Hand Picked Autumn Tieguanyin (2014)

I jotted these notes down ages ago and recently came across them, so here we go. (no score given)

Wet Leaf: buttered swedes and grass
liquor very bright low intensity minty green
sweet, low astringency, light body, floral, grass

I usually think of floral teas as having a high, bright astringency. This tea manages to have flowers and warmth all in one.

This is a free sample with my teaware purchase. Woot! The dry leaf aroma is heavenly. I love green oolongs. The leaves are tightly furled and dark green. I’ve only ever had Tieguanyin brewed Western style, so I am going to make this in my gaiwan!

I did a quick rinse and then a 3 second steep. The liquor is a pale yellow. The brewed tea aroma is salty. It’s so hot it’s hard to taste. It tastes slightly salty too but mostly it’s green and a bit grassy. It’s naturally sweet. I probably should be straining this because little bits of leaves are getting in my cup. I’m also finding it difficult to handle because it’s so hot. I’m wearing a rubber kitchen glove to hold the cups. :P

The second infusion is a bit more floral. I’m getting lilac I think. The leaves have unfurled quite a bit and some have long stems attached. Third infusion is a lot more developed now. I’m getting a lovely sweet grass flavor that’s surprisingly similar to Long Jing. The lilac is more pronounced as well. No longer a pale yellow, the liquor is getting progressively darker with each infusion. There’s also a bit of a metallic tang to it that I’ve tasted in past harvests of Verdant Tea’s Autumn Tieguanyin.

I’m still making quite the mess with these Gongfu brewing sessions. There’s just no easy way to do this without getting water everywhere. This is a lovely tea but I don’t think anything special is added to it by Gongfu brewing. I think I’ll stick to Western style brewing in the future. In fact, I think these leaves have a long way to go. I’m going to switch over to Western style brewing now! I seem to recall getting as many as four Western style infusions out of it in the past.

This really is lovely! I enjoy floral green oolongs, although maybe not as much as I used to. This one is less creamy and more metallic than some others I’ve tried. Not to say those are negative things, but they are worth mentioning. I actually don’t think this is creamy at all. I’m sure this tea would have been even better when it was just picked. As it is, these leaves are from the Autumn 2014 harvest and I’m enjoying them in Summer 2015. Phew, someone hit me with a tired stick! I’m off to bed!

Had some friends over for dinner, and Dinosara was able to join me a bit early to enjoy some tea!
I started with a rinse, then 10 second steeps of this tea for 5 steeps, then up to a minute for another three. Throughout it was much more buttery than the Spring harvest, but still sweet, thick and lightly floral. Really nice.
One more note, between the first five and the last three I let it sit some while I prepared some parts of the dinner. I could taste the oxidization as a slightly sulfurous overtone. I should avoid that in the future (bag it if I need to take a break).

1.5 tsp for 300mL water @90C, rinsed, then steeped 3 minutes 30 seconds Western style, 1st infusion.

Happy sigh.

Sweeter than that 2013 harvest. Creamy and floral, with some melon notes and some mineral in the finish. Complex and nuanced. So very good.

It’s a fairly light tea. I didn’t really find it to be very compelling.

Light oolong with a nice floral aroma. This tea has a sweet floral taste with flavors of jasmine and honeydew.

This tea just keeps on giving. I manged to cold brew 8 cups of tea out of 4 grams of leaf. Cups 9 and 10 that still had some flavor, but it was really subtle at that point. It was really delicious cold brewed.

I think I’ve enjoyed past harvests of Tieguanyin from Verdant better. Although to be fair, I did a western brew (after a short rinse), which doesn’t seem to be my favourite way to drink oolong.

This one tastes predominantly of white foods- like cream, skinned nuts, rice pudding.. but the prevalent floral-lilac and sweet-melon aspects give this tea some playfully colourful highlights and a neat finish.

It’s a solid cup that improves on each re-steep, although I do wish there was a buttery presence.

soft floral oolong, perfect for cold brewing overnight.