2011 "Golden Key" AAA+ Wuyi Mountain Oolong Tea 125g

So I’ve had this one for a bit from a swap with Dinosara but you know sometimes it takes a while to get to some teas…or your cabinet is overflowing and your wife says no more tea till you finish what you have. This one has been in my work stash. I have liked all the Wuyi teas that I have tried and this one is pretty good. A little nutty and since the leaves are half oxidized I’m getting a little bit of what I would call that sometimes cherry like flavor and honey hints that at least I pick up from the fully oxidized Oolongs. That you don’t get from green Oolongs.

Alright, folks, get ready for nonstop dark oolongs for a bit. Last night I took all my samples from China Cha Dao home and weighed out 4g of tea for my 12oz mug (thanks to recommendations by The Seattle Tea Snob). Turns out each sample pack had about 10g of tea in it, so I should be able to get 2.5 trials out of each tea. I want to try them back-to-back to be able to see how they compare, so I’m going to be drinking a lot of dark oolongs.

I chose this one at random and boy, does it smell roasty. The brewed tea smells like well-toasted rice/grains primarily, with perhaps the slightest hint of a vegetal note behind it. My weighing out the tea leaves seems to have worked, because I’ve been rewarded with a nice full brew. Not to say that this tea is heavy… no, it’s definitely fairly light, but still full of flavor. The toasted grains aroma is there in the flavor, but it’s joined by a bright, slightly sweetish note in the middle of the sip that fades back to toasted grains at the end. As it cools a bit, the sweet, now slightly honeyed note melds with the grain note.

This is not the kind of tea that I would usually decide to try, and in the past it might not have appealed to me as much, but I can definitely seem myself getting more into this type of dark oolong! Thanks again to Jerry Ma of China Cha Dao for the sample!

A review of 2011 Golden Key AAA+ Wuyi Mountain (Chinese Oolong Tea sample by China Cha Dao

This sample I received last year from Jerry Ma, tea vendor in China. I have enjoyed sampling all of their teas. I put a teaspoon of the remaining leaves into my cup and poured the hot water into my cup and leaving it to steep with cover on for few minutes.

After the set time, I removed the cover and notice the tea’s color to be a golden yellow, that light amber coloring. This tea smells very clean; nothing hits you at once since it is a very mild tea. With the leaves in the bottom of the cup, you can smell that the leaves have been cooked; that leafy green texture lingers slightly. Once I remove the leaves, I am left with a lovely cup of oolong. I sip and sip until the very end.

This Oolong was very clean and smooth; lush even; the nose of this tea is flowery but more of melons than floral. It is a sweetly and smooth cup of hot tea. It would make a nice cup of iced tea. I like mine hot, just they way I had it. Thank you for allowing me to continue to sample such fine teas.

A few months back, China Cha Dao was kind enough to send samples of a variety of their Oolong teas. Of those I tried, this one had the right balance of sweetness, baked flavor and complexity to keep me interested. So I ordered a 125 gr bag, along with two other unrelated teas, and have been happily enjoying it for the past few weeks.

This morning I brewed it western style in a glass pot so that I could watch the dark leaves unfurl and dance, releasing their goodness to make a copper colored infusion. Since Oolong leaves are only partially oxidized, they don’t impart the dark color of their black tea brethren, but they certainly create a highly fragrant tea with lots of complex flavor notes. Multiple steeps takes you on a journey through ancient forests, smells of campfire, and a brush by an apple orchard. Each time I brew it there are new things to notice, and it is a forgiving tea, brews well every time. A nice find by Jerry Ma at China Cha Dao.

I have been slowly working my way through my Wuyi oolong samples and had been saving this for last since it seems to be the overall favorite of my fellow Steepsterites. Although I have not finished (or even tried) all of the other samples, I felt compelled to brew this one up today. I was wanting something really good and that is exactly what I received.

When I first opened the sample bag, I thought that somehow another aroma had leaked into the tea because I smell juicy, sweet raisins. After a few more long sniffs into the sample bag (long enough that my kitten was starting to worry about me) I have come to the conclusion that it is perhaps the actual tea leaves that are giving off this delicious aroma. Already, I was super excited about this tea just from the aroma alone.

After brewing up a pot, I am greeting primarily with a roasty, toasty oolong with a very nice sweetness that wells up through the middle of your mouth and stays with you long after swallowing that sip. Even my husband, who is very picky about tea said this one was “interesting and pretty good!” And this is all from only the first infusion. I can’t wait to try subsequent steeps – I love how oolongs seem to progress and evolve as time goes on.

My rating is temporary based on this first infusion but if subject to change depending on what else this tea has in store for me.

A big thank you to Jerry Ma and the China Cha Dao tea store for the samples.

My sample tasting has gotten off to an excellent start with this tea.
It’s very very good – sweet and with a sort of woodsy kind of taste going on too.
A tea with depth.

Three perfect infusions. The current, fourth, infusion is a bit weak now, but still good.
Recommended!

Not to be selfish or anything but I’m revamping how I do tasting notes a bit. They are going to become much shorter and be more tailored to be useful to myself in remembering teas I like and dislike, rather than being a full on review.

Well its sample time, I’ve gotten a number of samples in the mail and its time to start going through them. This one is thanks to Jerry Ma and the China Cha Dao tea store.

This is the first one I tried, and I’ve got to say in the past I haven’t been much of a Wu Yi Yan Cha fan but this one is changing my mind. Delicate, sweet and pretty mellow with good flavor. Definitely would drink again.

I’m going to try all 6 samples and then buy a couple hundred grams of which ever my favorite is.

185F. 4min. 1g leaf per 80ml water.

