Oolong Inc

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Recent Tasting Notes

Unique would be the correct term; however that sometimes equates to a bad connotation such as this time.

I tend to only write positive reviews, but I will adjust this one to provide some help from my experience. Floral notes work best for that vegetable like tea taste and the lighter teas. There’s a reason why jasmine works well with green tea but not so well with black tea; just a balancing act of flavors.

When it comes to this blend, there’s a strong upfront roast profile to the tea with a smokey finish while having the osmanthus flavor throughout. While I can say the flavoring is balanced and does what it should, the base of this really throws off the experience. When it comes to floral, a dry mouth feel coming from the smokiness makes it hard to enjoy while a stronger dancong could be acceptable for such a thing.

What would I change? Well, I think a base tea that already agrees with the taste being mixed in would be best. It would be cool to see a dayuling and osmanthus or a dancong osmanthus as both have a nice thickness that ends in a wet way rather than dry.

There’s just something odd about drinking this that made me want to stop, but I went through four steeps to ensure the smokiness stays as well as the roast. The osmanthus lasted as well so that’s good, there’s a good technique being used just needs a more agreeable base.

Daylon R Thomas

I like osmanthus more with greener oolongs in my experience-namely being the 7 oolong blend you sold vs Mountain Tea’s roasted Jin Xuan blended with osmanthus. The first time I had it reminded me of toffee, but now most roasted Taiwan oolongs just taste like barbecue nuts to me.

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75

I was expecting this tea to be a little more “greener”, but this one seems pretty roasted. I gave the leaves a nice long whiff and was taken over by a sweet perfume aroma with a citrus orange tang. The leaves were very fruity and incredibly fragrant. I warmed up my gaiwan and placed them inside. With a shake, I lift the lid and take a deep inhale. I could note some roasted oats, baked bread, and orange juice. This tea smells like breakfast, haha. I could also take in some warm honey in the background. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The taste began perfectly! The first flavor was an intense sugarcane candy that coats the tongue; then, a nice floral sweetness that eases you down. The base of the tea is nice and roasted with some berry tones, and finally a smooth honey aftertaste. A mild tannin and bitter lingers in the very back. However, this tea completely plummets in the second steeping. This is a one steep tea. The second pour yielded a very sour and bitter tea that is unpleasant. I ended up dumping the remaining tea. So, lesson learned and if I ever have this again I know to call it one and done.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFHO-wIzGVP/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel&hl=en

Flavors: Berry, Bread, Citrus, Floral, Honey, Oats, Orange, Perfume, Roasted, Sugarcane

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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So, probably no gongfoolery this week, it has been a bit of a rough one and I am not clear headed enough to give it my full attention, but there is still the weekend so mayyybe. That is one of the really big differences between my usual tea reviews and the gongfoolery series, from a writing perspective. With tea reviews I have it all written down (in sloppy barely decipherable by anyone but me shorthand) and the blog is just that polished up with photographs and research when needed. With gongfoolery though, that is being written as I do it, usually the blog takes hours and a lot of focus, which is something I have just had none of this week. Good news though, the tea I needed for my next batch of testing finally arrived, yay!

Today I am looking at the last of the samples I got from Oolong Inc, Taiwan Osmanthus Oolong Tea, now it is probably well known by now that I love osmanthus flowers in all its forms, and having it blended with bright green Oolong was one of my favorite ways of drinking this flower. However this tea is different as it uses roasted Oolong instead of the floral green, which is pretty fascinating. Sniffing the leaves, and you know, it smells like osmanthus jelly on toast, like uncannily like it! Toasted grains and sweet nectar blend decently, though there is a bit of a smoky note making me think of burnt toast.

Into the gaiwan for steeping, and the smoky aroma ramps up after steeping. The osmanthus is still there, but it is not as strong, neither is the aroma of toast. There is sweetness that is an odd but not unpleasant combination with the smoke. The liquid however is not quite so smoky, it is gentle smoke with creamy osmanthus and roasted grains, the jelly on toast aroma is back.

Well that is neat! It is a bit dry in the mouth, with a strong roasted grain and smoke start. This is mellowed by the gentle blossoming of floral osmanthus notes that add an intense sweet nectar quality. Blending the nectar and roast at the finish makes the tea taste like grilled plums, which is a fascinating way to finish the tea. I sadly noticed this tea did not have a ton of longevity, and the taste did not really change at all throughout the several steeps I got. I liked the taste though I wish there was more of it and it lasted longer.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/05/oolong-inc-taiwan-osmanthus-oolong-tea.html

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76
drank Osmanthus Oolong by Oolong Inc
318 tasting notes

A free sample from Oolong Inc!

