What Oolong Are You Drinking

[debunix]

Nice looking leaves.

I just broke into my last tin of the 2016 TeaChat FouShouShan special buy, and the tea has kept wonderfully in its vacuum sealed container. So lovely enjoyed grandpa style in the Flower of Forgetfulness.

Did you keep it in a refrigerator or freezer since you received the FSS?

no

[Bok]

Having some Lishan Dongpian, Jason of Teaful @Victoria shared with me when we met for tea. I only had something similar once before, a tea which had been named pine tree snow, due to exactly those notes coming through, a walk in a sunlit snowy pineforest and its unique smells.

This one is definitely similar in uniqueness, my usual dongpian do taste a lot different.

Both seem to be processed and oxidised very little, to the point that were it a blind tasting, I would almost guess they are some kind of sencha.

Still some hints of Lishan profile, very cloudy tea soup in a greenish yellow colour. Thick, yet a cold tea in the sense of Chinese medicine. Very interesting tea!

Comes out well in my Duanni, at least I do like it in it. A tad more rounded than in the gaiwan.

[Psyck]

Nice looking leaves.

I just broke into my last tin of the 2016 TeaChat FouShouShan special buy, and the tea has kept wonderfully in its vacuum sealed container. So lovely enjoyed grandpa style in the Flower of Forgetfulness.

Did you keep it in a refrigerator or freezer since you received the FSS?

no

My opened FSS tin still tastes good, so I'd expect my unopened one to be perfectly fine without need of refrigeration. I don't drink greens much, and don't have any of my teas in the fridge.

[debunix]

I do keep most of my unopened greens in the refrigerator, because they are not usually vacuum packed, and I can't tell which ones are nitrogen flushed or not. The green oolongs are generally rolled balls and vacuum sealed, so I worry less about them going off in a year of storage. The FouShouShan was so special that I rationed it out over time, hence I still had one unopened canister.

[debunix]

I do keep most of my unopened greens in the refrigerator, because they are not usually vacuum packed, and I can't tell which ones are nitrogen flushed or not. The green oolongs are generally rolled balls and vacuum sealed, so I worry less about them going off in a year of storage. The FouShouShan was so special that I rationed it out over time, hence I still had one unopened canister.

Today I've got a cold, so I'm not up to appreciating its nuances. Instead I'm drinking a medium roast LiShan from Norbu that is wonderfully complex and spicy, and penetrates the cold-blockade of my taste buds a little better.

[d.manuk]

I'm having the first decent Dong Ding of my life.
It's a very light roast because the leaves are fairly green and also because I like it (I don't really enjoy roasted teas). Liquor is yellow even when brewing a little more aggressively. I still don't love the tea but I can at least better understand the appeal. In this moment I've come to the conclusion that the background taste of dong ding, excluding the nutty notes, is rice. This tea tastes somewhat like rice in the lingering aftertaste.

[Victoria]

Drinking a 'Yan Yun' oolong from HY Chen right now. Absolutely blowing my mind how good this is. Tastes like rocky marshmallows... kinda like Rocky Road ice cream, but without the chocolate. Apparently Chen only makes 7kg of this tea each year, entirely by hand. It is a 'yancha' style tea from his garden on Dong Ding in Taiwan.

Going to ask what water you are using @chofmann? I now suspect my last session with his YanYun was ruined by a lapse in quality of my filtered local tap water. Water too hard and it’s like weak coffee, too alkaline and it’s .....will check now.

Okay, YanYun is much better with Iceland Spring water; TDS: 53, pH: 8.89 Alkalinity: 25, Hardness: 16. It might even better at a lower, more neutral pH.

[chofmann]

That day I was using filtered tap water, but I don't know the TDS of the water. We usually mix between filtered and unfiltered tap, sometimes in different towns, in order to get a 'range' of water types.

I'm glad that it is working better for you with the Iceland Spring!

