Imperial Pearl

I’m really in love with this tea. If you weren’t told it was an oolong, you would never guess. It kind of reminds me of a Yunnan Gold/Red.

If you brew hotter and longer, you get more spice. But I brewed about 185 in gaiwan, short steeps. Then I slowly increased time and temp with every 4 or 5 steeps.

The liquor is just gorgeous, especially once the leaves open up. The scent of the wet leaves is just intoxicating. Get a lot of prune, malt, honey, and hint of spice, like a cinnamon.

Flavor is great, really rich and luxurious. There’s a sweetness to it, but little kick of spice as well. It peaked for me about steep 4 or 5 in 100ml gaiwan. But I still got about 12 solid steeps from it. After the 5th or so, it becomes more one note, sometimes more honey, sometimes more spice.

Just a great tea. Real high quality leaves. Very happy, and great price. I’ve paid a lot more for much less.

English style steeping:

Steep 1: Smells not unlike brandy. Fantastic aroma. A little sweet.

Steep 2: Strong flavour still, much sweeter than the first steep.

Steep 3: Flavour is starting to wane, I think I can get one more steep out of this tea.

An interesting and beautifully complex tea. Steeped in a gaiwan, the first infusion came out very strong and Black Tea like with chocolate and molasses notes, with a subtly sweet, almost fruity after-taste. I agree with other tasters that the tea mellows out on the third infusion, lacking the strong Black Tea flavor of the first 2 infusions. Overall a great tasting tea; however, it can be a bit overpowering on the first couple infusions. Good on occasion, but I can’t see this as an everyday cup.

For the first cup, I would recommend washing the leaves for 1 minute before making it. As other have said, it takes the second cup before you get the full flavor.

I just received a bunch of teas from The Mountain Tea Co. and this was the first one I tried. I think lizeepea hit it spot on with her assessment. The second and 3rd steeps are the best and the it starts to fall off. I didn’t really time the steeps but they started at about 30 sec and added 30sec to each additional steep