The Drama-Llama has been turned loose in my work place. Like, in a big way! My boss gave me a description of the latest development today, so when I came home I felt rather in need of a good solid cup of tea.
I felt oolong-y, but not in favour of any particular oolong, so I just picked one of the ones from Nothing But Tea that I hadn’t tried yet.
This one is a bit… I mean come on, just look at the name! China Oolong. Not very specific, is it? China is a big country. It has a lot of different tea districts with a lot of different teas with a lot of different characteristics.
So what to expect? I couldn’t even guess if it would be from the blacker or the greener end of the scale!
Turns out it was the blacker. My immediate guess would be Fujian-y because it reminded me rather of the Dawn only without the strong cocoa note. Of course Dawn isn’t a Fujian tea, heck it’s not even a chinese tea! But the Dawn is quite similar to the fabled Tan Yang Te Ji which was a Fujian tea. This didn’t have the Assam-y quality of the smoky note at all, but it had a certain earth-y dustyness that felt similar to me.
I think that’s the same note that I’ve seen described as mushroom-y. I’m not sure I agree on the mushrooms, but I can totally see where it’s coming from.
This is not a bad oolong. It’s not an outstanding one either. It’s very nice indeed and functional. Hit the spot just right for me today for example, but it’s still somewhat anonymous. Just like its name. Come to think of it, what I originally thought was a pretty generic and non-descriptive name has turned out to actually be surprisingly accurate.
No grand gestures here, but that’s okay, because sometimes you just want a simple, honest cup of tea.
