What Oolong Are You Drinking

[LeoFox]

A very nice gem from lazy cat: 2020 " white nights" a lightly processed rougui from tong mu guan bushes. Sold out now but I hope he gets more next year.

Maybe my tasting impression is too influenced by the short story by Dostoevsky that shares the same name.

http://www.lazycattea.com/product/white ... ugui-2020/

[mbanu]

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. 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.

Should have been a bit more quick in drinking these -- noticed today that they are old enough that they have started to develop waxy flavors. Most likely will gongfu the remainder.

[Bok]

Some gifted Dayuling in my silver replacement lid pot for large occasions… haven’t had any greener oolong for a while, nice to come back to this. Pretty decent quality tea.

[bliss]

Some gifted Dayuling in my silver replacement lid pot for large occasions…

I find it tricky to gauge the size of this pot from the pictures I've seen. Roughly, how many ml would you say it is?

[Bok]

I find it tricky to gauge the size of this pot from the pictures I've seen. Roughly, how many ml would you say it is?

It’s 200ml! It’s by far the largest Biandeng I’ve ever seen. Normally they are small, max 100/120ml. For antiques and vintage that is.

[Bok]

Actually, this picture will explain it better: a regular 60s Biandeng in 75ml, on top of the ROC one

[OCTO]

IMG_1796.JPG (333.61 KiB) Viewed 6014 times

Enjoying a little double happiness on the 3rd day of CNY!...... Cheers!!

[Andrew S]

Some more 'accidentally-aged' tea that I had this week; brewing the dust at the bottom of a packet in a casual style. I didn't intend to age this; it just didn't get finished a few years ago and got stuffed into a bag for casual brewing at work, and mostly forgotten in favour of other teas over the years.

It was certainly not the best ageing environment, but it did have those pleasant qualities that come with time; darker fruits, a hint of perfume, not much astringency, and a pleasant grounding feeling.

Hopefully I forget about a few more teas in the coming years.

Andrew

[Ethan Kurland]

pleasant qualities that come with time.... not much astringency, and a pleasant grounding feeling.

Of your list of qualities that can come from aging, less or no astringency and a pleasant grounding feeling are the 2 that I have found the most common. I have drunk so much of an aged, roasted oolong & sometimes I notice many flavors & sometimes my drink seems somewhat simple, but the smoothness & feeling always seems special to me.

(Yet, I don't remember calling that feeling "grounding". Thanks for that. I think that is what it is.)

[mbanu]

"Roasted oolong" from Upton Tea. Tastes like a nice yancha, my guess is that it was sold under dodgy pretenses, but they recognized that the flavor was good so bought it anyway, giving it the appropriate "buyer beware" label.

[LeoFox]

"Roasted oolong" from Upton Tea. Tastes like a nice yancha, my guess is that it was sold under dodgy pretenses, but they recognized that the flavor was good so bought it anyway, giving it the appropriate "buyer beware" label.

This one?
https://www.uptontea.com/chinese-oolong ... /p/V00366/

[klepto]

"Roasted oolong" from Upton Tea. Tastes like a nice yancha, my guess is that it was sold under dodgy pretenses, but they recognized that the flavor was good so bought it anyway, giving it the appropriate "buyer beware" label.

This one?
https://www.uptontea.com/chinese-oolong ... /p/V00366/

Why in the world would anyone buy oolong from a tea company that sells all types of teas like Upton when you can find far better sources from others and also people here on the forum. I would prefer to get it from those who specialized in it than some vendor that sells everything under the sun. What wholesaler did upton get their oolong from? I don't want to even want to know... Lots of friends and vendors are here who have far better tea and will stand behind what they sell..

[mbanu]

"Roasted oolong" from Upton Tea. Tastes like a nice yancha, my guess is that it was sold under dodgy pretenses, but they recognized that the flavor was good so bought it anyway, giving it the appropriate "buyer beware" label.

This one?
https://www.uptontea.com/chinese-oolong ... /p/V00366/

That's the one -- maybe I'll give it another go tomorrow, see if my opinion has changed. From what I remember it doesn't taste like a tieguanyin, but it's not bad.

Why in the world would anyone buy oolong from a tea company that sells all types of teas like Upton when you can find far better sources from others and also people here on the forum. I would prefer to get it from those who specialized in it than some vendor that sells everything under the sun. What wholesaler did upton get their oolong from? I don't want to even want to know... Lots of friends and vendors are here who have far better tea and will stand behind what they sell..

Tea shops that endure tend to specialize in a type of tea-drinker rather than a type of tea. Upton itself went through this, if I recall correctly. I think they originally specialized in Chinese tea, although I might be mistaken here. It was a lot easier to specialize in Chinese tea in 1989, I imagine, as there was only one wholesaler.

I suppose I must be their type of tea-drinker. I like that they use proper packaging, even for samples. The tea-equivalent of a bad first impression for me is ordering tea from a new shop and it arriving wrapped in paper or plastic rather than foil, or that don't adjust for the many different ways a person can make tea by making their bags resealable.

