Purple Oolong

And yet another one from the teaswap with Togo. Thanks!

I started taking tasting notes and quickly figured out by smell and taste that this is probably the same tea as What-Cha’s Indonesia Harendong #12 ‘Jin Xuan’ Dark Roasted Oolong, which I adore and have reviewed.

I’m not sure if this is a different harvest or if leafing it a gram more than the What-Cha tea revealed some differences between the two. With this one, I did pick up on a cinnamon aroma in the dry leaf (think cinnamon sugar wheat toast) and some raisin. I also noticed some astringency which I don’t recall getting in What-Cha’s tea. This one had more defined cream-caramel and red/purple fruit flavors and a really strong returning rock sugar sweetness but less minerality.

I’d say the two teas are equally pleasing and I don’t think I’d rate this one different if I had gone into this blind because the overall theme of the tea is the same: roast/char, toast/grain, wood, berries, stone fruit, cream, light caramel, grass, mineral.

Sipdown (571)!

This ended up being my last tea in Regina before moving to Montreal – it wasn’t supposed to be, but I found myself awake at 2AM waiting to leave for a flight at 4AM and at that point I certainly wasn’t going to go back to sleep. So what else did I have to do other than make myself some tea!?

I steeped this a good twelve or so times, though I did “stack” my infusions in groupings of two so I only drank about six cups of tea for my twelve steeps of it. Most of my teaware was long since packed or sent out to Montreal at that point, so I only had my mom’s large Western teacups to pour into, and they perfectly held two steeps from the one gaiwan that I hadn’t packed yet.

It was a nice tea; I definitely liked it better steeped Gong Fu over the Western cup that I had a few months ago. I’d say that predominantly this was a more nutty and sweet profile with a light roast to it – reminded me at times of a mix between sesame, barley, and peanuts. It’s still not the most robust flavour overall; more subtle and smooth. It was a very nice 2AM kind of tea though, and made me feel a little cozy before the flight, which was important since it was so stressful.

This is a dark roasted oolong with sweet woody aroma of tree sap. The taste is also sweet and nutty with no bitterness and dry finish. It seems like a it would be a nice dessert tea. It is quite infusable, but makes for a long gong fu session, since the later steeps have to be pushed a fair bit.