Farmer Chang's Green Oolong (Baozhang)

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Oolong Tea Leaves
Flavors
Astringent, Butter, Jasmine, Salty, Spinach, Umami, Floral, Grass, Green, Kale, Nutty, Seaweed, Strawberry, Sweet, Fruity, Cream, Custard, Gardenias, Honeydew, Mineral, Peas, Soybean, Vanilla, Violet, Flowers, Creamy, Garden Peas, Green Beans
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Bulk
Caffeine
Medium
Certification
Organic
Edit tea info Last updated by eastkyteaguy
Average preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 2 min, 0 sec 4 g 16 oz / 486 ml

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14 Tasting Notes View all

  • “I am currently working on drinking the last few portions of a Winter 2020 pick of this tea. Storing in jars must be the way to go, because this tea is still flavorful! The first time I bought this...” Read full tasting note
    100
  • “For those wanting to delve into Taiwanese oolongs, this right here is where you start. Frankly, despite the risk of committing oolong heresy, I would say this easily competes with high mountain...” Read full tasting note
    95
  • “I’ve had this tea for awhile, so I finally decided to start digging in. The leaf is a dark green with nice vivid hue. I can pick up scents of rough greens, kale, seaweed, and a sweet nutty...” Read full tasting note
    82
  • “Sipdown. Backlog 2/13/19 4 min, 200F, 12 oz I wonder if I missed the mark with the tea or my tastes have changed. Green and floral, soft and clean. Seems like an entry level green oolong. I...” Read full tasting note
    71

From Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company

USA.

“A definite winner from Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company.”

Have you ever had a single-origin, non-blended tea grown in a pristine environment by a third generation tea farmer? Try our Baozhong! This tea is very smooth and drinkable. It won’t get bitter no matter what you do with it and you’ll get floral notes and a clean feeling from the environment where it’s grown on a small family farm. We classify it as a Green Oolong as it is so close to a green but just barely crosses over the line into Oolong territory. We also have a VERY LIMITED quantity of Competition level BaoZhong from Farmer Chang. Check out the pull-down menu.

Flavors: Butter, Cucumber, Osmanthus, Spinach

Recommended Brewing: 185F, 1 tsp, 3.5 minutes

Varietal: Qingxin

Location: Pinglin, Taiwan

Elevation: 1000M

Harvest: Spring 2015

About Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company View company

Company description not available.

14 Tasting Notes

100
5 tasting notes

I am currently working on drinking the last few portions of a Winter 2020 pick of this tea. Storing in jars must be the way to go, because this tea is still flavorful! The first time I bought this tea, I bought a smaller amount first, realized I would want more, and immediately bought about 150g, hoping it would last me a year. It sure did, with plenty to spare!

This was one of the first oolong teas I ever tried. At the time, I was a green tea junkie and just wanted something new and different, but still definitely green tea, around. This fit perfectly. It has the staple buttery, boiled spinach green tea taste up front, with a tone of something floral in the mid and after taste. It’s the right amount of floral, not so much that I’m drinking perfume, but enough that I can almost tell what flower it is. Unfortunately, I live in succulent land, and the amount of flowers I can recognize is slim. My immediate thought is jasmine tea. This has a similar, milder floral property as jasmine scented green tea my family likes to order at dim sum restaurants.

I’ve had this tea for a while, and experimented with different temperatures. I like 185F (85C) which is the “white tea” setting on my electric kettle. (Side note, so far I prefer boiling water for white tea.) I brew 20 seconds to start, plus 5 seconds per infusion, this tends to be perfect and lasts me up to 6 infusions. I could go longer, but I don’t like to push my green tea until it’s flavorless…

The wet leaf smells like cooked and salted zucchini, boiled spinach, and flowers. The liquor smells exactly the same. It has a slippery, buttery body, and an accompanying flavor of a lightly salted stick of butter. Afterwards, there is some astringency, but no bitterness. A taste that reminds me a lot of eating or licking raw dark leafy green vegetables (swiss chard?) lingers on the tongue.

I’d say this is definitely one of my favorite green teas of last year. I will treasure every bit of it, until it’s time to rotate it out for something new. I leave here a stunning review in hopes that you might try this tea, because it’s delicious and deserves to be known.

Flavors: Astringent, Butter, Jasmine, Salty, Spinach, Umami

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 4 g 110 OZ / 3253 ML

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95
167 tasting notes

For those wanting to delve into Taiwanese oolongs, this right here is where you start. Frankly, despite the risk of committing oolong heresy, I would say this easily competes with high mountain options. The taste is a bit more burly and “big” than high mountain teas, but it is extremely well balanced and has no rough edges. If you lined up this against three gao shan oolongs, I would have picked this one. It is PACKED with flavor. At half the price of gao shan, the price/value ratio knocks it out of the park.

