The leaves of this tea are rolled and much darker than this photo suggests.
http://instagram.com/p/weuqyXmK63/
My leaves are mostly dark olive green to chocolate brown and smell of fall leaves. This is a medium roast oolong produced in North Thailand sourced from a family run enterprise.
I decided to steep my tea using a gongfu method and used 1 TSP of tea in 100ml of water.
I started out with a 3s rinse which I decided to drink. I am happy I did so because it tasted of baklava. It’s flavour was all honey and nuts ( particularly pistachio) and pastry.
I then chose short steeping times to start out with. My times were: 5,10,15,20,25,30,40,60,90s, and 3,4 and 6min). Altogether I made 12 steeps plus the rinse of this tea.
5s scent: honey, pistachio, pastry, hint of something sharp like a currant and fall leaves.
flavour: cream, honey, with fruit, slightly tart yet creamy hinting to mango tempered by something softer like apricot. Pastry and pistachio up front before fruit and honey develop faint hint of fall leaves.
Aftertaste of honey and fruit.
1Os cream, mineral notes, fruit, with hints of citrus rind added to above, pastry, pistachio
15s cream, honey, fall leaves, pastry, fruit, nuts, spice, bits of malt, hints of bitter veg.
20s honey and pastry, pistachios, fall leaves mixed with bitter veg, cinnamon, cream, malt, apricot.
25s roasted grain, leaves, and walnuts, cream, honey and apricots, malt and faint tinge of bitter veg, spice.
30s pastry and nuts, apricot, cream and spice. Hints of malt.
40s apricot, cream,spinach, nuts,pastry, spice.
60s minerals, apricot, cream, hints of ash, sweet and bitter veg, faintly floral with good spice notes, honey. Tingling on the tongue., hints of oatmeal.
90s similar to above.
3min similar but no ash, more sweet vegetables with cream, apricot and honey.
4min. Similar to above with a floral element.
6min similar.
The finished leaves are a fairly uniform deep olive to milk chocolate colour. Some of the leaves show signs of insect distress.
I am not always a fan of mid roast Oolong’s but I really liked the nutty, sweet pastry like notes in this one. I really enjoyed it.
Siam-Tee suggests that when using longer steeps this tea has a profile approaching a Da Hong Pao. I will have to try that in the future. As for now I’m glad I tried it this way. I have never had a tea taste so naturally of baklava before.
