What Oolong Are You Drinking

[LeoFox]

@Victoriaa
This is 2019 spring, according to vendor by email.

Thank you for tips on brewing. I was doing this:
Rinse/35s/30s/35s/55s/1min30s/2min/4 min/ 14min

I think for my next session i will readjust to:
Rinse/40s/40s/1 min / 2 min /8min/steep out to cold

What is your leaf to volume?

Aftertaste is crazy - still tasting and smelling it after many hours and a heavy lunch and shower in between.

And it interfered with an alishan session i just had. Wow. Definitely not a morning tea unless it is the only tea of the day.

[DailyTX]

Brewing some Dancong from Norbu Tea tonight with a TWL thin gaiwan. Clean brew with light Asian pear taste. A different experience from my normal puerh night. I wish I had bought more of those dancong

[esontea]

Today I got two very special teas, one is Panzhuang Oolong tea (one of the representatives of Taiwanese Oolong tea a hundred years ago) with a traditional process, and the other is a traditional Wenshan-style Baozhong tea (a nearly lost process for Baozhong tea).

On the left is Panzhuang Oolong tea, and on the right is Wenshan-style Baozhong tea.

Panzhuang Oolong tea(番庄烏龍茶) has a mellow taste, sweet and smooth, with a hint of longan and dried mango in the aroma, as well as a slight honey fragrance.
Wenshan-style Baozhong tea(文山式包種茶) has a richer taste than most Wenshan Baozhong teas because it has been exposed to the sun. The Wenshan-style Baozhong tea with a heavier degree of oxidation makes the tea soup rich in fruity and floral aromas. Not only these, its special variety group makes the tea soup a little bit similar to Tieguanyin and Sijichun.

Note: The current process of Wenshan Baozhong Tea is Nangang-style Baozhong Tea.

[StoneLadle]

Been getting totally stoned and high off of aged oolongs...

1. 2009 Sea Dyke Shui Xian

2. 1995 Shui Xian

3. 2010 aged heavy roast TGY

[TeaTotaling]

Been getting totally stoned and high off of aged oolongs...

1. 2009 Sea Dyke Shui Xian

2. 1995 Shui Xian

3. 2010 aged heavy roast TGY

Excellent, glad to hear! Stay tree-top flyin'!!

[klepto]

Had some very nice Jin Mu Dan and Lao Cong Shui Xian in an 80ml zhuni teapot. I'm getting hooked on oolong again but now my mediocre jedi tea skills allow me to enjoy it more without too many mistakes..

[LeoFox]

Hy chen spring 2019 medium roast dong ding from leafy geen

Dried tropical fruit sweetness that seems to linger forever suspended in light incense.

[Ethan Kurland]

...Dried tropical fruit sweetness that seems to linger forever suspended in light incense.

"suspended in light incense"
That is poetic & incomprehensible. It reminds me of lecture series given by Leonard Bernstein explaining classical music to children. Sounded great, inspired parents to buy albums of symphonies playing Beethoven etc. though the beautiful words don't stand up to analysis, even by amateurs. Flavor floating the space between the top of the mouth & the tongue?

In the summer of 1972 I worked as a dancer; &, a lady came into the dressing room attempting to pick up one of 3 guys who attracted her. To her dismay, all 3 were gay & not interested in her.

She could not believe it. Her last verbal effort to get 1 of them to go home with her was, "There is thunder between my thighs." It sounded exciting for a moment. I am guessing that some of the guys who did not attract her might have been thinking of offering themselves as alternatives to her choice. I cannot remember whether I was. I do remember that later when discussing the event, that the unfavored men concluded that she had liked the men she did because they were the tallest. Perhaps she wanted to be impregnated by someone tall who had decent rhythm, flexibility, & strength.

I don't know whether I would have gone away with her if she had wanted me to; yet, I know I felt disappointed, perhaps rejected or jealous of the chosen. I wished that I had had the opportunity to say yes or no to an offer. Thus the power of beautiful words that don't really make sense. I remember them decades after my body seems like it would never had been prancing about onstage before people whom had paid to see it (in the back to the far side, the place of the worst dancer).

So, Leofox makes us want to taste that tea, though dried tropical fruits offer a variety of flavors & we may not like the particular one(s) of that tea and/or that we know that flavor coats our mouths for sure but does not float around like the scent of incense enclosed our mouths. Or does it? Leofox, thanks for the post.