The taste develops vigorously in-mouth, and maintains its dynamic flavor profile throughout many infusions. Green veg to marine saltiness/umami to creaminess to a fruit explosion at the end – it is a rollercoaster of a ride. I really can’t recommend this tea enough. Excellent offering from Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company.
*
Dry leaf – fresh parsley and cilantro, floral. In preheated vessel, roasted nut and popcorn-like notes (not unlike Bi Luo Chun) arrive.

Smell – peas, spinach, savory herbal, creamy milkiness

Taste
- Arrival: VEGETAL – sweet peas, and fresh green veg
- Development: MARINE – some savory marine saltiness and umami like a sencha, mineral/rock; VEGETAL – sweet grass (sencha-like again); CREAMY – milky flavor envelops original vegetal notes and starts to sweeten them up
- Finish: CREAMY – milky flavor overtakes other savory notes, CITRUS – lemongrass notes present
- Aftertaste: FRUIT – papaya, pineapple, peach; HERBAL – spearmint; FLORAL – light floral, just a hint of sweet flowers.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 15 sec 4 g 2 OZ / 59 ML

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82
526 tasting notes

I’ve had this tea for awhile, so I finally decided to start digging in. The leaf is a dark green with nice vivid hue. I can pick up scents of rough greens, kale, seaweed, and a sweet nutty undertone. I warmed my gaiwan and dumped the large spindly leaves inside. The scent opens into some green bean with an odd strawberry (?). The strawberry tone is a bit sour, and it is muddled by some kale and crème. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The taste is very grassy along with some slight sweetness. The body is sharp and thick with a light lily floral tone. The aftertaste is sweet, but it does come off as strange. This tea is a peculiar degree of grassy and sweet. I’m not sure what to say about it, but it is unique.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQNr8p-gFcK/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel&hl=en

Flavors: Floral, Grass, Green, Kale, Nutty, Seaweed, Strawberry, Sweet

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 0 min, 15 sec 3 g 2 OZ / 50 ML

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71
533 tasting notes

Sipdown. Backlog 2/13/19
4 min, 200F, 12 oz
I wonder if I missed the mark with the tea or my tastes have changed. Green and floral, soft and clean. Seems like an entry level green oolong. I want more from it than it has. I’m kind of disappointed because I know I liked this more previously, but it’s not that good.
Slightly better at 195F for 3 min – a little sweeter. Still pretty generic.

Flavors: Floral, Green, Sweet

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 12 OZ / 354 ML

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85
1048 tasting notes

At this point in the year, I am spending a good deal of my free time slurping down a lot of the green teas and lighter oolongs I have accumulated over the course of the year. I just can’t stand the thought of those fragile teas going stale before I get the opportunity to try them. This baozhong I picked up sometime toward the end of the summer was a product of the winter 2015 harvest. Though it is not a fancy competition grade baozhong, it does hold some appeal.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. Note that I am still using more or less mainland Chinese methods when it comes to preparing these Taiwanese oolongs. For this session, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 185 F water for 10 seconds following a quick rinse. This was followed by 11 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute 5 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 2 minutes 30 seconds, and 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Prior to the rinse, the dry leaves emitted a mild, pleasant vegetal aroma with a hint of floral character. After the rinse, the floral character became slightly stronger. I also began to note scents of cream and butter emerging. The first infusion presented more clearly defined aromas of sweetgrass, snap peas, soybean, violet, sweet pea, gardenia, vanilla, lily, lilac, and magnolia. In the mouth, there was a slight floral character on the entry, though it was nothing like the nose. I mostly perceived flavors of vanilla, cream, custard, butter, snap peas, sweetgrass, spinach, and soybean. Subsequent infusions saw the floral character become more assertive on the nose and more distinct in the mouth. At this point, I was able to pick out the individual floral components on the tongue that I was getting on the nose. Later infusions were smooth, creamy, and vegetal all around. The floral character began to fade, allowing aromas and flavors of sweetgrass, snap peas, soybean, spinach, cream, butter, custard, and vanilla to move to the fore once again. I also noted a slight mineral presence on the finish and a hint of ripe honeydew that I noted at no other point during the session.

I’ve had other farmer’s choice baozhongs this year and I have to say that I enjoyed them about as much as some of the more acclaimed competition grade teas. They were just so pleasant and easy to drink. While this particular baozhong displayed the thin mouthfeel that I do not always immediately appreciate and often associate with spring harvested baozhongs, it did display a nice, though simplistic layering of floral, savory, and vegetal aromas and flavors. I was also impressed by just how much character the tea retained over a fairly lengthy session. Though this was not my favorite non-competition baozhong that I have tried this year, I did find a lot to like about this one. I could see it making a respectable everyday baozhong.

