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“Gongfu Sipdown (800)! Picked up this sample, along with a sample of the Pomelo black tea and a full black tea stuffed lemon, during Black Friday. I went back and forth on whether I was going to...” Read full tasting note
This tea is a special one. Fresh picked Valencia Oranges are hollowed out and their pulp is mixed with a high quality Big Leaf Cultivar Oolong tea. The mixture is then places back in the smooth intact peel of the orange and processed in the traditional Hakka way to create this unique tea creation. The series of steaming, sun drying, and baking this tea goes through creates a tea ball that can be aged or drunk right away, and has a flavor profile like no other tea!
Roasted nut up front, moving to a slightly sour clear mid mouth, with an uplifting sweet orange oil finish this tea is like no other we have ever had! Finished in December 2018, the year or so this tea has had to age has mellowed its flavors and melded then into a fascinating experience.
It is a living tea, one of a kind, and will only get better with age. If you do plan on storing it make sure the area you store it in is very dry. Throwing it in a ziplock bag would be a good idea as well!
We have separated the these tea balls based on size. The large ones are better for aging while the smaller ones are better for drinking now.
Like all our teas, there are no artificial added flavors, colors or chemicals in this tea. All flavors are completely natural and agrochemical-free!
Elevation: 300m
Status: Agrochemical free garden
Cultivar: Big Leaf Oolong and Organic Valencia Orange
Oxidization: 100% for the tea
Season: Winter 2018
Method: Traditional Hakka Dried Fruit Tea Processing
Region: Rueishuei, Hualien
Recommend Brewing Style: ~100C water, 5-10g of tea and peel
You can treat it like a puer, or a black tea, or even a pour over coffee. Water to eat ratio is also up to you. You can include the orange husk or just chip out the tea. It seems drinking it with the peel is a much better experience as the fruity sweet sour taste is more pronounced. Treat it like a puer with short steeps seems to work well also.While this tea is legally preserved for export, it may fall under gray areas for some bureaucrats/zealots. If it does get confiscated unjustly at customs please rest assured that we will refund the money to you. We will take that risk upon ourselves!*
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Gongfu Sipdown (800)!
Picked up this sample, along with a sample of the Pomelo black tea and a full black tea stuffed lemon, during Black Friday. I went back and forth on whether I was going to place the order or not, but curiosity eventually got the better of me. I started with this one because it’s sort of the “most normal” of these aged fruit type teas and I thought it would be the best base line…
It took me a little while to warm up to the flavour; the oolong was deep, lightly bitter and roasty, with strong and drying woody and nutty characteristics and more of a high acidic note in the finish. The Valencia Orange, by contrast, had a sweeter flavour and was more lively. It wasn’t until seven or eight steeps in that I was able to find harmony in the differences between those two profiles, with the emergence of a sweet cocoa note – prior to that my brain found the sweetness of the orange but the more astringent and roasted oolong cacophonous. I’m still not sure exactly where I land on this sample, even after finishing the session…
Now I’m especially curious to try the two others, though!
Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B7UW5ilgmbe/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVZQPJQykpg
