Wuyi Oolong

The last of this for a while. We’re leaving for the holidays in less than a week and aside from the truly dear things like the pu-erh cake, I want to use up as much leaf as is reasonable so nothing’s getting stale while it sits. I won’t buy anything new, I don’t think, until after New Year’s day.

Wuyi oolongs really are ideal for cloudy, blustery, gloomy days. Toasty but with that hint of sweetness that anything just a tiny bit burnt always has. The kind of tea that makes you wrap both hands around the mug and just… unclench. I did two short steepings with three cups of water and strained them into one of my larger ceramic (Western style) tea pots.

I have to keep reminding myself that here in Houston, this weather is only going to last at most 8 weeks, not 8 months. I do wish the grass had more time to recover from the severe Summer drought before it is forced to go dormant, but it doesn’t look like the weather will cooperate.

I have been sleeping with a headband with earphones built into it this past week, listening to Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports vol 1” and it is kind of shaping my entire mood throughout each day — it reminds me a bit of the videophile kid in American Beauty — although hopefully a bit more healthy than that. People who think electronic music, especially ambient music, is something that a 4 year old with a laptop could make should read about the process that went into producing that album.

I recently got a quantity of Rishi brand wuyi because I was at Whole Foods not Central Market. It has accomplished nothing but to help me more deeply appreciate this one from RoTea. The Rishi has this utterly overwhelming… pong. I swear, that tea has body odor. And no matter how short or how long the steep, no matter how many steeps you do, you can’t get rid of it.

But this wuyi from RoTea is almost like a Darjeeling on steroids. Light, crisp, toasty and bold.

My pepper flake incident has exploded into a full blown head cold and so today is all about tea.

Today is going to be all about the fact that our lawns have spent the past 18 months being abused by landscapers, contractors and the worst drought Texas has on record. I basically have to get an entire year’s worth of dead grass out of the thatch in the hopes that the St. Augustine will run one more time before going dormant until March. With any luck, the spot treatment for the weeds (an eco-friendly variety of weed killer) will arrive tomorrow and I can follow-up the weed whacking and raking with weed treatment.

Oh, and I’ll be drinking this tea while I do all that work because we aren’t supposed to break 60 degrees until afternoon.

Maybe I’ll back the car into the driveway and listen to the Arabic version of the liturgy as inspiration…

For some reason I stopped buying pu-erh teas.

Probably because for some reason I stopped ordering tea online and the local merchants mark their pu-erhs WAY up.

In the wake of this, probably temporary change, I have realized that this Wuyi oolong has become my default, go-to tea.

It is a classic yum cha/dim sum type toasted oolong and while my local premium grocer charges way too much for it, this Republic of Tea variety is very much center of the road.

I usually get 3 steeps from these leaves, but with a fresher supply I could probably get more.

I think my tea died. Honestly, this tin is about two years old and it just tastes like meh. I have heard that some oolongs age well, like puerh, but this isn’t one of them. I don’t know if my tastes have evolved that much or if I made it badly today or if it is just too old to have much flavor left, but there really isn’t a whole lot going on here. I don’t taste any fruitiness or the stone flavor that grabs you with a hard hug that I get from good, dark oolongs. There really isnt a nutty taste anymore. This is so light in flavor.

I guess if I wanted something really subtle this would be fine, but we are doing geometry for Pete’s sake and I need something stronger!

Teavivre’s Monkey Picked would be heavenly right about now.

I brewed this one for a little over three minutes today. The tin says to go five to seven so I may try that next time, but as it is, this is a very good oolong. It has a clean, nutty taste on the first infusion.

Still really like this tea. Tried a second steeping this time (1st for 2min, second for 3min). The second cup isn’t as sweet, but the sweetness is still there. I like that it is muted the second time. Although I really like the sweet honey-like flavor, it could be too much of a good thing to have two strong cups of it in a row. I am particular about excess in scent and flavors. I need to try a gong-fu type session next time if I have the time to spend with it.

The honey flavor of this tea doesn’t seem as strong today. It’s still there, but now accompanied by a very mild floral and a sort of malty flavor. I used more leaves than before, but the steep time was less.

The last time I had it (no logged) it seemed weaker than usual so I deliberately increased the leaf this time.

I’m not quite sure why this tea is being so finicky all of a sudden. The only explanation is that my original batch was in a small sample tin. I liked every cup that I had from that tin. This one is from the larger tin that I ordered when I ran out of the other.

I am going to have to lower my rating on this one just a bit. I still like to drink it, but I don’t know if I’ll order again.

I really love this stuff. But I stopped bringing it to work. At work, all we have is a hot water dispenser that is set to who knows what. Every time I make this at work (even when I try to add cold water), it comes out bad, but when I make it at home where I am able to set my Zoujiroshi water dispenser thingamabob to 195 degrees, it always comes out good.

Steeped for 12 minutes, 3rd steep is as good as the first 2. Going to try to get to 5 steepings.

Second steep as good as the first.