Toasty but quite sweet and more subtle than my first China Cha Dao Wuyi sample (the special grade Da Hong Pao). I expected it to be more earthy from the scent, but it was brighter and clearer than I expected. I’m actually left finding it less memorable than the Da Hong Pao, but still lovely. It also has the honey and grain notes, but overall much mellower. It had me coming back for cup after cup (5 or 6) while doing some housecleaning. And the huge, long, twisted leaves were again a joy to watch open up.

Also, I broke in my new gaiwan with this one and it was wonderful! As much as I love my first gaiwan, I wanted a black one to match my tea set-up and went for one from Camellia Sinensis. I didn’t expect to be so in love with it! The black is very sleek and appealing and this thing handles really beautifully. I’d highly recommend it. https://camellia-sinensis.com/accessorie/fiche/New+Black+gaiwan

This is the first sample from China Cha Dao I’ve tried. I brewed it gongfu-style with a 10-second rinse of the leaves before I started.

Dry leaves smell kind of sweet, with woodsy notes and a tiny bit of citrus, though this last note is incredibly faint.

1st infusion: 15 seconds
Tea is pale gold in colour, sort of like honey. The aroma reminds me of the smell of tabacco, though not in a bad way – the sweet, woodsy notes that are also present make this a pleasant smell. The taste is fresh and sweet with vegetative notes (but different to the ones I would expect to find in a green tea – this reminds me of tree bark). Does that make sense?

2nd infusion: 30 seconds
The tea is much darker this time. It tastes and smells pretty much the same as the first, though perhaps not as sweet, but still very fresh.

3rd infusion: 45 seconds
The leaves are still very rolled up. The tea is now more mellow and the tabacco note in the aroma is now apparent in the taste, if only barely (I have never tasted anything like that in tea before – I don’t think it can be contaminated because no-one in the household smokes, but it seems very odd. Not unpleasant, just odd). The tea feels like silk in my mouth.

4th infusion: 60 seconds
The tea is starting to get a little watery now, so this will be my last steep. The taste is mellow with woody notes. It isn’t bitter at all, not even in the aftertaste, which I sometimes find with darker oolongs.

The leaves have a sweet smell when dry. I steeped them in 190 degree water for about 2.5 min and get a wonderful toasted aroma of the tea. You get toasted nuts with a bit of earth. It is an amber to darker honey in color and a bit sweet but yet earthy. It has no bitterness that I can detect an does not stay long on the tongue. You are left with a bit of a sweetness and for a second a minute bit of tannins. It is a very pleasant middle of the road toasted oolong. I would call it a medium to medium dark oolong. Probably around a 60 to 65% oxidation.

Soft, nutty and sweet with hints of honey :)

The scent is a rich and deep “oolong smell”, along with a barest hint of wood to it.

The taste is nicely roasted… it has a woodstove kind of taste to it. Lightly and not overwhelming, very nice. There is a slight sweetness to this, but it is very, very, very barely there. It’s more a thought than a taste.

There’s also something very barely fruity about this on the tip of the tongue when swallowing, but I can’t place what it is… maybe raspberry or blackberry.

I like this and would have it again. I’ll have to see what I think in the next couple steepings and on a second batch altogether, but this might be a buyer.

I tried this one today, I received a free sample in the mail. I enjoyed the mellow flavor of this wuyi. It is always nice to see another variation of this tea.

_{This is my 6th and final review in a series of six samples of Wuyi oolongs from China Cha Dao}

Experience buying from China Cha Dao: I responded to an offer on Steepster for free samples. Received exactly what was stated in the offer: fresh tea and very generous sample sizes. On their website on eBay they have a good variety of tea for reasonable prices.

Age of leaf: Stated as harvested in 2011. Received in mid-summer, brewed in fall 2011.

Packaging: small, clear bags with small label printed with the full name of the tea.

Appearance and aroma of Dry leaf: a little milder than the rest, also a number of broken bits, but not as many as the Spring “Shi Ru” had.

Brewing guidelines: three 8-oz cups of water used, leaves loose in glass Bodum pot. Stevia added. _{(I went with one less cup than the first four Wuyi oolongs in the series)}
…………….1st: 185, 2’
…………….2nd: 187, 3’
…………….3rd: near boiling, 5’
…………….4th: boiling, 7’

Aroma of tea liquor: different than the others, milder, more pleasant, slightly carmal-ly, and possibly malty. Amazing. On the forth steeping I smell something different, like something that is possibly barley-like, something good!

Color of tea liquor: same as all the rest: looks like coffee.

Appearance and aroma of wet leaf: Pleasant. Smells different then the tea liquor, and different than the other Wuyi oolongs in that it is more clear, and not as roasted.

Flavor of tea liquor: not as roasted as the others, and not at all harsh; mild and pleasant.

Value: Free 10-gram sample (Thank you Jerry Ma @ China Cha Dao tea on Ebay!). His regular tea is very reasonably priced, in my opinion ($7/125grams).

Overall: I like that the aromas of the wet leaf and the tea liquor were different as compared with all of the others. This one was also not as strong and intense as the others in all of its aspects. Once again, the third steeping on an oolong surprised me: it is the better than the first two! Mild flavor on this third steeping (and in the forth), and there are clearly floral notes running around in each cup. Although I stopped at four steepings, I think I could have easily gotten another steeping or two out of these leaves. This is probably the best Wuyi oolong for me in the series.

Summary after drinking the six Wuyi oolongs: I still consider myself fairly new to this class of semi-oxidized teas. Overall, the taste of these is not something I would seek out, although I would gladly drink them if offered. Each one of these teas was fresh and yielded up something worth experiencing—-especially if you like roasted and/or floral notes. I am grateful for the opportunity to broaden my experience with oolongs. Thank you Jerry Ma at China Cha Dao!