A good medium-dark roast oolong with a faint osmanthus scent. Roasty notes of wood and burnt sugar balanced with tangy and floral flavors. Osmanthus has an odd flavor to me, it reminds me a lot fresh jalapeno, without the spice

A pretty nice oolong, and at a price point that’s more than reasonable

Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Osmanthus, Resin, Roasted, Tangy, Wood

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 5 OZ / 150 ML

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88

This tea has a nice aroma. Very fruity. There is a somewhat juicy flavour. Not as strong as I usually find some fruit teas, and a good post-breakfast tea.

Thanks for the sample, Oolong Inc. :)

Flavors: Fruity, Lychee

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86
drank Black Bean Oolong by Oolong Inc
122 tasting notes

I was provided this sample by Oolong Inc. in exchange for a review. That being said, I would never be anything but honest.
The dry leaf smells nutty and warm. Brewing it has a predominantly roasted oolong scent, with a bit of a salty edge. The flavor is smooth with honey tones, and a really lovely roasted nut aftertaste. This is really quite excellent. It preserves both the qualities of gently roasted oolong while providing a nice darker nut roasted flavor. It reminds me of fresh-pressed soy milk flavor with some chestnut flavor thrown in. I could see myself craving this tea when it is cold outside (or 50 in the office, like it is at the moment!). It is so strange having these lightly honey-floral and nutty notes in one tea- it is clearly not a black tea nor is it identifiable as an oolong. The aftertaste reminds me a little of the taste in the air of a real coffee shop (not Starbucks) – not sweet, but not bitter either. Kinda like the smell of coffee breath. I know that doesn’t sound very tasty, but I assure you it is! And very comforting as well. The tea has a rather thin body but a good amount of sweetness to it.
I’m continually astounded at the price point of this tea for the quality. It is definitely something I will purchase in the future.

Flavors: Dark Bittersweet, Roasted Nuts, Soybean, Wet Wood

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 1 min, 30 sec 1 tsp 6 OZ / 177 ML

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Well, the dance with new medication begins. This is an allergy medication geared towards helping my asthma since I am unable to take any steroids, it certainly seems I can breathe a lot easier, not nearly as much work to take a deep breath. The side effects are mostly serious drowsiness which I hope eases up, if not well, clearly I will need to just drink more tea. Now I wait for the cardiologist to set up an appointment and the bloodwork to come back. And then I get to see a new Rheumatologist to see if they can do something for my Fibromyalgia or find out of it is something else. Finger’s crossed something can be done this time that doesn’t cause really horrid side effects!!

With this grogginess in mind, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about! Oolong Inc’s Taiwan Tangerine Black Tea, but instead of my usually gongfu brewing, I decided to cold steep this one using the new cold steeper I got at TJ Maxx for like $4. I am not sure if that was its original purpose, but it works perfectly for it. Now just to be clear, I did gongfu this tea and got several steeps out of it, but I knew from the moment I sniffed the leaves I wanted it cold steeped. The aroma of the leaves is very strong tangerine, pretty much all I can smell is tangerine, like someone took the peels and squeezed all the oil out and sprinkled it on black tea. There is a bit of a malty undertone and a honey sweetness, but the real star of the show is the powerhouse of tangerine.

So I let the leaves steep overnight and was greeted with a lovely amber colored brew the next morning. The aroma is still very tangerine heavy, but it now smells like someone cut a tangerine and juiced it rather than using oil from the peel. Alongside the tangerine is malt and honey with a woodsy undertone. The mouthfeel was smooth and just a little bit tingly, combine that with it being cold it was immensely refreshing and enlivening, but citrus is great for waking me up. It is pleasantly sweet and malty, with honey notes and of course tangerine notes, luckily they are not overpowering, nice and subtle and just the right amount of sweet. If you want the stronger tangerine notes they are definitely more present in the hot version.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/05/oolong-inc-taiwan-tangerine-black-tea.html

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86

I was surprised at how strongly the dry leaf smells like tangerine. The brewed scent is nice though, subtly citrus. There is a somewhat tangy citrus flavour.

Thanks for the sample, Oolong Inc.

Flavors: Citrus

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87

Mmmm…. fruity. The tea has a scent of peaches, with some mangoes, and perhaps berries. It is a nice aroma. There really isn’t a dominate fruit flavour. Actually, it does taste like fruit punch. But more mild. Good with the scones.

