Jenier order arrived today. I’d forgotten they did that, but when the very first thing I see when I open the box is a small envelope with my name on it and containing a little hand-written ‘hope you enjoy, thanks for your order’ card, I get a happy! Also, I bought another 50g pouch of their golden monkey, but the actual pouch weighs 120g. They did the same thing last time when I also bought a supposedly 50g pouch of golden monkey. I’m definitely not complaining, but… they must have really poor scales in Scotland.
This is an older one I found in my Haven’t Yet Posted About Box (which needs a better name) and it was Sil who shared it with me.
I don’t know anything at all about this oolong, so I had to look it up. Apparently it’s had leafhoppers. Isn’t that the same thing that happens to Oriental Beauty? I’m not too keen on OB these days, actually, but there can be several other factors involved with that. It would be silly to expect immediate dislike just because they have leafhoppers in common. It could be loads of other things that make OB not really appeal to me.
This one looks darker than OB. Has it been roasted a little bit? It smells like it has. It also smells extraordinarily like peaches! And a little nutty as well, but mostly peach or some similar stone fruit.
Okay, this is already seeming much better than OB! Isn’t it strange how the more conscious you are to NOT compare with a specific other kind of tea, the more you find it impossible to avoid it?
At first when I sip I get a borderline sharp bitterness. Perhaps I oversteeped it just a little bit? This note turns into a sort of coal-y thing on the aftertaste, like burnt toast where it has been attempted to scrape the worst of the burn away. This, for me, is the top note.
Underneath that it’s gone all fruity. Again I’m reminded mostly of peaches or similar, but I’m not really getting this honey note that the description mentions. Perhaps that’s the note that is coming out as peaches for me.
The bottom note is very fleeting. It’s only sort of there if you squint, but if I really pay attention I can find a whiff of something nutty there. Just for a moment before the other notes completely takes over. I can’t find it on every sip no matter how closely I pay attention, but every once in a while, there it is. I’m thinking of a relatively sweet-flavoured nut like almond or hazelnut. I associate those with a modicum of sweetness. (Walnut is more sort of tree-like for me and not sweet at all. I’m not sufficiently familiar with other types of nuts to be able to categorise them. I’m not much of a nut-eater really. I’m merely a nut. :p )
This is rather nice, and not like OB at all. That just goes to prove that it’s not the leafhopper effect that makes OB less interesting for me.
:)