Dong Ding Oolong traditional medium roast

This was quite a pleasant tea! The scent of the dry leaves is nice and roasty. With the first infusion, there was a nice bitterness and astringency. The roasted flavor was particularly strong the first infusion, enhanced by the bitterness. There were grassy notes, almost like grass that’s been cut and has been sitting and drying for a couple days. Still pleasantly sweet, but mild.

I’ve got enough of this left to try it once more and, depending on how my tastings of the other Dong Ding Oolong samples I ordered from Life in Teacup go, I’ll make a decision about which one to order more of first!

I tried this with short steeps, but the resulting tea was barely there (despite turning a beautiful deep golden color almost immediately). So I steeped the third time for two minutes, and what a change! This tea isn’t sweet, per se, but there’s a hint of burnt sugar around the edges; there’s still not a lot up front, but the back of it hits almost immediately with a savory grilled flavor that just keeps going.

Very dark leaves. They smell too yummy. Like fresh grass plus yummy hot roast chestnuts. Smells like winter. And funny enough today the cold weather has started here. This could easily be the best smelling tea leaves till now.

But lets see how it tastes :)

Tea is bright yellow. Smells similar to the leaves.

Mmmmm first impression is full roast taste. Smooth, nutty, roasty. It didn’t wow me but it’s quite a good one.