Thanks for the sample, Oolong Inc.

Flavors: Berries, Berry, Fruit Punch, Fruity, Mango, Peach

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Danger Floof powers activated! Thanks to the assistance of my dear Tea Barbarian my deathhawk (the official term for my style of mohawk) has been trimmed and re-dyed, it took three bottles of dye which is ridiculous! But it was the first time in a while that I bleached the roots and redid all the hair, and even though I have a mohawk I still have a ton of hair. Which brings me to the big problem, no amount of hair spray and backcombing will keep the ‘hawk up! I just have too much and too thick of hair, it looks more like a turquoise horse mane than a mohawk….oh god, I’m a My Little Pony.

Today’s tea comes from Oolong Inc and is their Taiwan Black Bean Oolong, a roasted Oolong blended with kuromame, or black soy beans that have been fried. It is a common health drink in various parts of Asia, and like other roasted grain/seed teas I love it . This is the first time I have had it blended with anything, and I have to admit, if I were to blend it with any type of tea a roasted oolong seems perfect. See these fried beans smell exactly like burnt beans, because they kinda are burnt beans, reminds me a bit of pot liquor from many iterations of pinto beans as a kid (one of my favorite parts of that meal) blending those notes with strong woody, toasted grain, and bamboo coal notes of the roasted oolong works rather well. That is if you like toasted grain and roasted teas, if not you might want to back away slowly.

I decided to gongfu this tea, because of course I did, and even though the leaves were fairly broken up and had a decent amount of stems it performed well in the gaiwan. The aroma of the wet leaves is very strong burnt beans and roasted grains, wet wood, and char, with a slight underlying sweetness of honey on toast. The liquid is sweet with notes of honey and grains with burnt beans, wet wood, char, and a bit of a bready undertone.

So, I will say this about this tea, its very tasty and has a decent amount of longevity lasting four steeps before giving up the ghost. It does not really change at all through the steeping, the taste stays the same, conveniently I like the taste so it is not all bad. It is thick and a bit sweet and a bit burnt, like someone took soy beans and fried them, which is pretty much what happened. Combining that taste with woodiness and char and a touch of lingering toast, this is definitely a good tea to drink on a chilly day.

The company asked me a few questions to address in my review, namely if the tea were found at Teavana or Republic of Tea how much would I pay for it…well, I wouldn’t. Not because of this tea, but because I have not bought anything from Republic of Tea in over five years and I have never shopped at Teavanna because I have never liked the teas of theirs I sampled. Next was how much would I pay for it if I found it in a supermarket and again I am not really sure, I never buy tea at a grocery store, I just don’t even look because they have not carried the kind of tea I liked…if I found it at a grocery store I would be dumbfounded I think. Their online price of $4.49 for 2oz is pretty fantastic so if I found it for those prices I would not hesitate. The next question is ‘Would a connoisseur like yourself steep a cup of our tea alone, after lunch in the office?’ I had to quote it because thanks for calling me a connoisseur! Yes I would drink this tea after lunch by myself, a lot of my tea-ing is solo, but if Ben were around I would give it to him to try because I like to share. The last question was how does it compare to teabags and K-cups, well for one no creating an astronomical amount of waste (I LOATHE K-cups) and teabags frequently are made from dust and fannings and taste not so good, and you rarely get more than one steep out of it.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/05/oolong-inc-taiwan-black-bean-oolong-tea.html

Equusfell

HAhaha, My Little Pony! You know, I always thought it would be absolutely awful to get out, but I had a friend in high school that used Elmer’s glitter glue to keep hi 14" hawk up. Dunno if that would work for you!

TeaNecromancer

Oh the glue!! I had a trihawk I glued a few times, never again! Such a sticky pain :p I think I need to do more hanging upside down when spraying with hair spray

