Ok, before I get into the tasting note portion of this note I just want to complain for a moment…
About child proof bottles.
My cough medicine has a child proof cap on it, and I don’t know why because I’m pretty much a fucking adult but I find those damn caps impossible to open. Always have; and it’s just so much worse when I’m sick. So, Tre opens them for me. ‘Cause he’s nice like that. But this morning he was at work – and I needed cough medicine. It took me forty-five fucking minutes to open this mother fucker up! I had to google “life hacks” for opening child proof bottles, and even then I ended up needing a fucking pair of pliers to get this motherfucker open. FUCK.
And he wont let it go. And man I hate child proof bottle caps.
But anyway; I had two pots of this tea today done Grandpa style. Seriously, I love my new teaset; and I fucking love Grandpa-style brewing tea; it’s SO LAZY which makes it the perfect brew style for me. Why was I not doing it before!? Actually, I know why – because I usually never want a whole pot of tea, but this teapot is TEENY TINY so it’s not so bad!
I’m not really sure if Grandpa style is a thing people usually do with oolongs; I though maybe some of the subtleties of multiple infusions would kind of get lost or missed from everything blurring together. But, I was craving an oolong and I figured this would be interesting to play around with and not a huge loss if all went poorly because I have so much of it given it’s what I redeemed my most recent free bag of tea on. More bang for your buck, right? After all this is a more expensive blend, and I thought I could use it to further my exploration of straight oolongs, and just pass it along to other Steepster people looking to try it without spending all that money if I didn’t like it. And because I have a lot of it, it also wouldn’t be a total waste if it tasted funny because of my being sick.
As far as “missing the subtleties of multiple infusions” because of my choice of brew style goes, I definitely feel like there was some progression of flavour between subsequent cups. My earliest cups, where the leaf hadn’t been steeping as long, were very, very roasty with a distinct mineral flavour. Then my cups kind of evolved into a sweeter roasty flavour with more of a fruity edge. By the end of my first pot this was very plummy indeed, while still retaining a bit of roastiness/mineral flavour.
My second pot was definitely much heavier on fruit flavour; the leaves had completely opened up at this point. Plum was the dominant note in all the cups from this pot; and it got increasingly more jammy but I also registered some other stewed fruit notes and notes of honey. It had an especially sweet aftertaste, a little reminiscent of vanilla or sweet cream. Maybe even a little bit floral? But just lightly. I really, really enjoyed the second pot!
I wont rate this one yet because I want to try it again when I’m not sick (and more confidant in my observations) but overall I was quite impressed with this one! I like that it sort of borders the edge between greener oolong and more roasted oolong; that’s exactly the balance I was hoping for with this one. Definitely a good grab/use of my freebie tea!
Also, just have to share this last thing. In DAVIDsTEA’s “official” tasting review/blurb for this one they’ve listed the following at the ‘flavour’ of the tea: “Dark green leaf, twisted and somewhat curled, about 1.25 inches in length. Some gloss.”
Excuse me DT, but that is not a ‘flavour’. I had a good laugh at it though.
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I’ve had some of the most amazing cups of oolong steeped grandpa style. The Four Seasons Spring Oolong from Green Terrace I steeped in my travel mug and got an incredible range of flavours as I sipped at it over the course of hours, with the leaves still in there.
Oolongs are my go-to tea for travel mugs, because you get awesome results and evolving flavours and they’re often so forgiving.
I’ve had some of the most amazing cups of oolong steeped grandpa style. The Four Seasons Spring Oolong from Green Terrace I steeped in my travel mug and got an incredible range of flavours as I sipped at it over the course of hours, with the leaves still in there.
Oolongs are my go-to tea for travel mugs, because you get awesome results and evolving flavours and they’re often so forgiving.