[Bok]

I'm having the first decent Dong Ding of my life.
It's a very light roast because the leaves are fairly green and also because I like it (I don't really enjoy roasted teas)

Any medium to high roasted Taiwanese oolong would nowadays be called Dongding(-style). Striclty speaking, only a certain processing and leaf origin would make a tea Dongding. Not that it matters for the taste itself, just for the sake of it.

I just learned last weekend that Dongding Oolong used to be half opened leaf style and that the ball-shape is a later addition. As an anecdote, I also learned that there are a few family names which indicate the first generations of Dongding makers in Taiwan(forgot to pen them down, need to ask again). I got some of that original old style half open leaf Dongding, will review it at a later stage.

Badly made Dongding (of which there is a lot in Taiwan, can be atrocious and throat destroying stuff. I would expect lightly to little roasted Dongding leaves not to be very nice. Low elevation oolong is too flat and vegetal for me. The roast can really make the difference in this case. But then, personal preference is what counts!

[chofmann]

I just learned last weekend that Dongding Oolong used to be half opened leaf style and that the ball-shape is a later addition.

Not sure if I posted this last year or not, but these are 4 examples of Dong Ding over the decades. I don't remember the years anymore (it might say it in Chinese... wife is sleeping, don't want to wake her), but I think it was something like 60s, 80s, 90s, today from right to left.



I find it interesting that you think an unroasted Dong Ding is possibly too vegetal - that isn't a flavor that I normally associate with it. It typically has the 'sharper' notes of floral with some fruity sweetness and a bit of nuttiness. This season (Winter 2018) is particularly good for unroasted in my opinion.

[Bok]

@chofmann well an unroasted Taiwan Oolong from the Lugu area is essentially a low elevation tea, most of these kind I had in the past, were more vegetal and flat in taste. Nutty would really surprise me in an unroasted oolong!

Open leaf refers to the very first generation of Dongding makers, HY Chen’s grandfather (I think grandfather, or in any case closely related) is credited with introducing the ball shape method for Dongding. And he was a newcomer, family name Chen is not part of the first generation makers. So not surprising that even their aged teas are all ball shaped

[swordofmytriumph]

It would be exciting to compare the different styles of processing for dong ding. Hojo has six different dong dings that I'm gonna try next time I order from him. He's got Light, medium, heavy, and unfired. He's also got a really interesting looking deep fermented version that I want to try.

[Bok]

It would be exciting to compare the different styles of processing for dong ding. Hojo has six different dong dings that I'm gonna try next time I order from him. He's got Light, medium, heavy, and unfired. He's also got a really interesting looking deep fermented version that I want to try.

It’s one of my favourite categories of Taiwanese teas, one could even include the tieguanyins as they are not too dissimilar, like cousins.

[swordofmytriumph]

It would be exciting to compare the different styles of processing for dong ding. Hojo has six different dong dings that I'm gonna try next time I order from him. He's got Light, medium, heavy, and unfired. He's also got a really interesting looking deep fermented version that I want to try.

It’s one of my favourite categories of Taiwanese teas, one could even include the tieguanyins as they are not too dissimilar, like cousins.

I was reading one of Hojo's articles, and he was talking about identifying dong ding. He was saying that quote "true dong ding" was from the Lugu area on Dong Ding mountain, whereas others identify it as it must be roasted or it isn't dong ding. What do you think of that, yea or nay? What do you look for in a good dong ding? Here's the article for reference:

https://hojotea.com/en/posts-90/

[Bok]

"true dong ding" was from the Lugu area on Dong Ding mountain, whereas others identify it as it must be roasted or it isn't dong ding.

Per my definition and as most people in Taiwan will use the term Dongding, it is a medium to high roasted Oolong. Narrow definition, yes only the ones from Lugu are true DD, also only Qinxing cultivar. In a wider sense, any tea processed in this way is a DD. Typically the ones now winning 1st prize in the Lugu farmer association competition are high mountain leaves, processed in DD style.

Going further, most people will recognise a DD as medium roast, high roast variety is rarer these days. If the roast is too low, you won't get the typical nutty and other notes which are typical.

As far as Hojo goes, I am not so sure, sometimes he makes controversial statements... never heard anything like it in Taiwan.