Light Roast Anxi Traditional Tieguanyin

Ohhhh I got my oolongs in the mail.

Let’s talk this tea. I smelled the dry leaf of the Spring TGY and it reminded me a little of the raw butternut squash I had cut up recently. THEN I opened this one up! Now THAT is squash! No, deeper! Definitely pumpkin. Pumpkin and spiced rum and oolong and yeeeah I’m drinking this one tonight.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that this tea just gives and gives. The flavours evoke so many autumn feelings – I love it! I definitely want to don a knit sweater with a thermos full of this and go apple picking.

My first experience with this tea was with my gaiwan. I just love to get on the boat and take a ride through the flavours as they change. When I see the reference to simmering oatmeal, this tea really evoked a memory of a recipe I have for slow cooked steel cut oats with pumpkin puree and spices, topped with whipped cream. Ah, fall! How I love thee!

Also, let’s not talk about rain. I guess it goes hand in hand with fall here – I only like it when I don’t have to go out in it – and the grey depresses me so! That said, with a tea like this to keep me warm, I think I’ll be okay :)

Easily one of the best TGYs I have ever had the opportunity to taste.

Sadly, my first attempt at this tea was a complete bust. I can’t entirely recall my infusion parameters, but I think I infused about 2 tsp of the tea in ~8oz. of water for 1 minute at about 205F, and ended up with…. what tasted like water. The only indication that it wasn’t water was the colour, which was a lightish yellow (later on I noticed that it was somewhat sweet water, but certainly couldn’t identify any other flavours). I suspect that my problem was poor brewing parameters – our internet was down when I was brewing this up and so I just guessed at what I was doing instead of following Verdant’s suggested brewing parameters, which I prefer to do when brewing up a tea for the first time.

After my failed first infusion, I ended up carelessly infusing the leaves a couple more times for a longer period of time, and got something vaguely oolongy that I did drink (and at one point mixed with a 3rd infusion of Butiki’s Gui Fei Oolong).

Luckily, I not only have a sample packet of this tea from my dragon well pre-order, I bought an additional 2 oz. so I have plenty of tea to play with!

Oolongs….someday I will find one that doesn’t have that taste that I dislike. This one is close. Ill go through the multiple steepings to give this a full shot, but I don’t think ill likely be stocking this up.

I do like the initial taste of this one though.

Edit: I’m beginning to think it’s the smell even more than the taste… later steepings of this aren’t half bad.

This is a sample sent to me with my last Verdant order! Thank you David!

I’ll be teaching all afternoon, so I’ll be sipping all afternoon. I’m brewing this in my Gaiwan, following the instructions on the Verdant site. The label on the sample says Light Roasted Aged Tieguanyin, so I believe this is the advanced sample of the tea I’ve listed it as. If not, someone feel free to correct me!

Dry scent: dehydrated banana & toasted rice
1st steep: the wet leaf smells of toasted seaweed, the tea is a pale apricot, with a mildly essence of banana in the flavor
2nd steep: the color is now light carmel, smell of toasted rice, I can’t define the taste, buy my tongue is tingling around the edges!!
3rd steep: (just burnt my fingers because I filled the gaiwan too full) I’m getting a slightly tropical flavor, & still toasty rice, & the creaminess of rice pudding is starting to rise.
4th: (the wet leaf now smells like Seaweed steaming on charcoal)
now there is a mild sweetness, hinting at roasted carrots
5th: the center of my tongue has a bright metalic sensation, but not in a bad way, it’s like a sparkly tingly magic thing…actually, now I’m feeling that this sensation is like the acidity you feel on your tongue after eating pineapple, from the enzymes in that fruit. I’m not really tasting pineapple so much, just feeling the sensation of it.

I think I’m on #8 now. My mouth is watering!

Rather than drag this on, I will go teach & continue sipping…

I appreciated this sample that I received with my order. I have enjoyed every tiguanyin from Verdant, and this is no exception. The light roast is quite pleasing. Being somewhat lazy today, I did 20, 40 and 60 second steepings but put them all in one big cup. I’m sure I’ll get several more infusions. I do not have the gift of discerning and describing all the nuances of each infusion the way people like Terri Harplady do. I’m glad for people like Bonnie, Terri, Azzrian, and numerous others that do this so well on Steepster. All I can say about this particular selection is that it is very good and I’m glad I’m sipping it today.

I really do not know how to describe this tea. I brewed it up several different ways and it tastes so good every time. There are hints of sweet potato, which is interesting and various other flavors I cannot describe. I am in love.

I actually got this as a sample a while back, but I got too caught up in my work, and didn’t get arround to trying it out. Since I’m officially done with classes for the semester as of now.

Anyway, first cup, 15 seconds. I’m really plased with the tea so far. The creamy smoothness of aged Tieguanyins is soemthing that I really enjoy, and this is a paticularly fine example. Better yet, the tea has some amazing fruity qualities, which transition into an interesting aftertaste that lingers for a good two minutes. It’s hard for me to describe what I’m tasteing, but it is certainly pleaseant. The result is a fantastic tea, perfeect for the cold weather in the D.C. area today.

This tea was fantastic, great flavor, lots of nuances, held up for a number of infusions (though the first was clearly the best). If they weren’t already sold out, I’d be ordering more and stocking up. But really one of the best oolongs that I’ve ever had – if more comes available I will easily put in a 4-6 oz order, I liked it that much.