Dong Ding Oolong traditional medium roast

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Almond, Carrot, Floral, Green, Milk, Sweet Potatoes, Ash, Dark Wood, Grass, Nutty, Oak, Roast Nuts, Roasted, Roasted Barley, Smoke, Toasted
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Cait
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 1 min, 30 sec 3 g 10 oz / 295 ml

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8 Tasting Notes View all

  • “This was quite a pleasant tea! The scent of the dry leaves is nice and roasty. With the first infusion, there was a nice bitterness and astringency. The roasted flavor was particularly strong the...” Read full tasting note
    82
  • “I tried this with short steeps, but the resulting tea was barely there (despite turning a beautiful deep golden color almost immediately). So I steeped the third time for two minutes, and what a...” Read full tasting note
    85
  • “Very dark leaves. They smell too yummy. Like fresh grass plus yummy hot roast chestnuts. Smells like winter. And funny enough today the cold weather has started here. This could easily be the best...” Read full tasting note
    82
  • “Sipdown no. 186. A sample. I had a different experience of this than some other notes reflect, but I steeped in the gaiwan for short infusions starting at 15 seconds and adding increments of five...” Read full tasting note
    90

From Life In Teacup

Production Year: 2009
Production Season: winter
Production Region: Nantou County, Taiwan
Style: Traditional medium roast

Brewing method for oolong, ball-shaped dry tea leaves
Vessel: gaiwan or small teapot
Water temperature: newly boiled water (above 95 °C or 203 °F)
Amount of leaves: 5 gram for every 120ml total volume (Or reduce the amount to 3 gram for some heavy oxidation and/or heavy roast products)
Warm-up infusion: pour hot water in the vessel, and immediately drain it. Wait for about 1min. before starting the next infusion.
Time for each of the first 3 infusions (after warm-up): 20sec. (Or reduce the infusion time to 10-15sec. for some heavy oxidation and/or heavy roast products)
Extend infusion time based on taste for later infusions. Most oolong tea can well last for at least 5-7 infusions.

About Life In Teacup View company

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8 Tasting Notes

82
91 tasting notes

This was quite a pleasant tea! The scent of the dry leaves is nice and roasty. With the first infusion, there was a nice bitterness and astringency. The roasted flavor was particularly strong the first infusion, enhanced by the bitterness. There were grassy notes, almost like grass that’s been cut and has been sitting and drying for a couple days. Still pleasantly sweet, but mild.

I’ve got enough of this left to try it once more and, depending on how my tastings of the other Dong Ding Oolong samples I ordered from Life in Teacup go, I’ll make a decision about which one to order more of first!

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 1 min, 0 sec
TeaBrat

you might want to try steeping at a lower temp next time. bitterness and astringency, i’ve never seem in a dong ding oolong…

Dinah Saur

I’ll be a little more careful next time. Thanks, Amy. I unfortunately don’t have a precise electric kettle at this time, so I make some estimates on occasion. :P

Dinah Saur

Thinking about it, I probably steeped it for too long. Was a little distracted at the time.

Fail!

TeaBrat

I don’t have an electric kettle either. I did have a thermometer for a while but lost it. ;)

Dinah Saur

I’ve got my eye on this electric kettle that allows you to set a precise temperature. It’s $50, so I have to budget it. But hopefully I’ll have it soon!

ScottTeaMan

If the roasted flavor was too strong on the first steep, a shorter steep time will probably help. :))

TeaBrat

which one are you getting for $50??

Dinah Saur

Uhm… it’s at Target. haha. I can’t remember the brand, but it may be Mr. Coffee or something like that, but there’s a digital display and you can set the temperature you want exactly. I can’t seem to find it on their website, but it’s in my local store and another one I was at somewhere else in CA, too.

ScottTeaMan

I used to think $50 was expensive for an electric kettle, but it’s reasonable, esp when compared to the Breville at $250. And anything less than that in todays prices lacks quality IMO.

Dinah Saur

I definitely agree, Scott. I’ve just got a limited budget and more bills than I can always afford.

The Breville is something in my distant future, I’m figuring! Unless I can make my blog SUPER popular and convince them to send me one for free to write about. Then again, even that would be distant future! ;)

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85
216 tasting notes

I tried this with short steeps, but the resulting tea was barely there (despite turning a beautiful deep golden color almost immediately). So I steeped the third time for two minutes, and what a change! This tea isn’t sweet, per se, but there’s a hint of burnt sugar around the edges; there’s still not a lot up front, but the back of it hits almost immediately with a savory grilled flavor that just keeps going.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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82
227 tasting notes

Very dark leaves. They smell too yummy. Like fresh grass plus yummy hot roast chestnuts. Smells like winter. And funny enough today the cold weather has started here. This could easily be the best smelling tea leaves till now.

But lets see how it tastes :)

Tea is bright yellow. Smells similar to the leaves.

