Longfengxia High Mountain Winter Oolong Tea, Lot 573

Here is another blast from the past review. I finally got around to drinking my sample of this tea back around the start of May (I received it as part of Taiwan Tea Crafts’ Longfengxia sampler). Naturally, I have been sitting on this review, like so many others, ever since. Though it is now very much out of season and out of stock, I found this tea to be an excellent high mountain oolong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 12 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, I detected aromas of cream, butter, sugarcane, vanilla, and gardenia. After the rinse, umami came out on the nose alongside a subtle custard scent. The first infusion then brought out a somewhat stronger umami character. In the mouth, I noted flavors of cream, butter, vanilla, sugarcane, and gardenia accompanied by unexpected sweet corn, orange blossom, and grass notes. Subsequent infusions introduced hints of orange zest and orange blossom to the nose. New impressions of minerals, honeydew, orange zest, hyacinth, narcissus, spinach, pear, tangerine, coconut, and steamed milk appeared in the mouth along with belatedly emerging custard notes. The final infusions emphasized lingering mineral, umami, tangerine, coconut, and orange zest notes balanced by subtle touches of butter, cream, pear, and custard.

As stated earlier, this was a very nice high mountain oolong. Longfengxia is rapidly becoming one of my favorite terroirs; I have not had a bad tea from the area to this point. Definitely check out some of Taiwan Tea Crafts’ Longfengxia offerings. My limited experience with them indicates that they are all very much worth trying.