94

I bought 50 g of this tea in my Black Friday 2020 blowout with Derk, and have finished a little more than half of it. I steeped around 7 g in my 150 ml clay oolong pot using 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds. However, this pot pours much more slowly than my porcelain pot, so steep times are actually a bit longer.

The dry aroma is of citrus, stonefruit, orchids, other florals, cookies, and sugarcane. The first steep is very floral, with notes of orchid, honeysuckle, orange blossom, sweet pea, and other flowers, plus cookies, butter, citrus, peach, spinach, and grass. The second steep brings out cooked pineapple, citrus, cream, pine, herbs, minerals, and peach, plus sugarcane and even more florals. I see where Derk is getting green apple, though sadly, the cherry eludes me. It has a long peachy/herbaceous/vegetal aftertaste. The tea becomes a little more vegetal in the next steep, though with lots of fruit and florals to balance it out. By steep four, some nuttiness is apparent and the cooked pineapple is a bit stronger. The next few steeps continue in this vein, becoming more savoury and vegetal as the session goes on. However, the citrus, peach, orchid, and honeysuckle continue until almost the last steep, along with the grass, veggies, and minerals.

This oolong didn’t deserve to sit in my cupboard for over a year. It’s a lovely, uplifting Li Shan at a good price, and I will be buying more when I next order from What-Cha.

Flavors: Butter, Citrus, Cookie, Cream, Floral, Fruity, Grass, Green Apple, Herbaceous, Honeysuckle, Mineral, Nutty, Orange Blossom, Orchid, Peach, Pine, Pineapple, Spinach, Sugarcane, Sweet, Vegetal

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 7 g 5 OZ / 150 ML
Evol Ving Ness

The thing is that we cannot drink all the teas all at once, so some will have to sit.

Leafhopper

Agreed. However, some teas sit better than others, and it’s sad to see those with shorter shelf lives deteriorating. I need to drink my green oolongs faster or buy fewer of them. Having said that, I don’t think this one has lost much flavour.

Evol Ving Ness

Agreed. Always nice when one expects the worst and finds that it is not so bad after all.

Crowkettle

The conundrum of exceptional green oolong: how do you drink it at its best while maintaining a steady supply of green oolong in the cupboard.

I try to save those little fresh packets that come with a lot of the Taiwanese teas, but not sure they’re good or super effective.

Leafhopper

Evol Ving Ness, yes, being pleasantly surprised is a good thing. :)

CrowKettle, as someone who loves fresh green oolongs, I deal with this conundrum all the time! Unfortunately, I tend to overbuy and also hoard my really good/higher-end oolongs, even when it would be better to drink them right away.

I also wonder about the effectiveness of those little freshness packets. I use tea clips to minimize the air in open vacuum-sealed pouches, which I think does some good. I worry about oolongs in Ziploc packages that allow more air to hit the leaves.

Crowkettle

Mine get dumped into tiny washi tins (not sure they’re effective either). I only have three of them, so I limit myself to how many Taiwanese teas I can open (or buy) at once. This means I always have far less beloved oolong than any other type of tea in my collection. I need a better system! D:

vacuumed-sealed pouches probably does a world of good.

Leafhopper

I also tend to have three or four vacuum-sealed packets open at once, plus any other oolongs in Ziploc bags. That doesn’t prevent me from buying many more vacuum-sealed packages and storing them in my tea museum. :P I don’t plan on buying any more green oolong until this summer, so I have some time to finish them off.

Evol Ving Ness

There’s also the shipping fee catch. More orders mean fresher tea and more shipping fees. Bigger orders mean more risk of potentially stale tea. So, the choice is to spend more on tea and hoard or spend more on shipping.

Hoarding seems to come naturally to me :)
So I try to preserve teas as best I can. I know that making regular orders and paying shipping fees plus plus plus would never happen in my case. I open two or two green oolongs at a time, keep them cool and away from light, and hope for the best.

Leafhopper

Evol Ving Ness, those shipping fees are terrible, especially as I seem to be buying from vendors that don’t offer sales or free shipping thresholds. I wish we had more good unflavoured tea vendors in Canada, though I fear the prices they’d have to charge in CAD would make people reluctant to buy from them. Cha Yi and Camellia Sinensis have low thresholds and sell some nice green oolongs, but I guess I’m becoming an oolong snob.

Hoarding also seems to come naturally to me. Maybe I need a spreadsheet or other system for tracking my purchases so I don’t get too far behind.

Evol Ving Ness

Hmm, Cha Yi is new to me.

I’ve been resistant to the spreadsheet idea. My approach is shuffling and reshuffling my tea stash regularly. That just seems to happen.

I was grouping teas according to age/ purchase date. Then, according to how much is left in the packet (to encourage sipdowns of smaller quantities). Then, by brand. Then, by tea type.

And on it goes. I am so fickle with my tea urges. I tend to want either a particular tea or type of tea and I’ll turn everything upside down to find it.

Keeping a spreadsheet is one thing and then there’s the arranging of teas to find that thing when needed…

Crowkettle

I had all my teas listed on a spreadsheet once. Then I rebelled against myself :P

My approach to tea drinking is “whimsical”. Smaller opened packets are stored near the kettle and get finished off first; These are usually flavoured teas. I don’t like flavoured teas more than straight teas, I just hoard my straight teas more, and store them in a separate place.

I haven’t heard of Cha Yi either!

Leafhopper

Cha Yi is a shop in Quebec that sells some nice straight teas. I liked their Alishan and Taitung Hong oolongs and their Mi Xiang black tea. It also helps that they have a reasonable shipping threshold ($60?) and charge in CAD.

