Balade en Bretagne

I am having this Tea grandpa style and I must admit that today’s cup is my most successful cup in terms of being true to it’s flavouring. I am not sure if this improvement is because the tea is over a year old hence some of the floral notes in the oolong have become muted allowing the caramel notes to shine, or if the tea generally benefits from a longer steep , or if using boiling water to steep it helped to bring out the flavouring. Today’s cup really brought out the creamy butter caramel notes in the tea mixed with a little bit of spice and butter, and a depth produced from the roasting of the oolong. This finishes with a cooling and slughtly drying sensation from the oolong. The caramel is buttery and sweet with a mix of browned butter, sugar and vanilla notes that remind me a bit of skillet toffee. There are also cinnamon and a slightly woody Roasted autumn leaf note which is slightly bitter but which offsets and balances the sweetness. This is quite an enjoyable nightcap tonight.

Now this finally a sample whose donor I can identify – thank you Ysaurella.

I liked the oolong-quality of this a lot, the base was lovely and smooth. I think I must have kept it too long, the caramel notes were there but somewhat subdued, and that was not necessarily a problem, I enjoyed it very much just as it was.

I bought this tea in a beautiful tin this afternoon at La Grande Épicerie in Paris.
Compagnie Coloniale is one of the oldest tea company in France. They are using a special method to flavour teas : a vapour method (or steam method, no idea which word is most adapted for tea flavouring in English !)

Of course I bought it because it is an Oolong…and because caramel beurre salé is really an appealing ingredient…isn’t it ?

The dry leaf smells incredibly good, caramelly and salted caramel…so noticeable.
Unfortunately the taste of the liquor is less noticeable. This is a light caramel, not an in your face one and this is really ok, a subtle caramel.

But I was expecting more Oolong notes and this Oolong base is a little too much discrete for my taste. This is a buttery Oolong, mellow but too much subtle for my pleasure to be complete.

I’ll play around temperature to see if it changes something for me.