poikkeus

The leaf is a darker green, smaller rolled tea, somewhat irregular. Infused, the aroma was tart, with a touch of astringency. However, on the taste, there’s nothing remotely astringent here. The liquor is medium yellow, and the taste is floral, slightly smoky, with an assertive sweetness underneath. Very similar to the flavor of a good yellow tea.

The leaves are mostly buds with two or three leaves – a nicely made tea. It’s the kind of tea that works even better with repeated tastings under different conditions. Quite flavorful.

Brandy oolong is oxidized at around 90%, and the leaves are picked in summer. As a result, the flavor is deeper and more pronounced. This particular tea received recognition at the North American Tea Championship.

The hard, dry leaves were individually rolled irregularly into small green “pearls,” and are uniformly dark green in color. The unsteeped aroma is a predictably vegetal. The tea itself is not unlike a smoky Yunnan black, with a small amount of sweetness on the finish. Very flavorful – ideal as a breakfast waker-upper.

No notes yet.

Each leaf is rolled into a roughly 1/4 inch pellet. Medium green color, with occasional brown stems; fresh, green oolong aroma.

Infused, the aroma is like cooked asparagus, and the taste is similar: healthful and satisfying. Clear, light/medium green liquor. Each pellet of Jade Oolong opens into a tip and two leaves. Surprisingly smooth body for this flavorful tea. An interesting “change of pace” tea.

The dry leaf is dark green with what looks like whitish buds. It has a peachy aroma, maybe a touch of candy-like sweetness. The infused aroma is like honey with a slight astringency.

On the taste, the flavor is very restrained, with absolutely no astringency here, mixing honey and lychee and an afterthought of lemon; and as is the case with most Oriental Beauty, it’s very subdued; by adding more tea than usual, the flavor is very appealing. This version has been pressed into a tea cake, an inventive way to make its appearance unique and enjoyable.

Before steeping, the leaves are fragrant, with roasty notes – very promising. The liquor is a dark amber, and the flavor is elegant, smooth, and with a touch of rock flavor. I couldn’t taste the “fruity” notes promised in the online blurb, either in the aroma or flavor. It’s even better if you let the tea cool a bit, when you can appreciate the quality of preparation. One of the more expensive DHP’s.

Before steeping, the aroma is noticeably less roasty than your typical Da Hong Pao. The liquor is a surprising deep amber, though the liquor is like a cross between a DHP and a Tie-Guan-Yin; you can even see a few greenish tea leaves among the brown. This is a lightly toasted tea, but this gains distinction with the floral flavor notes and rich color. If you don’t care for its floral notes, you should have success mixing with other DHPs to give more balance to the taste. A quality tea.

The tightly-rolled leaves have a sweet aroma somewhere between vanilla and taffy – you’d almost think that this was some kind of dessert tea. After steeping for four or so minutes, the candy aroma remains in the wet leaves, which are are mostly half-broken. The color of the liquid is a light greenish yellow, and the flavor delicate – but still has restrained taffy flavor. The leaves are so tightly rolled that it’s easy to overestimate the leaves required for a full steeping, but the tea remains somewhat sweet and one-dimensional.

It’s hard to tell if this is one of the “artificially flavored” milk oolongs, but the taste of this batch is unappealing to me.

No notes yet.

The leaves are intensely aromatic, spicy, sweet-smelling like caramel; I’ve rarely smelled a tea that’s so enticing. While some Yunnan teas can be overbearing, these buds are flavorful but pleasingly sweet. A backbone of spice makes this tea seem exotic. Rich flavor is what Yunnan Golden Buds is all about, but it’s the kind of taste that you always want to come back to. Especially nice paired with a light biscuit.

Aroma from the leaves is intoxicating – spicy, pungent, rich. This tea steeps into a liquor that’s a deep amber, but the flavor is modestly flavorful. Spicy notes persist on the finish, though I didn’t detect much of a Muscatel profile; it’s appealing but seems more like an everyday tea rather than a special one.

A very balanced, good-tasting tea. The liquor is medium amber, and there’s a pleasing touch of smokiness and a “dark oolong” flavor. If you steep at the recommended temperature (around 200˚F), you can definitely detect “rock tea” in the aftertaste. Not cheap, but this is the real thing. Easily the best DHP I’ve tasted.