Someone there understands blends, which is not as common as you would imagine outside of the British and Indian packers. I appreciate the craftsmanship in a clean blend that does not mix grades and that is made with an understanding of what different teas like to do.

I think because of this, I am more tolerant of their faults. The last time I checked, they don't really understand shoumei. I received one from them that was mostly fannings, I'm assuming because they assumed that the only type of person who would buy the "budget" white tea was someone looking for health benefits, which admittedly is probably a fairly large portion of the American white tea market.

They have a good selection of Assams, but a lot of the single-estates are on the lighter side, I imagine because the typical American customer uses less milk or semi-skimmed milk, rather than whole milk in a good amount. That's just a difference in tastes, really. If they had insisted on following my lead, I doubt Leo would have much to work with gongfu-wise, as they would not bother to sell tippy year-old Assams.

One big risk I've noticed with specialist vendors is that they tend to eventually be forced to generalize because many specialist customers are intense but short-lived -- the sort of person who will hyperfocus on, say, Sparrow's Tongue oolong, and Sparrow's Tongue oolong only, and cheerfully buy the same tea in 10 different slight variations, but two years later doesn't drink tea at all but instead is hyperfocused on Parker Duofold fountain pens, buying two of each in every color and nib variation.

A lot of this depends on the tastes of the local tea community, which goes back to stable shops focusing on types of tea-drinkers rather than types of teas.

[LeoFox]

They have a good selection of Assams, but a lot of the single-estates are on the lighter side, I imagine because the typical American customer uses less milk or semi-skimmed milk, rather than whole milk in a good amount. That's just a difference in tastes, really. If they had insisted on following my lead, I doubt Leo would have much to work with gongfu-wise, as they would not bother to sell tippy year-old Assams.

Two things:

When I was in the UK (around 2 years in the late 2000s in the area around London mostly), they used low fat milk primarily and only sometimes full fat milk - even for the builders garbage

In America, for the white collar drinker, it seems the tendency is to use cream instead of milk, since that is more available - for coffee. At least at the different work places I've been to (mostly east and west coast offices) So where did you get the idea that upton customers prefer lighter touch with milk?
In fact from my limited sampling so far the upton teas seem very strong.

---

Also, you state here and elsewhere that stale tea is more appropriate for gongfu brewing relative to fresh tea. That is a spicy statement that needs some justification.

[mbanu]

They have a good selection of Assams, but a lot of the single-estates are on the lighter side, I imagine because the typical American customer uses less milk or semi-skimmed milk, rather than whole milk in a good amount. That's just a difference in tastes, really. If they had insisted on following my lead, I doubt Leo would have much to work with gongfu-wise, as they would not bother to sell tippy year-old Assams.

When I was in the UK (around 2 years in the late 2000s in the area around London mostly), they used low fat milk primarily and only sometimes full fat milk - even for the builders garbage

In America, it seems the tendency is to use cream instead of milk, since that is more available - for coffee. At least at the different work places I've been to (mostly east and west coast offices) So where did you get the idea that upton customers prefer lighter touch with milk?
In fact from my limited sampling so far they seem very strong.

I don't want to get too far off-topic in the oolong thread, although maybe it will work, as someone could argue that a British-style black tea is not fully oxidized and therefore is a type of oolong.

British tea has changed along with the times -- for instance, it isn't very common anymore to steep for a full five minutes. I think the median time in the UK is around a minute now. Changing the steep time changes everything else. People use less milk now too. Some might argue that one leads to the other -- some folks want to use less milk to seem less builder-y, so they steep a shorter time, and the blends play catch-up to, "OK, how can we work with 70 seconds, no sugar, and a fart of milk?" British tea consumption is also declining, incidentally.

Americans usually like fragrant teas, they are just less picky about whether the fragrance is natural or applied. You would think that this would have helped masala chai to climb into place in the U.S., but it has always trailed behind plain spiced teas of the Constant Comment variety. It really is a bit of a mystery, as America is also the land of the milkshake, so it's not like the problem is with milk in general, just milk in regards to tea. I'm sure there is an answer out there somewhere. I suppose with Upton I'm engaging in some sloppy reverse reasoning, "If these teas don't work well with whole milk, then Upton customers must not prefer to drink these teas that way."

For strength I guess maybe it is a matter of perspective. Upton's has Assam blends of the proper strength for a 5-minute steep with milk and sugar -- when fresh, their CTC Irish Breakfast Blend is the right strength, for instance. However, that makes the tea more like a condiment. Like tofu and soy sauce, fish and fish sauce, milk and old Parmesan, the base ingredients are the same, but they can't really be substituted for one another, because they are used for different purposes. The person who pours milk on their spaghetti and exclaims, "This is the worst Parmesan I've ever tasted!" is not wrong in their assessment, they are mistaken in their framework.