very 'saline' (in a nice way), then fruits and spices, but then with a strong aftertaste of nuts and herbs. Very interesting.
I was enjoying a TeiLioHan yancha the other night and was surprised by its saline flavor. I didn’t notice it at first but it became stronger after 5-6 steeps.

I had assumed that the minerality that people describe is simply glutamates but this tasted distinctly like NaCl.

I did a small amount of research and found that a number of plants will either accumulate or excrete salts when grown in soils with high salt content, like coastal marshes and rocky soils.

I am tempted to reduce a small amount of this tea to ash and taste that to find if it still has a noticeable saline flavor, since the salts would be retained in the nearly flavorless ash.
That's interesting; I hadn't heard of that before, but I suppose that salt could end up in the final product, unlike other 'mineral' characters. LeoFox's post here suggests that that could be the case for salt: viewtopic.php?p=35040#p35040

This character isn't something that I've encountered so clearly before, but I also wasn't looking for it (and perhaps a hint of salinity tends to suggest other things when combined with various flavours and sensations, such as 'freshness', 'zestiness', 'citrus' or such). I'll see if I can detect it again in another tea (this sample's all gone, sadly).

However, for my part, I wouldn't describe this particular sensation as being 'mineral'; to me, minerality is a kind of 'austere' flavour and mouthfeel. Perhaps it's better to say that something with 'minerality' doesn't 'taste' like 'minerals', but rather its flavour and mouthfeel make you think about minerals / rocks etc. It seems more like a structure or a backbone to the tea, rather than a flavour of its own. But that's just my way of thinking about it.

For example, there seems to be a difference generally between old bush shui xian grown in the protected area, and 'ordinary' shui xian grown outside, and, for me, one of those differences could be described as a minerality in the former which is absent in the latter.

Andrew
Andrew S
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Wed Nov 30, 2022 10:15 pm

I've been playing with some Lazy Cat shui xian yanchas for a little while, every now and then.

The metamorphosis and old bookstore ones have been nice, the lion mount was rather different and not in my preferred style. It had nice flavours, but it wasn't something that I enjoyed drinking, if that makes sense.

I was wondering about differences in styles and levels of oxidation, styles and levels of roast, etc, and then I remembered that the lion mount was expressly stated on their website not to be an old bush shui xian but rather to be from "normal Shuixian bushes".

In turn, I started to wonder about the nature of 'old bush' shui xian (and other teas). I assume that there's no clear sharp jump when a young bush suddenly becomes old overnight, but that, rather, the old ones tend to be treated differently, grown in different areas, processed differently, etc, even if the age of the bushes is also an important factor in itself.

I'm just curious to see if others have any thoughts or observations on the young bush / old bush distinction.

To me, the distinction seems to be quite important, even if I don't know how to describe it. It feels as though, hypothetically, I could use the exact same flavour descriptions for young and old bush teas, and yet find one to be great and the other to be uninteresting (so long as I avoid describing one as 'complex' or something like that, which feels like a bit of a fudge when describing anything and a way of justifying the conclusion rather than describing the sensation).

Andrew
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Bok
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Thu Dec 08, 2022 1:12 am

It’s the season, sampling two Dongpian or winter leaf, a late Winter harvest. One is half price of the other and it shows… still nice, but not as nice.

My favourite version of Gaoshan always turn up during winter.
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Sun Dec 11, 2022 9:49 am

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Li-shan oolong with altitude 2200m, single origin hand-pick oolong tea.
Ferment/roated: 0% roasted, 15% ferment
Flavor: light fruit, orchid, umami with full-bodied taste.
Andrew S
Posts: 704
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Tue Dec 13, 2022 7:52 pm

The weather has been getting warmer down here, so I've been going through a little bit of high mountain and medium-roasted Taiwanese tea, finishing a packet of Ethan's da yu ling recently and a packet of shan lin xi before that, and now half-way through a packet of medium-roasted 2019 Ali Shan from TheTea.

However, today is slightly cool and windy, so a morning session of yancha has been followed by a heavily-oxidised and heavily-roasted 2021 shicha from Feng Huang. Lots of roasty and fruity notes with a rich and smooth mouthfeel, but also with herbal elements and a long dry aftertaste which balance it all out. Very nice, and a style that I like a lot.

Andrew
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