What Oolong Are You Drinking

[Tillerman]

True Fushoushan tea is very hard to obtain as it is sold in Taiwan on a subscription basis. Thanks to the kindness of my dear friend Karen Chen, I have a small amount. This is a special treat!

[burritofingers]

Drinking this Baozhong, pictured below. Unfortunately, the seller did not offer too much information, other than the fact that it's from Pinling. I've never tried another Baozhong, so I don't have anything to compare it to. This being said, it is delicious and incredibly refreshing. I get a very vegital taste from it for an oolong, which makes sense, considering it's a Baozhong. I love this tea in the mid days of summer!

Steeping it in a 100 ml gaiwan, with three grams of tea. 30s, 45s, 60s, then building in 8 second increments from there. 195 degrees.

20180623_120300.jpg (193.96 KiB) Viewed 10214 times

[Bok]

That looks unusual for a Baozhong... normally the leaves are open not rolled like yours!

[burritofingers]

That looks unusual for a Baozhong... normally the leaves are open not rolled like yours!

Interesting - this was my first Baozhong but I have more in the mail. Now I'm excited to compare it to a more standard one

[Rui]

Competition Grade Tie Guan Yin of Gande Village Spring 2018 from Yunnan Sourcing.

How is it this year? The 2017 was great.
Been waiting for jings TGY, but it hasnt showed up yet. YS seems to be the only place that does have 2018 TGY.

My wife and I are enjoying this year's very much. In our personal opinion it is not behind 2017 version, on the contrary we are enjoying it even more this year but that is our individual taste.

[Victoria]

Revisiting Te Company’s, Graceful Hill; a lightly roasted oolong from the Jinxuan cultivar, grown on the Pacific coast in Dongshan, Yilan County. This was a little light last time I steeped it, so I added more leaf resulting in a richer brew. It’s creamy buttery sweet, an elegant oolong. Notes of evergreen come through, or as Elena noted, mountain fern.

[burritofingers]

Revisiting Te Company’s, Graceful Hill; a lightly roasted oolong from the Jinxuan cultivar, grown on the Pacific coast in Dongshan, Yilan County. This was a little light last time I steeped it, so I added more leaf resulting in a richer brew. It’s creamy buttery sweet, an elegant oolong. Notes of evergreen come through, or as Elena noted, mountain fern.

Hello Victoria! That sounds so delicious -- I just ordered some. Buttery evergreen flavors sound excellent, and like nothing I've ever had! May I ask how you're brewing it?

[Victoria]

Revisiting Te Company’s, Graceful Hill; a lightly roasted oolong from the Jinxuan cultivar, grown on the Pacific coast in Dongshan, Yilan County. This was a little light last time I steeped it, so I added more leaf resulting in a richer brew. It’s creamy buttery sweet, an elegant oolong. Notes of evergreen come through, or as Elena noted, mountain fern.

Hello Victoria! That sounds so delicious -- I just ordered some. Buttery evergreen flavors sound excellent, and like nothing I've ever had! May I ask how you're brewing it?

Caveat, I steep stronger than some prefer. Started out with 6gr/100ml/205f/45sec, in 120ml F1 hongni shuiping. Increased leaf to 7.4gr.
I see you are in LA, have you joined our LA tea club on Facebook? A few members are in your part of town. Mostly, serious puerh and oolong drinkers, with everyone enjoying Japanese and high quality Indian when offered.

[burritofingers]

Revisiting Te Company’s, Graceful Hill; a lightly roasted oolong from the Jinxuan cultivar, grown on the Pacific coast in Dongshan, Yilan County. This was a little light last time I steeped it, so I added more leaf resulting in a richer brew. It’s creamy buttery sweet, an elegant oolong. Notes of evergreen come through, or as Elena noted, mountain fern.

Hello Victoria! That sounds so delicious -- I just ordered some. Buttery evergreen flavors sound excellent, and like nothing I've ever had! May I ask how you're brewing it?

Caveat, I steep stronger than some prefer. Started out with 6gr/100ml/205f/45sec, in 120ml F1 hongni shuiping. Increased leaf to 7.4gr.
I see you are in LA, have you joined our LA tea club on Facebook? A few members are in your part of town. Mostly, serious puerh and oolong drinkers, with everyone enjoying Japanese and high quality Indian when offered.

Awesome! I'll let you know how that goes with my zini once it arrives. Thank you.
I haven't joined the club yet, as couldn't figure which one it was on Facebook. Could you send me the name or a link, please? I'd be very interested in joining!