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86

Received this and two other delicious-sounding teas this morning from Oolong Inc. (samples provided free for review). Rose is one of my favorite flavors and the directions on the website indicated that this would be a good office steeper, so here I am, Western brewing this beautiful melange.
It’s been a while since I had a flavored green tea, lately it’s been all fresh Spring greens, all the time, so this is a good change of pace!
The dry leaves smell heavily of stately rose and nectarine. I can’t really get a sense for leaf quality behind those two aromas, but they look like mostly whole unrolled leaves.
My office smells like a bubble tea shop-all fruity and fresh as this tea brews. Again, the nectarine, though it has some yellow peach notes now that it’s wet, and those dried rose petals that you put in potpourri, not quite as strong as rose oil, but not quite as sweet as candied petals.
Oh man, this is yummy! It reminds me a ton of the white peach and rose water sorbet I made last summer! Oh la la! I could see this becoming my go-to rose tea! And it is so reasonably priced! The steep was around four minutes long, and I can taste that in the slight metallic undertones of the base tea, but the rose and white nectarine (finally figured it out!) flavors are punch and leave a long-lasting aftertaste.
Seriously, with some sweetener, this would be an amazing popsicle, and I could see this iced as the hit of the picnic. While the base green tea is definitely nothing to write home about, it serves admirably as the toast to this jam. Generally, I prefer when floral scents accent the natural flavors of high quality teas, but this is a great flavored tea at a price that you might expect it to be not-so-stellar and I’m definitely going to add a quantity of this to my collection.

Flavors: Rose

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 6 OZ / 177 ML

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Many thanks to Oolong Inc. for letting me sample this! Wow, never expected to find beans in my tea! I was very surprised with how the bean flavor came through. It was hearty and earthy and savory, and lent a kind of gravitas to the oolong. Even though I’ve eaten black beans all my life, I don’t think I would have identified this as ‘bean’ flavor in a blind test. It didn’t taste smoky to me, though perhaps it’s because when I think of smoky tea, I’m recalling the knock-out smokiness of a lapsang souchong. The tea has a lot of staying power and was still going strong after 3 steepings. I probably wouldn’t have picked this out for myself, because I tend to go for green oolongs, but I really enjoyed it!

They also had these questions which I’m answering here:
1. If my tea were found on Teavana or Republic of Tea, how much would you pay for it?
This is a little tricky to answer, just because the pricing on Teavana and Republic of Tea has very little to do with the quality of the tea and everything to do with the brands. The base price for loose leaf oolong on their websites seems to be about $13, but may be higher if they feel they can make a case for it being a hard-to-come-by tea. So I guess $13, or maybe a bit more if you feel the tea is in limited supply. That said, I wouldn’t actually buy oolong from Teavana or Republic of Tea, their quality isn’t that great.

2. If my tea were sold in supermarkets, how much would you pay for it?
Hmmm, context is a big factor here. I think the most I’ve ever seen tea go for in the supermarket is $8, so I wouldn’t price it higher than that. But people who buy their tea in supermarkets seem to expect everything to come in a tea bag.

3. Would a connoiseur like yourself steep a cup of our tea alone, after lunch in the office?
Of course! I have no problem drinking tea alone (more for me!) and I always have some tea after lunch.

4. What are its advantages over tea bags and K cups?
A rolled oolong doesn’t have enough room to expand in a tea bag, much less a K cup, so it wouldn’t be very flavorful if the tea was stuffed in those.

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Many thanks to Oolong Inc. for letting me sample this! From the name and the smell, I was expecting some version of a milk oolong, but the description is accurate: this tea smells like butter, but tastes sweet. I’ve had sweet green oolongs before, but they always had floral notes to them — this is the first one I’ve encountered that is sweet but not flowery. The slight mineral taste balances out the sweetness of the tea. Overall, a nice light afternoon cup.

They also had these questions which I’m answering here:
1. If my tea were found on Teavana or Republic of Tea, how much would you pay for it?
This is a little tricky to answer, just because the pricing on Teavana and Republic of Tea has very little to do with the quality of the tea and everything to do with the brands. The base price for loose leaf oolong on their websites seems to be about $13, but may be higher if they feel they can make a case for it being a hard-to-come-by tea. So I guess $13, or maybe a bit more if you feel the tea is in limited supply. That said, I wouldn’t actually buy oolong from Teavana or Republic of Tea, their quality isn’t that great.

2. If my tea were sold in supermarkets, how much would you pay for it?
Hmmm, context is a big factor here. I think the most I’ve ever seen tea go for in the supermarket is $8, so I wouldn’t price it higher than that. But people who buy their tea in supermarkets seem to expect everything to come in a tea bag.

3. Would a connoiseur like yourself steep a cup of our tea alone, after lunch in the office?
Of course! I have no problem drinking tea alone (more for me!) and I always have some tea after lunch.

4. What are its advantages over tea bags and K cups?
A rolled oolong doesn’t have enough room to expand in a tea bag, much less a K cup, so it wouldn’t be very flavorful if the tea was stuffed in those.

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