Formosa Oolong

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Brown Sugar, Carrot, Cinnamon, Dried Fruit, Honey, Malt, Mineral, Peach, Roasted, Walnut, Wood, Nutty, Toasty, Dark Bittersweet, Plum, Autumn Leaf Pile, Nuts, Raisins
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Jane Quigley
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 45 sec 3 g 39 oz / 1160 ml

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34 Tasting Notes View all

  • “I’m not sure why I felt like Oolong this morning. This is a nice nutty toasty tasting tea. This tea is smooth w/o any bitterness or astringency. I’m getting ready to leave on vacation tomorrow and...” Read full tasting note
    80
  • “1 tsp for 4 oz Taste test of 2 Formosa Oolongs Adagio: Formosa Oolong #8 ($4.00/oz) A little thin and too astringent Harney & Sons: Formosa Oolong ($1.67/oz) More flavorful and...” Read full tasting note
    85
  • “This tea is fascinating. In the Harney book Michael talks about how this is a throwback tea, what Americans drank 20 or 30 years ago before we all had access to and knew about the innovative ever...” Read full tasting note
  • “I had two steeps of this tea yesterday too. It was an oolong day! This tea was definitely a dark oolong, with some roastiness, but ever so delicate. I was really surprised at how delicate it was,...” Read full tasting note

From Harney & Sons

This is the style of brown oolong that generations of Americans loved. It was the toasty flavor that they enjoyed. Don’t worry about the stems, that is how the Taiwanese do this tea.

About Harney & Sons View company

Since 1983 Harney & Sons has been the source for fine teas. We travel the globe to find the best teas and accept only the exceptional. We put our years of experience to work to bring you the best Single-Estate teas, and blends beyond compare.

34 Tasting Notes

85
694 tasting notes

I received this from a swap with DeleriumFrogs. Thank you!

Wow! Harney strikes again. I love Harney teas for a few reason. They all aren’t my favorite teas, but they are teas that can stand up to a beating and for the price they make amazing work teas. This is another tea that will be going on my wishlist from Harney. It has the roasty oolong flavor that I like and it has hints of sweet. I am so glad that you included this in the swap. I am not sure I would have tried this on my own. Thank you!

Preparation
5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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81
138 tasting notes

this is quite full-bodied as far as any oolongs i’ve tried (and most have been extremely delicate in my experience) & it has a distinct character that from both the dry leaf & the steeped liquor would appear to be some kind of delicate black tea. perhaps a darjeeling (non-muscatel)? or a light english breakfast? but it leans toward that side of things. color & body-wise, this oolong reminds me a lot of a Hojicha (roasted green tea) but doesn’t have the roasty, brown rice/popcorn flavor going on, which i find myself missing.

perhaps worth noting is the fact that this tea was quite salty in the beginning before mellowing out in that aspect once the liquor cooled. it had a notable salinity though, which i definitely don’t mind. interesting!

for me, this isn’t quite a ‘Chinese restaurant tea’ or even a seemingly Japanese one. there’s a place i go to a lot called Hanami & they have one of the most unique roasted & nutty flavored teas that is complimentary with all meals. at first i thought it was some kind of green, but i’m now starting to think it could have been an oolong, or maybe an oolong-green mix. i also thought it could be Hojicha, but you never know… my never-ending quest to discover what tea they serve at Hanami continues…

anyway, this Formosa Oolong is quite dark, as is characteristic of most Formosa Oolongs. i’ve always wanted to try one & i must say i heartily appreciate it. not quite hojicha-status or even on the level of a genmaicha (not to expect that it should be) but i would happily drink this before or after a meal. definitely something nice & pleasant which is in the vicinity of a light black tea with no astringency, just a slight roasted dryness that doesn’t have the vegetality of a green tea that might veer toward bitterness. it certainly doesn’t need any additives and can be consumed as is. this is rather nice!

ETA: from the aroma of the steeped tea, i do recall a mere suggestion of honey (but one that was hiding) and later upon cooling, a slight graham cracker note.

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62
672 tasting notes

So far the formosa oolongs I’ve tried are notable for what they have in common — that sweet roasted floral-fruit taste — rather than their differences, which have been extremely slight. This is a good-quality tea, but no revelation. Like Upton’s formosa fine grade, the leaves are chopped (the other formosa oolongs had rolled leaves, but the taste hardly varied, so I’m unclear how they decide on the style or what effect it’s supposed to have) and good for multiple steepings. I was a bit surprised that H&S’s instructions for the tea were to use boiling water and steep it for 5 minutes, but I tried it and it was fine.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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61
127 tasting notes

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