Shanlinxi High Mountain Baked Oolong Tea, Lot 386

Here is another tea from the backlog. It was the last tea in my Shanlinxi sampler that I ended up trying. I think I either finished it around the end of May or start of June. Shanlinxi is quite famous for its jade oolongs, and admiteddly, those are the Shanlinxi teas with which I am most familiar. I have to say, though, that I found this roasted oolong to be very good. It was certainly a pleasant change of pace from the more typical Shanlinxi offerings.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of rolled tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced aromas of char, baked bread, wood, and roasted peanut. After the rinse, I picked up new aromas of cream, butter, and toasted rice. The first infusion did not really add anything new. In the mouth, I detected subtle notes of char, cream, butter, toasted rice, and roasted peanut that were chased by vegetal undercurrents and some vague sweetness on the swallow. Subsequent infusions introduced hints of umami, stone fruit, and sugarcane on the nose. Wood came out in the mouth along with new flavors of minerals, umami, cooked lettuce, grass, cucumber, sugarcane, vanilla, pear, and plum. The final infusions offered lingering mineral, toasted rice, cream, and butter notes that were backed by hints of grass, pear, and belatedly emerging juniper.

All in all, this was a very good roasted oolong. The roast was not that heavy, so some of the tea’s more vegetal qualities were quite evident. It was very well-balanced in the mouth with good body and respectable longevity too. I suppose I will have to try a few more teas of this type in the near future because this one surprised and impressed me.

This baked Shanlinxi High Mountain Oolong Lot 386 tastes like a hybrid between an Taiwanese oolong and a Wuyi Baijiguan oolong. Very nutty in a fusion between hazelnuts, almond plus a fine hint of pine nuts. There is also a slightly astringency something metallic to it. The scent covers a thick honey-ish layer which directly leads to the woodsy undertones and a delicious flair of freshly baked steaming wholemeal bread taste. But this isn’t the whole show. A very balsamic note directly explodes on your tasting buds and fires up directly through your nose – cooling and tingling. But you can also experience this minty flair very distinct in your throat like if you were chewing a cough candy. Later onward much more nutty tones but now more like hazelnut cream are the center of this well composed symphony sharing the space with a subtle note of banana and warm waffles. This was a very tasteful, rich and long lasting fellow with a very warming and cozy feeling to it.