after today’s cup, i may just have to place an order for this. this is a light green oolong, but given my initial impression of how delicate the flavors were initially, this had a really developed flavor palette by comparison with previous tastings.
preparation-wise, i treated this like a green tea & took the 180 F temp seriously. but i let steep for 1 minute more than the recommended 3 minutes because the leaves hadn’t quite opened up yet and the water didn’t quite look like tea…
at about 4 min, to 4 min 10s, the tea liquor was finally a lovely crystalline shade of pastel yellow. the taste was really impressive….steamed white rice infused with the lovely toasted coconut which was promised in the dry leaf. i was thrilled—-the coconut really came through in this, albeit delicately. the aroma in the dry leaf smelled so much like actual toasted coconut flakes, the kind you’d sprinkle on top of vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day. as steeped tea, this reminded me of thai sticky rice with coconut instead of mango. well, sort of. the rice flavor in this oolong was not so much a heavy, starchy rice as it was rice paper….but steamed white rice it was, at least to me. i actually recall having gotten a ‘rice’ note in other oolongs i’ve tried, which i absolutely loved.
so, all in all: steamed white rice with the fragrance and flavor of toasted coconut. there may or may not have been a light florality underneath (maybe something of a gardenia which was trying to peek its head out) but this certainly tasted (and felt) like an oolong: which is sometimes hard to describe! this didn’t have the tang i found to be present in Golden Moon’s Sugar Caramel Oolong, but that’s probably because this is a different varietal. regardless, it’s welcome in my cupboard any day!
Flavors: Coconut, Rice, Smooth
