I feel really bad about this one. I’ve had it for a LONG time, MissB gave it to me ages ago. Thank you! I’m sorry I lost track of it.
I’ve been avoiding it, because I don’t really like da hong pao. It’s too roasty toasty woody for me, and tends to make my tummy upset. I really do prefer a mega floral oolong.
Anyways, here it goes. I rinsed and let it sit a few minutes, in my eensy teensy gaiwan. I’m using 50-60ml hot water, doing short steeps. I have a litre of water left, so let’s see how this plays out.
1) Quite toasty. Sweet underlayer. Nice mouthfeel. Not that bad, actually.
2) Basically the same. I think this is quite light, at least compared to other of these teas I’ve had.
3) The toastiness is reducing already. It’s a little stone fruits, a little sweet. Still pretty nice. (I’m not drinking all of these, btw. Just tasting, letting it cool a bit, tasting again…)
4) Hmm. I honestly don’t know how to describe this. I’ve looked up some flavours, but the only one that seems to apply so far is herbaceous. The roasty flavour is kinda maybe sorta like toasted buckwheat tea, but not totally.
5) I should maybe have steeped longer than 30 seconds here. Still, the brew is a nice amber-honey colour. It’s starting to turn a bit more herbaceous-floral, although it’s not all the way floral yet.
6) 1 minute this time. I think the tea could keep going a couple more steeps if you wanted to increase the time a lot. Still, not my favourite but not bad.
In conclusion, I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would. It’s a pretty decent tea, IMO. Compared to others of it’s type, I honestly have no idea. But I would consider trying this one again, perhaps once I’ve worked through my puerh samples and want to educate myself more about oolongs. :)
