Zealong Aromatic

I received this as my prize in AmazonV’s tea art contest a while back! (Thanks AmazonV!) It’s been calling out to me to try it for a while now – and I finally listened!

This is delightful. Heavenly even! It has delicious fruit tones and a strong floral presence.

I think I shall go write about this tea for the Tea Review Blog!

This one was sent to me from a friend, it’s from Chicago Tea Garden. I steeped it in my gaiwan, It is Very good so good I will buy more from the site myself soon, Now it’s time to get out n about and go visit my brother I’m going to share a cup with him cuz it’s so nice.

Steep Information:
Amount: 25g
Water: 750ml filtered water at 195°F
Tool: Breville One-Touch Tea Maker BTM800XL (Oolong, custom)
Steep Time: 1 minute
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: tropical, fruity, sweet, milk oolong
Steeped Tea Smell: fruity, sweet, milk oolong
Flavor: sweet, smooth, milky, vegetal
Body: Light
Aftertaste: sweet
Liquor: translucent pale yellow green

Wow! look at how much those leaves expanded! I kept the leaves in the refrigerator when I ran off to work in order to try a resteep or two when I get home tonight. I was tempted to try a cold brew but needed to run for my train.

I think I need to tweak with the steeping parameters, it’s a bit weak, I may try a little longer or a little hotter.

Overall even weak it was fruity and smooth and enjoyable. With current steeping parameters I would not buy more of this flavor, but would enjoy what I have and gladly select it when out. I am hoping it improves with tweaking.

I think sweetener would overpower the tea.

The packaging was beautiful and very well done. There was a pamphlet, a booklet, and a box. The box was textured black with slashes of green on the inner box that you could see through the cut outs on the side. Inside the box was a miniature brochure and a tin that was also textured. Inside the tin was a resealable vacuumed packaged bag that was also textured! I’m grateful for all the information included as well by the Chicago Tea Garden.

Images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/07/chicago-tea-garden-loose-leaf-oolong.html

I have already had a couple of Zealong teas and enjoyed them very much. I was going through a samples basket and saw this package still sealed, and it must be ancient! I think it came from Quiltguppy, and I really miss her! She introduced me to some amazing teas.

I had this as an “after Sunday-brekkie” tea. I was up at 5:30 cooking for the chickens and tending them, then took their eggs and made a nice breakfast to share with hubby, and afterward we sat on the sofa drinking this. It is cloudy, drizzly, and chilly, so it was an especially welcome cup today!

Even though this is an old sample, the tea tastes quite good. I think it must have been an eleven on a scale of one to ten when it was fresh. There is a lot of that rock or mineral flavor that oolongs often have, a wonderful floral/fruity aroma, and smooth smooth smooth! We did about five or six steeps.

Tea friend Sandy here on Steepster actually went to tea at the plantation where this was grown! Maybe she will chime in with that experience for us!

When I took my first sniff, I got so much sweet-vanilla-cream scent I was afraid something else had scented it. (It was in a little zip-lock sample; my storage facilities at Shabby House aren’t the greatest.)

I think this tea has some of the biggest leaves, steeped, I’ve ever seen. And the creamy-sweet wasn’t an accident … that’s just the nature of this stuff. Still pretty astringent (cream and pucker are an odd combination, eh?) but really, really good! I have to apologize because my care packages have gotten a little mixed…OK, a lot jumbled…but my thanks to the kind donor! (Doulton, I think!)

The last of the Zealong oolongs for me to try, this one just might be my favorite. It’s got the toasty, honey-sweet notes of the Dark but also the lighter, lemon-tinged notes of the Pure. There’s a moment of thick creamy but it flashes by and the majority of the taste is light, refreshing (though without astringency) sweetness. There’s a lot of fruitiness (apples perhaps but without the tartness?) and a hint of refreshing lemon fruit-ness. As it cools, a slightly darker flavor comes back out – the toastiness from the Dark, but not as heavy. Perhaps somewhat floral? Like grilled flowers sprinkled with sugar and nuts or something.

Honestly, I thought Pure was good. (Okay, it is. Really good. As is Dark.) But Pure has some lighter flavors that I have to pay a bit more attention to. This one? Light enough that it’s not roasted tasting but with just enough roasting to make the flavors truly pop. I’m kind of in love and want to buy a massive tin of this.

ETA: Second steep (1:00) makes me think of a mildly flavored lemon pie.
^8.2g/8oz

Wombatgirl sent me this one a little while ago and apparently I haven’t yet posted about it. Which is weird because I can’t really wrap my head around the fact that I haven’t tried it before. I ought not have tried it before anyway, because I always try to post about it the first time I have samples that people have sent me. But there wasn’t enough left that I can understand not having used some of it. Otherwise Wombatgirl sent me really small sample. Which also doesn’t fit, because I would have remembered that. Small samples tend to get tried first, because if people only give me a little it gives me the impression that it’s because it’s awesome and difficult to part with. You know?