I think I’d rebel against a spreadsheet, too, which is why I haven’t made one. (Also, my stash is huge and it would be a lot of work.) I also turn everything upside down to find a particular tea, though I tend to keep everything in the box it came in so I go by vendor. I have a tea cupboard in my kitchen and a tea closet in my bedroom, and things in the cupboard get finished first. I also tend to stick to a certain tea type for a while. For example, I seem to be on a black tea kick in spite of my superabundance of green oolongs.

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Comments

Evol Ving Ness

The thing is that we cannot drink all the teas all at once, so some will have to sit.

Leafhopper

Agreed. However, some teas sit better than others, and it’s sad to see those with shorter shelf lives deteriorating. I need to drink my green oolongs faster or buy fewer of them. Having said that, I don’t think this one has lost much flavour.

Evol Ving Ness

Agreed. Always nice when one expects the worst and finds that it is not so bad after all.

Crowkettle

The conundrum of exceptional green oolong: how do you drink it at its best while maintaining a steady supply of green oolong in the cupboard.

I try to save those little fresh packets that come with a lot of the Taiwanese teas, but not sure they’re good or super effective.

Leafhopper

Evol Ving Ness, yes, being pleasantly surprised is a good thing. :)

CrowKettle, as someone who loves fresh green oolongs, I deal with this conundrum all the time! Unfortunately, I tend to overbuy and also hoard my really good/higher-end oolongs, even when it would be better to drink them right away.

I also wonder about the effectiveness of those little freshness packets. I use tea clips to minimize the air in open vacuum-sealed pouches, which I think does some good. I worry about oolongs in Ziploc packages that allow more air to hit the leaves.

Crowkettle

Mine get dumped into tiny washi tins (not sure they’re effective either). I only have three of them, so I limit myself to how many Taiwanese teas I can open (or buy) at once. This means I always have far less beloved oolong than any other type of tea in my collection. I need a better system! D:

vacuumed-sealed pouches probably does a world of good.

Leafhopper

I also tend to have three or four vacuum-sealed packets open at once, plus any other oolongs in Ziploc bags. That doesn’t prevent me from buying many more vacuum-sealed packages and storing them in my tea museum. :P I don’t plan on buying any more green oolong until this summer, so I have some time to finish them off.

Evol Ving Ness

There’s also the shipping fee catch. More orders mean fresher tea and more shipping fees. Bigger orders mean more risk of potentially stale tea. So, the choice is to spend more on tea and hoard or spend more on shipping.

Hoarding seems to come naturally to me :)
So I try to preserve teas as best I can. I know that making regular orders and paying shipping fees plus plus plus would never happen in my case. I open two or two green oolongs at a time, keep them cool and away from light, and hope for the best.

Leafhopper

Evol Ving Ness, those shipping fees are terrible, especially as I seem to be buying from vendors that don’t offer sales or free shipping thresholds. I wish we had more good unflavoured tea vendors in Canada, though I fear the prices they’d have to charge in CAD would make people reluctant to buy from them. Cha Yi and Camellia Sinensis have low thresholds and sell some nice green oolongs, but I guess I’m becoming an oolong snob.

Hoarding also seems to come naturally to me. Maybe I need a spreadsheet or other system for tracking my purchases so I don’t get too far behind.

Evol Ving Ness

Hmm, Cha Yi is new to me.

I’ve been resistant to the spreadsheet idea. My approach is shuffling and reshuffling my tea stash regularly. That just seems to happen.

I was grouping teas according to age/ purchase date. Then, according to how much is left in the packet (to encourage sipdowns of smaller quantities). Then, by brand. Then, by tea type.

And on it goes. I am so fickle with my tea urges. I tend to want either a particular tea or type of tea and I’ll turn everything upside down to find it.

Keeping a spreadsheet is one thing and then there’s the arranging of teas to find that thing when needed…

Crowkettle

I had all my teas listed on a spreadsheet once. Then I rebelled against myself :P

My approach to tea drinking is “whimsical”. Smaller opened packets are stored near the kettle and get finished off first; These are usually flavoured teas. I don’t like flavoured teas more than straight teas, I just hoard my straight teas more, and store them in a separate place.

I haven’t heard of Cha Yi either!

Leafhopper

Cha Yi is a shop in Quebec that sells some nice straight teas. I liked their Alishan and Taitung Hong oolongs and their Mi Xiang black tea. It also helps that they have a reasonable shipping threshold ($60?) and charge in CAD.

I think I’d rebel against a spreadsheet, too, which is why I haven’t made one. (Also, my stash is huge and it would be a lot of work.) I also turn everything upside down to find a particular tea, though I tend to keep everything in the box it came in so I go by vendor. I have a tea cupboard in my kitchen and a tea closet in my bedroom, and things in the cupboard get finished first. I also tend to stick to a certain tea type for a while. For example, I seem to be on a black tea kick in spite of my superabundance of green oolongs.

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Bio

Since I discovered Teavana’s Monkey Picked Oolong four years ago, I’ve been fascinated by loose-leaf tea. I’m glad to say that my oolong tastes have evolved, and that I now like nearly every tea that comes from Taiwan, oolong or not, particularly the bug-bitten varieties. I also find myself drinking Yunnan blacks and Darjeelings from time to time, as well as a few other curiosities.

However, while online reviews might make me feel like an expert, I know that I still have some work to do to actually pick up those flavours myself. I hope that by making me describe what I’m tasting, Steepster can improve my appreciation of teas I already enjoy and make me more open to new possibilities (maybe even puerh!).

Location

Toronto

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