This is an oolong tea. Really. Honestly. Despite the dry leaves both looking and smelling like a fully-fermented Indian black tea like a Ceylon or an Assam. Now this is an oolong derived from an Indian tea bush, so I suppose it’s somewhat justified – it was just that I was hoping for more of a difference from a black tea.
The taste reminds me of nothing so much as a bakey Ceylon or maybe a lighter, malty Assam. Actually I think it tastes a fair bit like my Dejoo Assam from Specifically Tea. There is perhaps a briefest bit of floral at the beginning of the sip, but it quickly changes into something that tastes baked and faintly bitter, like you’d expect of a black tea. It leaves a malty, burnt-caramel aftertaste in the back of my mouth aswell.
I’m not sure how to rate this, really. It’s not a bad tasting tea, and if it were a black tea I think I’d quite like it. But as an oolong this wasn’t what I expected or was looking for.
