Wow, is this really my third oolong in three days? My BF took no. 2 to do some crafts and no. 1 is off at an event until 7:30 so I have some TIME to enjoy an oolong. Woo hoo!
Using the gaiwan (not very adeptly) for this, and starting with short steeps.
The dry leaves are shortish and varicolored, mostly a medium green with silver streaks. They have a champagne-y smell, but not as piquant as some oolongs, and there’s also a really interesting peachy smell.
The steeped aroma carries through that peachy note, which is very nice. Liquor color is a sort of dark beige.
There’s a toastiness to the flavor and a really remarkable peach note. I didn’t expect to taste it when I read in the in the description, but yes, it’s there. Not just a generic “stonefruit” either. Definitely peach, surrounded by toasty nuttiness and a little wood.
Steep 2. 45 seconds. More nuts, less peach, and something a tad bitter has crept in, a little like the tartness of champagne
Steep 3 1 minute More peach, less bitter, a little astringency and I discover it goes pretty nicely with a chocolate almond biscotti ;-)
Steep 4 1:15 minutes This steep seems a little meh? There is some woodiness, and some stonefruit but not the peachy note.
Steep 5 1:30 minutes Not much left to the leaves, it appears
The steeped leaves didn’t expand nearly as much as the Ali Shan leaves did. In fact, they looked rather forlorn in the gaiwan, like chopped up grass and pine needles. Not sure whether that’s just a feature of this tea or whether there was something wrong in my preparation, or perhaps the leaves were showing their age.
Still I got a nice couple of steeps out of this, enough to make me look forward to finishing up the sample (which will likely take a while….)
ETA: The reason to try this is the interesting peach note. If it wasn’t for that I’d rate it lower because I think it really ought to hold its flavor better through more short steeps.
omg I read the note to say something like “my bf took no. 2 to do a crap” and I was like…???? gotta love screenreading technology!
lol
Hahahaha!