Golden Osmanthus Summer 2011

Another afternoon, another oolong. This one is another of my samples from DeRen Tea, and it is certainly tasty. Let’s back up, shall we? The leaves in this tea are very large and loosely scrunched, opening up to huge whole leaves when steeped. The scent of the dry leaves is lightly green-oolongy, with a faint floral tinge. Steeped, the liquor is a very pale greenish yellow and the florals have come out much more in the aroma, with the oolong base taking on a warm, buttery character.

The taste is pretty true to the aroma: light, buttery, slightly vegetal oolong, with a lovely dose of florals and a natural lingering sweetness. I looove oolongs with that natural sweetness, so that ups the marks for this one. The florals are somewhat indistinct… this doesn’t have the floral notes of a particular flower (at least not one that I really recognize), but instead amps up that general floral character that some oolongs have. Overall very very nice.

So this is the second Anxi oolong that I’ve had in the last couple of days (the first being the base of the Gardens of Anxi by Verdant Tea), and they’re both really sticking out to me as great. I have an Anxi Tie Quan Yin also from Verdant that is a spring 2011 harvest, so I now can’t wait to try that one too. Yay for tea discovery!

I still consider myself new to the world of loose tea. A few months ago I was still buying teabag packages from supermarkets. In the past few months, I had mixed experience with loose tea. Some were very good while others were worse than the cheap teabags I was acustomed to. This Golden Osmanthus tea from DeRenTea was among the ones that set my standard for good loose tea. My tea vocabulary is few. I would say this tea has a pleasing floral note, is light, and refreshing. I had this tea hot and iced, both exceeded my expectation.

I made a cup of this tea with the sample pack I got from DeRen Tea today. I smelled the tea before I steep it and it was a little vegetal and a little floral. The tea was light golden yellow. The aroma was creamy? or buttery? or somewhere inbetween, with a hint of floral sweetness. The taste was light, clean, and a little buttery initially. I didn’t taste the floral note with the tea in my mouth. But after I swallow the tea, there was a floral aftertaste in my mouth. It was quite interesting. It was a pleasant surprise. It was… great.