Mmmmm first impression is full roast taste. Smooth, nutty, roasty. It didn’t wow me but it’s quite a good one.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 1 min, 30 sec

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90
2036 tasting notes

Sipdown no. 186. A sample.

I had a different experience of this than some other notes reflect, but I steeped in the gaiwan for short infusions starting at 15 seconds and adding increments of five seconds for a total of five infusions.

I also used water a bit hotter than I usually do for oolongs, mostly because something happened to the outlet where my zojirushi was plugged in and I had to reboil the water. I didn’t have the patience to wait for the water to cool, so I used it as it was on its way down from boiling.

The result was that my experience of this was more like a green oolong than a roasted one, but it was at the same time a bit unusual for a green. The aroma had a sort of a milky floral scent at first but mellowed over subsequent steeps into something that smelled fresh and nutty — but not roasted nutty. More like green (unroasted) almonds. By the third steep, the floral notes were quite lovely. I thought of lilacs, though I’m not sure that’s actually what I smelled, and by the fourth and fifth steeps, I got a whiff of fresh, raw, sweet, warm root vegetable, carrot maybe. A little less pronounced in the fifth steep. Perhaps more like turnip or parsnip. The wet leaf smelled like sweet potatoes to me.

Really tasty and wonderful, but I wonder whether cooler water would have yielded the same flavors. Oh well, I am not likely to find out soon as I’m on lock down. All I can say is this was excellent tonight.

Flavors: Almond, Carrot, Floral, Green, Milk, Sweet Potatoes

OMGsrsly

That sounds really neat. My kettle only holds at 208F or 140F, so when I do multiple steeps they’re always at 208. What temperatures does yours do?

__Morgana__

I can get the zojirushi to 212 (boiling) but it doesn’t stay there. It goes down to 208, then 195, 175 and 140. For boiling I usually just use a kettle on the stove, or the highest Breville setting. For stuff that requires finer gradations I tend to use the Breville, but for oolongs I usually just use the zo at 195.

OMGsrsly

I should say, my off-brand zojirushi, not kettle. :) That’s pretty cool though. More temperatures is definitely an argument for getting a new one at some point.

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77
71 tasting notes

The first infusion is slightly bitter, as well as smoky and grassy. I don’t like very strong grassy or smoky flavors in my tea, and the two characteristics together are not that pleasant to me. I read in others’ tasting notes that the smoke and grass flavors mellow in later infusions, so I’m trying that as well. The unfurled leaves are large and quite lovely. I can tell this is a high quality tea even if the flavors aren’t particularly enjoyable to me. I like darker roasts, but I much prefer a nutty and malty flavor with no smokiness at all. In the first infusion… I drank this too slowly. It’s cooling to almost room temperature, and as it cools the flavor seems slightly mellower but still not quite something I’m very excited about. I’m very glad I sampled before buying in bulk because I don’t like this nearly as much as other medium/dark roast oolongs I’ve tried. HOnestly, the smoke and grass together combine the two characteristics I most dislike in both black and green teas.

Later infusions: Hm… I agree that the smoke and grass flavors become a lot more subdued in later infusions. The smoke gives way to a more nutty and woody flavor. I do like this better, but the aftertaste is still a bit like ashes.

I’m also realizing that I need my tea to have at least some natural sweetness, and this has none.

I know this is a good tea, but I would only recommend it if these are flavors you really enjoy. For someone with tastes similar to mine, I definitely wouldn’t recommend.

Later afternoon: I tried this again. Wow, it’s amazing how much better it is with savory foods in the afternoon. I have changed my mind — I would try this again. This will teach me to keep ignoring time of day recommendations for types of tea. With savory food, i don’t mind this degree of smokiness at all.

Flavors: Ash, Dark Wood, Grass, Nutty, Oak, Roast Nuts, Roasted, Roasted Barley, Smoke, Toasted

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1719 tasting notes

I thought this tea had at least two listing. I picked one and went with it. Then realized it was in the wrong place. I’m not OCD but I fixed it anyway.

Scouring through my drawer today I stumbled upon this one. Apologies to Life In Teacup for misplacing it. It’s all good as today was the perfect day to sit with this lovely tea. The leaf pellets are very tiny and dark but really expand. The wet leaf is highly roasted in scent. The sip is medium to light roasted. I really like this one. It is sweet and tastes like roasted honey (can you do that?). I can definitely see why some called this nutty. After reading it, I totally agree. Seems thick like milk but has more glide. Not sure that makes sense either. This is light and refreshing and not the heavy chunk of roasting I normally associate with darker oolongs. I taste the Taiwan mountain oolong in the lingering aftertaste but it isn’t super floral or latex like some. This is just all around a nice cup for a rainy dreary day.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 2 min, 0 sec 3 g 10 OZ / 295 ML

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