The dry leaves smell like compost to me. I also smell wood chips, mushrooms, minerals, frozen soil, and dried manure. Hopefully the brewed leaves are better.
Steeped 5 minutes and it tasted like slightly salty stale water. Decided to dump this and consider it a rinse.
Steep 1: ~5 minutes (tasted at 3 minutes and it wasn’t very flavourful), boiling water
The liquid smells like compost, moldy fruit, and soil. It reminds me a lot of a brown paper bag that has been left too damp for a few days and starts to grow mold. The brew is a medium orange colour and the leaves have expanded to more than twice their original size. Had to dump this out because I couldn’t drink it. The mold taste was too gross for me.
Steep 2: 3 minutes in boiling water
Tastes like composting fruit peels and mold. WHY? I’m guessing this tea was heavily fermented but has not been allowed to air out enough.
Steep 3: 4 minutes luke warm water as a last-ditch effort to see if I could drink this at all. Nope, I’ve had to dumpout all four cups.
I will not be trying this again as a western brew, but will allow it to air out for a few weeks and will then try it gongfu style with shorter steeps. Hopefully that tastes better, because this has been the worst tea I’ve ever tried thus far. I’m thinking it is my batch rather than the tea itself, but it tastes like it is made out of mold and decaying compost.
Flavors: Broth, Compost, Decayed Wood, Dirt, Mineral, Mushrooms, Musty, Wet wood
Preparation
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Woaaaaa…. Why are you not doing 30 second steeps? This is a solid tea. I hope you don’t brew your other oolongs for that long
It is super weak when steeped for less time (I tried it at 15 seconds, 1 minute, and 3 minutes), but in the future I will do less water + shorter steeps. Most of my oolongs are brewed for much shorter times (never more than 2 minutes, usually 1 minute for an average sized mug). I also get lots of steeps out of them that way. This tea was just not working as a short steep, but I think it is my sample rather than the this tea.
Update: Just tried it again using 75 mL water with 30 second steeps and it tasted more minerally and like mold or mushrooms, but I wouldn’t say it is better. I think this is just not the tea for me. I really like forest floor kind of earthy, but I don’t like mushrooms so the fungus flavour isn’t working for me. I still have a portion of it left though. I will probably let it air out in a larger airy bag in my tea cabinet and try it again in a few months to see if that gets rid of some of the flavour. Maybe by then I will have acquired a taste for aged teas more.
Woaaaaa…. Why are you not doing 30 second steeps? This is a solid tea. I hope you don’t brew your other oolongs for that long
It is super weak when steeped for less time (I tried it at 15 seconds, 1 minute, and 3 minutes), but in the future I will do less water + shorter steeps. Most of my oolongs are brewed for much shorter times (never more than 2 minutes, usually 1 minute for an average sized mug). I also get lots of steeps out of them that way. This tea was just not working as a short steep, but I think it is my sample rather than the this tea.
Update: Just tried it again using 75 mL water with 30 second steeps and it tasted more minerally and like mold or mushrooms, but I wouldn’t say it is better. I think this is just not the tea for me. I really like forest floor kind of earthy, but I don’t like mushrooms so the fungus flavour isn’t working for me. I still have a portion of it left though. I will probably let it air out in a larger airy bag in my tea cabinet and try it again in a few months to see if that gets rid of some of the flavour. Maybe by then I will have acquired a taste for aged teas more.