The first oolong tea I’ve tasted, it’s from a nice tea-and-herb shop in the (very) small town of Creston, B.C. The tea is slightly fruity and it tastes like a cross between black and green tea without the harshness of either one. Definitely a get-again.
Jillian
7 tasting notes
It’s my birthday so I figured that called for a special tea, so I brewed up the last of my Lavender Basics oolong. Parting is such sweet sorrow and all that. I’m still on a quest to find a suitable replacement for this one, since the company is out of business.
I recently got the bad news that the woman who owns Lavender Basics has had to close down her store. It’s terribly disapointing news because I love several of her teas and in the case of this tea I haven’t yet found a Formosa Oolong that matches up with this one in terms of quality or taste.
It’s baked without tasting burnt and it has a very faint trace of the bark-like flavour of Adagio’s Grapefuit Oolong (sans the grapefruit, obviously). It also gives off gently-wafting fruity notes, particularly as it cools. It’s a very full-bodied, complex tea that’s quite unique and a joy to drink.
I instinctively want to save this tea and use it as sparingly as possible, but I know that doesn’t really work with the limited shelf-life tea has. Sigh.
After I resteeped these leaves I found that the flavour was significantly sweeter (particularly as the brew cooled) and that simultaneously the bake-y (ha!) flavour was somewhat diminished.
Steeped it in boiling water (3.5 min) instead of just steaming and it brought out a sort of toasty quality to it – I’m not sure how to describe it.
Still tastes good. I steeped it twice, although it was considerably weaker on the second steeping.