[Victoria]

Awesome! I'll let you know how that goes with my zini once it arrives. Thank you.
I haven't joined the club yet, as couldn't figure which one it was on Facebook. Could you send me the name or a link, please? I'd be very interested in joining!

Here is the link and some posts, the name got sort of long; viewtopic.php?f=52&t=63
For lighter oolongs, I can recommend hongni, zhuni, or Shimizu Ken's shudei pots.

[burritofingers]

Awesome! I'll let you know how that goes with my zini once it arrives. Thank you.
I haven't joined the club yet, as couldn't figure which one it was on Facebook. Could you send me the name or a link, please? I'd be very interested in joining!

Here is the link and some posts, the name got sort of long; viewtopic.php?f=52&t=63
For lighter oolongs, I can recommend hongni, zhuni, or Shimizu Ken's shudei pots.

Thank you for the recommendations! I'll look into those once my budget allows

I just requested to join the club. Thanks again, Victoria!

[Victoria]

Look forward to meeting you and sharing tea.

Today I went for HY Chen’s special select oolongs; Charcoal Light Roasted Wild Garden DongDing steeped in 125ml hongni F1 shuiping & Charcoal Light Roasted DaYuLing in a new Hokujo 220ml backhandle mogake kyusu. These are both very special indeed, it was a treat to steep these back to back, and eventually overlap the steeps. He has been experimenting with roasting higher altitude select oolongs like DaYuLing and FuShoushan. Takes a certain courage to roast such fine oolongs, the results are impressive, made me reflect on the subtle differences found in fine wines.

[Ethan Kurland]

... He has been experimenting with roasting higher altitude select oolongs like DaYuLing and FuShoushan. Takes a certain courage to roast such fine oolongs, the results are impressive, made me reflect on the subtle differences found in fine wines.

If someone is able to roast and/or age tea leaves that already are special, to get a product that is not worse and is as special in another way--great. I have enjoyed organic leaves from the top of LiShan that were oxidized greatly, roasted most carefully, & aged for a few years to create unique tea. I appreciate what Victoria writes about subtle wines.

On the other hand, drinking leaves that were not quite as special when picked yet treated to the same treatment, I sometimes find the difference between the best and next-to-best is small. So, I wonder whether one should "experiment" with the very best leaves.

The difference between roasted & unroasted is not subtle for me; they are different types of tea. I do enjoy some roasted TGY though I cannot remember liking unroasted TGY.

I would like to taste various degrees of oxidation of excellent leaves, even beyond light, medium, or heavily oxidized. Perhaps six choices of oxidation of the same leaves.

[Victoria]

... He has been experimenting with roasting higher altitude select oolongs like DaYuLing and FuShoushan. Takes a certain courage to roast such fine oolongs, the results are impressive, made me reflect on the subtle differences found in fine wines.

If someone is able to roast and/or age tea leaves that already are special, to get a product that is not worse and is as special in another way--great. I have enjoyed organic leaves from the top of LiShan that were oxidized greatly, roasted most carefully, & aged for a few years to create unique tea. I appreciate what Victoria writes about subtle wines.

On the other hand, drinking leaves that were not quite as special when picked yet treated to the same treatment, I sometimes find the difference between the best and next-to-best is small. So, I wonder whether one should "experiment" with the very best leaves.

The difference between roasted & unroasted is not subtle for me; they are different types of tea. I do enjoy some roasted TGY though I cannot remember liking unroasted TGY.

I would like to taste various degrees of oxidation of excellent leaves, even beyond light, medium, or heavily oxidized. Perhaps six choices of oxidation of the same leaves.

Now that would be an interesting tasting Ethan. Thomas Shu, Taiwan Tea Ambasador to USA , has done a few tastings like this here in LA, although I have not participated in them yet. To really fine tune the tasting, the age of each oolong would need to be calibrated with levels of roasting, going from fresh to increasingly greater degrees of roasting/aging.

Right now, I am having a medium roasted Muzha Tieguanyin that is just so so, nothing very special. Is it inferior leaves, or inferior roasting, or both, or does it need to age...mmm or maybe I should I try and re-roast it to see if it improves..

[Brent D]

True Fushoushan tea is very hard to obtain as it is sold in Taiwan on a subscription basis. Thanks to the kindness of my dear friend Karen Chen, I have a small amount. This is a special treat!

Feel free to sneak a few grams into the order I just placed;) lol