Dragon House has four basic grades of DHP: Da Hong Pao Yancha, Supreme, Nonpareil, and cake. The first is their entry-level grade, and nonpareil is quite expensive; premium is a fine oolong that, at its best, offers two main flavors: a floral greenness and a pleasing backbone of smokiness. You may experience some variability, year by year; 2010 was a great year, 2012 merely average. The effect can be not unlike drinking a genmai-cha – toasty but thirst-quenching.

The individual leaves are 3/4" and regular. Steeped, the liquor is a light green and clear, offering a refined taste. The elegance is a contrast with garden variety Mao Feng, which can vary, but can be grassy with a touch of asparagus taste. Appealing, but understated almost to a fault.

Some tea drinkers like young sheng; but for me, this Menghai was unsatisfying on several levels. Sampled at 200˚F, the liquor was somewhat bitter – the kind of thing that happens when a green tea is scorched. Sampled at 145˚F, the bitter notes vanished, but that taste like an understeeped green oolong; the liquor was a light green, and wan in flavor.

Part of the problem is that puerh consumed this early is going to be substandard, since it hasn’t even begun to age. And then there’s the controversy over young sheng; some tea drinkers like the experience, but drinking this is not dissimilar to brewing an inexpensive Tie-Guan-Yin at 212˚F; you’ll get the same harsh, overcooked flavor, and that’s going to be the case with most young sheng.

The dry tea is raisiny, aromatic, almost sweet, and the leaves are a uniform dark brown. These leaves aren’t large, so avoid oversteeping. The liquor is a red-brown; this qualifies as a “red tea.” While Sichuan Zao Bei Jian is flavorful, it doesn’t have a lot of dimension.

Full, somewhat malty, low on astringency – and an outstanding value.

A well-made tea, an oolong with a floral backbone, somewhat sweet, but full-flavored. This is an extremely popular tea, and it comes in a wide variety of grades. This Special Grade has pungency and stands up to repeated steepings; with a gong-fu cup, you’ll discover a variety of flavor notes.

For me, the tea’s natural astringency left me less than satisfied – though I fully realize that this is a satisfactory example of this tea.

Eastern Beauty uses leaves picked in summer, when insect damage may consume a certain part of the tea crop. But this has unanticipated effects: the flavor becomes more subtle, and the leaves naturally oxidize prior to being processed into tea. The leaves themselves have jigsaw shapes, but the eventual tea is light copper in hue.

Subtlety is the keynote here. Don’t look for rich, overly tannic tea. What’s left of the insect-nibbled tea leaves is smooth and very easy to drink; this tea is delicately sweet. Eastern Beauty is best complemented by biscuits or some other light edible to contrast with the tea’s refined character. On the other hand, this tea is a little too subtle to drink just by itself.

A bolder leaf than your typical Castleton, whose leaves is more uniformly chopped with the First and Second Flush harvests. (Their rich Second Flush is a favorite.) The dry leaf is coppery and surprisingly bold, with a generous amount of whitish tips mixed in. But the flavor is predictably special: deep amber color, with a spicy flavor, but I can’t find the Muscatel that accompanies the very best Darjeelings. Deeper and somewhat more complex than the 2nd Flush, this estate can’t seem to do wrong.

This is a decent price for a basic grade of Da Hong Pao. DHP is one of the most pleasing oolong teas around: bold, dark leaves with a smoky fragrance give way to satisfactory flavor against a somewhat vegetal backdrop. Has a medium amber liquor, and well suited for drinking with food. Doesn’t have a “rock tea” flavor.

Above average for a ripened puerh, this has a pleasing blend of earthy flavor and a tart, rounded personality. This is considered to be one of the better ripened puerh teas, but it’s more notable for its rich, assertive character than its uniqueness. This tea will give you multiple steepings with consistently good color and flavor.

Ripened puerh are rarely if ever great, but some like the richly colored, reddish liquor and rounded flavor. Mellow with a touch of sweetness, it doesn’t have much individuality. The hallmarks for this tea are smoothness and consistency.