Flavors: Butter, Cream, Custard, Floral, Gardenias, Grass, Honeydew, Mineral, Peas, Soybean, Spinach, Vanilla, Violet

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 6 g 4 OZ / 118 ML
Daylon R Thomas

What is your favorite non-competition Baozhong? I wonder because I am on a green oolong quest. AGAIN.

eastkyteaguy

Daylon, of the ones I’ve had recently, I really enjoyed the Wenshan Baozhong Reserve from Tealyra. I found it to be a pleasantly floral, basic baozhong with a bit of a bread character. I also really enjoyed the Winter 2015 Farmer’s Choice Baozhong from Floating Leaves. From the way it was described on the website, I was expecting a tea that was very fruity and vegetal, but I found it to be very creamy, buttery, and smooth with pronounced floral character and subtle fruity and vegetal qualities.

Daylon R Thomas

Nice. Tealyra usually has some great sales too. I was lucky enough to get the Gaoshan sampler that Floating Leaves offered. I especially loved the Da Yu Ling and the Alishan, but too pricey for me to get in larger quantities.

eastkyteaguy

Daylon, I find that I enjoy a lot of the teas offered by Floating Leaves, but I rarely order them because of the pricing. They have recently released their winter farmer’s choice and competition grade baozhongs, but I can’t afford to buy either at the moment. While I’m thinking about it, would you be willing to recommend me some good high mountain oolongs? I’ve been craving them like crazy lately and will probably be looking to purchase some once I get a little more money in the bank and get the tea hoard down to a reasonable level.

Daylon R Thomas

A better person to task is LiquidProust. He’s the one that’s showed me the full world of oolongs in the first place. TeaDB also has a lot of reviews and mini-articles on High Mountain Oolong. https://teadb.org/taiwanese-oolongs/

Here’s what I can recommend based on preference. What-Cha’s Li Shan was pretty good though the steeping was slightly closer to Western, so you do not get as many steeps. I personally found it being fuller in flavor than other Lishans I’ve had, especially in regards to its fruitier qualities with the florals. oollo’s BaoZhong is good example too-especially heavy on the vanilla note for a natural greener oolong. Still a little too expensive for the quantity you get in my opinion. Berylleb offers a decent variety of Taiwan Oolongs, and a few of my friends has recommended me the DaYuLing that is offered. Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Old Style Dong Ding is also pretty good and a personal favorite. Beautiful Taiwan Tea’s Misty Mountain, a Shan Lin Xi is also pretty good, but I have not been as much of a fan of it this season. I also have not been much of a fan of Echo-Cha’s Shan Lin Xi despite it also being a favorite in the past season.

I need to research more about how this year’s weather is affecting the growing conditions and taste of this year’s oolong along with the specifics of processing. I am in a situation where I have not been as happy with the greener oolongs because they have not hit all the marks I usually like with them. Hence my insane search for “the one”. I was tempted to buy in bulk from Tealyra, specifically the Jade Oolong you wrote about earlier.

I hope that this gave you a few solid ideas to go off of.

Daylon R Thomas

Also, I personally prefer Qing Xin varietals. Eco-Cha’s Four Seasons is very fruity, however, and may be another target for me.

eastkyteaguy

With that Jade Oolong, I wish I had done more than the flash steeps. I was favoring that method at the time because I felt like it shaved considerable time off of each session and allowed me to conduct more sessions over a shorter period of time, but unfortunately, I also came to feel that I wasn’t getting as much out of the teas I was preparing that way. I’ve noticed that I get more out of each tea by not increasing each infusion by the same set number of seconds. Right now, the method I favor is sort of based off of a beginner’s pu-erh method for gongfu. I can’t remember where I found it, but it works for me. I’m still not at a point where I can go more than 11-14 steeps regularly, but I’m also not someone who gets to a point where I’m steeping exclusively for color. I cut things short when most of the flavor has faded. That jade oolong is one I hope to come back to within the year.

eastkyteaguy

On the subject of Tealyra, I kind of think they’re a vendor that flies below the radar for a lot of people. The name change and their reputation as a generalist probably have a lot to do with it, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of the teas I’ve had from them. I particularly find that they do a good job of sourcing accessible Taiwanese oolongs.

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74
676 tasting notes

In the past year, I’ve had the good fortune of trying a number of competition grade bao zhongs and the experience has ruined all other bao zhongs for me. This winter BZ from BTTC has a vegetal character that puts it closer to a green tea than an oolong. There are subtle notes of butter and flowers, but lack the depth of the higher grade teas. This is a good tea for easy sipping but doesn’t quite reach the heights that better BZs do.