[LeoFox]

@Ethan Kurland



My actual notes are much more prosaic. I simply wanted to Express how i felt at that moment, drinking tea after an exhausting session of data analysis and meetings and then negotiating work tasks that have fallen on me in the next two weeks because i chose not to take any extra days off.

Regarding Bernstein, i remember studying his lectures where he claimed there is a universal tonal system in music that is similar to chomsky's universal grammar. Very superficial of course, but he made it seem deeply"academic" and very scientific etc and etc. In the end, it was mostly just meaningless words; i do like his mahlers and thats about it.

Thunder between legs is pretty funny. Made me laugh out loud. It could be interpreted that she has a "clap" of thunder. So maybe you dodged a bullet!

Here are my actual tasting notes:

Brewed 10 g/ 150 mL boiling except for rinse

Warm rinse / 45s / 37s / 1 min / 1min 30 / 2min 45s / 7 min / steep it out 2-3 times

Dried tropical fruit sweetness, mostly pineapple and maybe some prunes, that seems to linger for a long time (close to an hour after sipping). Along with this taste is an "after aroma" that is like aged wood, or very light incense. Maybe i am being biased by kyarazen's obsession with incense - kyarazen also being a huge advocate of hy chen.

First 2 steeps are the sweetest.

Later steeps are more roasted (dark chocolatey, maybe some medium roast coffee) with some greener tropical fruit notes and floral scents emerging from time to time that is more aligned with gao shan from shan lin xi, though this neither a gaoshan nor from shan lin xi.

Stamina is not high in terms of flavor and short steeps. Later steeps, though lighter in flavor, maintain long aftertaste. Also, long steeps after 6th steep are well tolerated and yield pleasant cups.

Bottom line: the surprisingly long and pleasant after taste is what stands out for me regarding this tea.

[Bok]

@Ethan Kurland, @LeoFox, thank you for this entertaining exchange!

[Bok]

Been sampling high mountain Oolongs the whole morning - the rumours are true (at least for what I tried, confirmed by the vendor) that this years winter harvest is low in yield and not as good as last year...

Teas lack the typical winter body and aftertaste I’ve come to appreciate over the spring aromas.

Still found something good enough to buy although at about the same prices of last winter’s - but well, that’s life.

[LeoFox]

Enjoyed a nice cup of shan lin xi harvested a day before my daughter was born in May. This is from teamasters. The tea presents a pleasant melange of alpine flowers, tropical fruits and brothiness.

[Ethan Kurland]

Been sampling high mountain Oolongs the whole morning - the rumours are true (at least for what I tried, confirmed by the vendor) that this years winter harvest is low in yield and not as good as last year...

Teas lack the typical winter body and aftertaste I’ve come to appreciate over the spring aromas.

Still found something good enough to buy although at about the same prices of last winter’s - but well, that’s life.

+1 to Bok's experience this season. I found only 1 that I liked. It has the winter body & aftertaste with plenty of good flavor. 1 excellent lightly oxidized high mountain oolong is enough for me since I get variety drinking black tea & aged roasted oolong.

[Victoria]

Been sampling high mountain Oolongs the whole morning - the rumours are true (at least for what I tried, confirmed by the vendor) that this years winter harvest is low in yield and not as good as last year...

Teas lack the typical winter body and aftertaste I’ve come to appreciate over the spring aromas.

Still found something good enough to buy although at about the same prices of last winter’s - but well, that’s life.

+1 to Bok's experience this season. I found only 1 that I liked. It has the winter body & aftertaste with plenty of good flavor. 1 excellent lightly oxidized high mountain oolong is enough for me since I get variety drinking black tea & aged roasted oolong.

I have heard the yield was also low this winter in Nantou. Sipping on a winter medium/low roasted DongDing and a Lishan DongDing both seem restrained in aromatics and body. Frustrating. This happened last winter as well. Using more leaf, again. Slightly cooled liquor has nice bolder flavor though. Thankfully I have quite a bit of quality yancha.

[Victoria]

Maybe @Bok can recommend a magic clay to increase this winter’s lack luster oolong‘s body and aroma . Increasing leaf to water ratio and time only goes so far .

Edit: referring to this winters roasted Taiwan oolong