Anyway, this one is living up to its name and is showing itself as very aromatic indeed. The aroma is quite floral, I think, and underneath that it has those thick full notes like green teas can have. I’m thinking especially of senchas and dragonwells here.

I have to say I liked the Pure better than this, but it’s still very good. It’s very fruity in flavour with a very strong note of apples and pears, and especially apple.

On the aftertaste there’s the floral notes I found in the aroma. They’re not very VERY forceful, but they do build up.

As the cup cools a bit more the apple and pear note transfoms into something more like maybe peaches and tangerines and with a bit of nuttyness on the side.

There’s definitely a lot of stuff going on in this tea, but yeah, I think the Pure is my favourite of the two.

I have three untried oolongs from QuiltGuppy left, so I set about to sniffing each one and chose based on the aroma of the dried leaves. This one won because along with the vegetal and slight floral aromas there was a darker milky or almost caramel aroma. I didn’t realize that this tea was actually from New Zealand until I went to CTG’s website to look up some more information on it. I watched the video on their site for “proper preparation of a zealong tea” (traditional tea ceremony much like the one I experienced years ago in China), and though I in no way have a set up for that, I did give the leaves a brief wash as directed. One thing the video did not give was a time for steeping, so that was taking from all the tasting notes here.

The leaves mostly unfurled, but some are still not open all the way. The liquor is a very pale yellow, but aromatic. It smells vegetal, but almost cooked with a slight roastiness. There’s a light, milky sweetness in the aroma as well.

Mm, quite lovely! There’s a definite natural sweetness to this one, and the taste is light and floral with deeper, darker notes as well. It almost reminds me of a dark, floral honey flavor. I’m really enjoying this one. As it cools a bit the green vegetal flavor creeps back in, pleasantly grounding the sweet notes. The second steep becomes much more vegetal and brighter, almost lemony, with less sweetness and a lack of creamy milkiness that I didn’t even realize was there in the first steep until I tried the second and noticed it was gone. It just kind of blended into everything and smoothed everything out.

Thanks so much, QuiltGuppy, for introducing me to all these oolongs!

I finally tried a tea from MIDDLE-EARTH thanks to QuiltGuppy! Wow, what a unique product. I also finally got to try out my new (well, old) gaiwan in the process. This yielded four successive steeps of varying degrees of excellence. Only the second steep was unfavorable. My favorite was the last because it took on a grape note like a Bai Mu Dan. Overall, a very nuanced oolong that had shades of vanilla cream, caramel, various fruits, and only a slight graphite finish. I would gladly walk into Mordor for this.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2011/04/10/review-chicago-tea-garden-zealong-aromatic/

Many thanks to threewhales for the chance to try this tea.

I am a bit apprehensive because I’ve had more poor experiences than good experiences with green oolongs. The smell of the dry leaf is slightly vegetal and sweet, but not off-putting. I’m following the suggested prep of boiling water for 1 minute.

The tea brews up a very light yellow hue with a definite “clean” vegetal smell. The taste is very light and smooth. I’m not picking up a lot of the vegetal tastes, which is a really good thing in my opinion. There is a slight buttery aspect that I am really enjoying. Only time (and cooling) will tell if I truly like this oolong. The rating may change.

Delicious and sweet can’t wait to have some more tomorrow.

Compared to Zealong Pure, a darker brew, a little more floral aroma and a slight astringent taste, but still very pleasant.

Thanks to AmazonV for this tea!
Smooth, asparagus notes. Pale yellow infusion. I think this would be good with a hearty meal.

Perhaps someone reading this may be hesitant to take a “kiwi tea” seriously… I know I was reluctant when I first heard about Zealong.

Don’t wait; get some sooner rather than later! This is a great example of all the good qualities of a Taiwanese high-mountain type oolong. In fact, I’d pick this tea over many “green oolongs” that I’ve tasted. In addition to the fabulous taste and aroma, the completely unfurled leaves are large and uniform, so this tea gets points for aesthetics as well. I look forward to trying the other versions of Zealong soon!

Very delicious, but it seems to be lacking something. When I try it again, I’ll give a more detailed review

I usually throw away the first wash of teas and start drinking from the second steeping, but I didn’t do that with Zealong Aromatic and it was a good move: I love its aroma and taste, which include almond and some other fruits I can’t distinguish exactly, maybe green apple (without being sour though), but I think a lot of the taste goes away after the third brew :( I tried until the 5th wash, increasing the steeping time up to a little more than 2 minutes and I still got a nice taste but quite a watery tea.

I was expecting this to be fruitier, but I don’t get much fruit from either the taste or the smell. It is sweet, but more like the sweetness of barley. There’s definitely the taste of some kind of grain in there, though I can’t say for sure that it’s barley. It’s also pretty earthy, slightly vegetal. I steeped it 5 times and then stopped because it was already over 80 degrees outside, but the taste stays strong with every infusion.

This tea was just fine. It doesn’t have the complexity I’ve come to expect in high-quality oolongs. It’s light, green, and sort of flat. I agree that this would be tasty with food.