880 Tasting Notes
This tea was hyped up by someone who I guessed was a young, hipster writer who knows very little about tea. They made the tea seem like a rarity that would be impossible to find and was a magical, esoteric treasure to behold. Thus… me being me… armed with solely the age of the tea, its type, and its aroma, I had to find the tea. And. I. Did. It tastes like an okay quality liu bao. I love liu bao, so that was not a problem at all. :p The artistic license that journalists take sometimes drives me a bit batty…
Did it have any of those unpleasant, aged flavors that older teas often develop? Some have been described as wet wood or bamboo.
A bit of wet wood, yes. However, I happen to enjoy the raw earth mustiness of certain aged teas. I really enjoy it when a hei cha reminds me of wet forest soil, undergrowth, and old logs covered in moss. With this oolong, however, the wet wood flavor was there, but, I didn’t pay much attention to it. I think I was a bit overwhelmed by how underwhelmed I was by the tea and thus I didn’t focus on individual notes as much as I usually do.
I have often wondered at the theory of aging Oolongs? I don’t know if it works like aging Puerhs.
I’m still very much on the fence. I look forward to trying more aged oolongs in the future, however, I have noticed that with the ones that I have sampled, the aged oolongs that are re-roasted periodically tend to be better. With that said, overall, there has only been one aged oolong that I have truly enjoyed and it is a heavily roasted Muzha TGY. The conundrum that I have with aged oolongs is that, by and large, they are on the more pricey side. Thus, why spend money on an aged tea that may not have much more give left to it when you can spend money on hei cha?