Formosa Oolong Finest (OT01)

Good evening Steepsterites.

We’ve been with my parents over night and I just got home around an hour ago. I am so tired now and in bad need of good tea.

Which makes my choice a bit of a mystery.

But I happened across the sample and wondered if it was as mind-numbingly boring as the one I’m drinking at work or if the work-one is a fluke. I haven’t looked the exact details of what I’ve said about the work-one up, so this should be relatively unbiased by that one. I hope.

The leaves looked pretty much the same and didn’t have much in the way of aroma, except a rather wood-y note. It gained a decent amount of aroma after steeping, but it’s also gone suspiciously dark, so now I’m wondering if my subconcious made me sabotage it through oversteeping.

Anyway, what aroma it has gained is pretty strong. It’s not as wood-y as the note I caught from the dry leaves, but rather more semi-fruit-y at first, maybe a little spicy and only after that the wood-y-ness.

Sabotage or not, it may have gone a wee bit past its prime, but not so that it has become bitter or unbearably astringent. It’s just a little… much. Overworked.

The flavour is very Tea. And also very Oolong. It doesn’t really have much else, other than that. It doesn’t have any surprising notes of something that it has never even seen, it’s not smoky and it doesn’t hit you with a mysterious sweetness.

It kind of reminds me a little of the Darjeelings I’ve tried, actually. No wonder I can’t even begin to tell any of those even slightly apart.

So no, it’s not as mind-numbingly boring as the work-one. But it’s not all that interesting either.

I made a brew with a well-heaped teaspoon, water several minutes off the boil, steeped for two minutes forty seconds – I’d meant two and a half, but …

In the mug it’s a quite dense colour – dark brown, opaque in its intensity and with a touch of brown-yellow round the surface circumference. Which is quite different to yesterday’s brew.

In the nose I get a rusty, ‘brown’ aroma, perhaps a touch of raw dough. As I get to the last inch or so in the mug and it’s quite cool, I get a hint of toffee.

In the mouth I’m not getting a lot, perhaps a hint of freshly-turned soil, perhaps a hint of ripped cardboard, and I get a hint of chocolate when I swallow (sometimes). As with the aroma, when I get towards the bottom of the mug and it’s quite cool, there might be the tiniest hint of toffee. I’m having to ‘search’ for all this – it really doesn’t have much flavour. That’s a disappointment: going on the colour and aroma I was expecting a little more flavour than yesterday; instead, there seems a little less.

I decided to scrap that one and made a fresh brew with two well-heaped teaspoons; steeped for two and a half minutes with water several minutes off the boil.

The colour is similar to last time but even more opaque.

The aroma is great: I’m strongly getting good basic tea with touches of rust and dough. There’s possibly a hint of chocolate.

Damn! Again, the flavour doesn’t live up to the smell. The basic tea is there – it’s actually the tiny-tiniest touch harsh – and there’s a tiny hint of chocolate. And that’s about it. It might be a better cup of tea than for the single-teaspoonful brews, but it’s very much ‘supermarket teabag’

One last point: I forgot about the last third of this and it got cold. I drank it anyway and was suprised to get a distinct, ‘herby’ note in the mouth, giving an invigorating bite. I’ve just been sniffing the dried basil, rosemary and thyme in the kitchen. It isn’t any of them but it’s similar, possibly similar to what a mixture of the three would be like. If I could add that note to the warm tea I’d consider it reasonably good stuff.

I made a second infusion: water off the boil for several minutes, three minutes steeping (forgot I was doing two and a half – my mind doesn’t seem to be on the job, today).

It’s still the intense colour.

In the nose and the mouth I’m getting garden soil and ripped cardboard. What I’m searching for but not getting is that herby note. I’m not even getting that hint of chocolate.

I deliberately let the last inch or so go cold, to see if that herby note came back. There may be just a hint of it, and of grass. It all adds to the feeling that there are potential flavour notes in there that I’m somehow not getting out.