Flavors: Butter, Flowers, Grass, Seaweed

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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921 tasting notes

I am sitting in a very big ball of anticipation, ready to explode at any minute…because ARK!! Oh yeah, it is update day! My update is busily downloading and I am waiting for the big surprise, they will be streaming some massive announcement from PAX West in about 30 minutes (maybe the update will be done by then, it is a big one) and I am very excited to see what it is. The ‘mysterious mysteries’ teasers for the past couple of months all lead towards a desert biome, and the loading screen is what looks like dragon eggs, so yeah I am super excited.

Today’s tea is Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Farmer Changs Green Oolong, their fluffy Baozhong which is the greenest of the Oolongs, with its subtle oxidation. I love Baozhong, but often get stuck with ones that are uninspiring so I tend to overlook it for more traditional Oolongs, but when I find one that is good I get practically giddy! Before I get into the smell, just look at those fluffy emerald leaves, no amount of photography could do these beauties justice and I apologize, take my word for it though they are luminous. So, the aroma, it has a slight chestnut sweetness, which might be a first for a Baozhong, me likes! There is also a potent burst of lilacs and hyacinths, distant orchids, and the most wonderful herbaceous sage and fresh oregano note. I was really liking the tea until the herbaceous notes kicked in, then it was love! Fingers crossed that sticks around through the steeping!

Steeping the leaves, the aroma after the first steep, well there is a little bit of fresh spinach, some mellow sweet chestnuts…oh yea, and a small explosion flowers, it is like summer burst out of my gaiwan and become a sentient cloud wafting around the tea desk. There are notes of peony, lilacs, hyacinth, orchids, and a tiny bit of apple blossom. Luckily the herbaceous notes of oregano and sage survived after the cloud of flower dissipated a bit. The liquid is very sweet, with notes of lily, lilacs, peony, and hyacinth with a tiny touch of spinach and fresh oregano at the finish. I am loving those herbaceous notes, it kinda makes me want to pair this tea with a salad or something.

The first steep is light in both taste and mouth, a delicate airy mouthfeel which goes well with the light first impression. The tasting notes present are gentle hyacinth and lilac with an undertone of orchid, like one that has just opened and not really turned into a floral explosion yet. Towards the middle a lettuce and cucumber note pop up with a lingering chestnut and lilac aftertaste.

Where the first steep was light, buds just beginning to open in the morning, this steep was a heady afternoon hothouse! Holy wow, I feel like I was hit by a wave of flowers, it makes for some comical mental images, just removing the lid of the gaiwan and swoosh flower wave! The taste is wonderful, for all its heady floral notes it is not perfumed, it is like drinking flower nectar…I have become a hummingbird. Lilacs, peony, hyacinth and finally orchid dance throughout the entire sipping experience with bursts of oregano blossoms, fresh sage and cucumber adding a depth to the flowery notes. The aftertaste is honeysuckle, it came out of nowhere and I am ok with that.

One thing that really surprised me with this tea is how thoroughly and quickly it got me tea drunk, I was pleasantly loopy by the third steep and getting a bit poetic in my notebook (and no, I am not sharing my tea drunk poetry or handwriting, both are awful.) I will however share that this tea is still delightful! The flowery notes have calmed down a little, or the spinach, cucumber, sage, and oregano notes became stronger…not really sure, but it really works! At the time of writing this I can safely say this is my favorite Baozhong to date!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/09/beautiful-taiwan-tea-company-farmer.html

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81
258 tasting notes

Finishing this tea today. While green oolongs still aren’t my most favorite, I must be in the right mood today because this one is tasting pretty good. Creamy with a vegetal flavor of something like fresh snap peas. I’m upping the ranking by a few ticks.

Flavors: Creamy, Garden Peas

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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83
661 tasting notes

This oolong is pretty good. It has long and twisty leaves. Brews up sweet, buttery & floral. The 2nd infusion wasn’t as good but I think that’s only because I just brewed it in a cup. This tea needs gongfu brewing.

Flavors: Butter, Floral, Sweet

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76
4169 tasting notes

Thanks for this one, Nicole! I love this type of oolong. This one is a solid representative of that type. The green leaves are huge and twisty. The flavor is lovely, though tough to describe. A lighter oolong, a little fruity, somehow a little bit of spice to it, though that isn’t right either — I guess the flavor has a kick to it, but the tea is still creamy somehow. But it needs something a little more special to be close to my favorite Baozhang oolong.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 tsp // 20 minute after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 15 min a.b. // 2 min
Steep #3 // 10 min a.b. // 2-3 min

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