It’s been a while since I’ve been in a proper oolong mood. I had oolong yesterday, but that wasn’t a green one. I would say, though, that it was probably that one that gave me a push back to oolong territory and made me look in the NBT oolong sampler box. Most of the ones I have left are regional oolongs and a couple of more specific types. I wanted a green one, and I couldn’t be sure about the regional oolongs and I couldn’t remember about the chinese types which was green and which wasn’t, and rather importantly, I couldn’t be bothered to go look it up. Also didn’t really have time to do so because the water was already close to boiling.
So I went with the safe choice. It’s not exactly a new tea for me at all, but it was the only one I could be certain was a green oolong.
First impression wasn’t greath, though. I poured a few of the leaves out in my hand before putting them into the pot, and while they did have that pellet-y rolled up shape, they seemed small in size. Almost broken. TeaSpring’s TGY has the best leaves of the TGYs I’ve seen so far. They are large and with a clear deep green colour. These ones seemed to have a withered yellow tint to them.
There’s nothing wrong with the colour of the tea after steeping. It’s a pale golden yellow and completely transparent. The only thing here that could be even loosely described as murkiness is my own fingerprints on the glass cup. And that totally doesn’t count.
The aroma is barely worth mentioning. What is there is sweet and vegetal as it should be. There is just so very little of it. I really had to sit here and search for it and that’s just not right.
I’m sorry to say that the flavour here is as pale as the aroma. I’m brewing this by guesstimation like I usually do, so it’s not impossible that someone with the patience for it can get more out of it than I can by tweaking some parameters. It has all the right flavour notes here, sweetness, grassyness with a touch of nuttyness and a slightly acidic aftertaste. It’s just sort of muted a bit.
After the cup has been allowed to sit and develop for a bit, this improves considerably. It’s not inconceivable that sometimes a cup of tea has to ripen a bit and that this is one of those times.The flavour as such doesn’t change. The same notes in the same combinations and the same proportions. It’s just more intensive now and I’m feeling a lot more happy with this tea. I was concerned that such a pale flavour wouldn’t really hold up to re-steeps, but now I don’t think that’ll be a problem.
I still don’t think I can really justify rating higher than this, though. At least not at this point. Perhaps later.
