My pal that works at Teavana (imabandgeek4eva) picked up a bag of Tung Ting Jade Oolong Tea for me when it was discontinued, which was pretty cool! The very first time I used the leaves, I put a spoonful of little round rolled leaves in my teapot and thought “Gee, there’s no way those little tiny things are going to flavor a whole pot!” and added another scoop or two. Now, if you’ve never had Tung Ting then you’ll be tempted to do the same when you try this – but don’t! The leaves unfurl and expand like crazy in hot water, so when I peeped into my teapot after a few minutes the entire thing was full of leaves and completely oversteeped! >_< Well, live and learn, live and learn…
So when I brewed the tea today, I was careful to use a more reasonable amount of leaves, and I may have gone a little too light because the flavor’s not very strong today. But then, I also took the leaves out after 5-6 minutes instead of steeping for hours and hours, as I sometimes do, so I think this is closer to the “proper” flavor of the tea. It’s light and rather vegetal. It’s nice, but one of the reasons it has taken me so long to log it is because it’s also rather bland/neutral and difficult to describe.
A nice tea. Rather nice with a drop or two of lemon juice, which most oolong teas (in my experience) are not.
