India Darjeeling Rohini Winter Oolong Tea

Let’s see if I can keep the reviewing train rolling today. This was another of my sipdowns from earlier in the year and yet another tea that impressed me greatly. I had no clue what to expect of it prior to trying it, since Rohini teas have always seemed so variable to me. The Rohini Tea Estate always seems to produce interesting, quirky, high quality teas, but what they produce does not always hit the spot for me. Fortunately, this tea did. It was a real knockout.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a 10 second rinse, I steeped 6 grams of the loose tea leaves in 4 fluid ounces of 185 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 17 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 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 emitted aromas of bread, cream, vanilla, and grass. After the rinse, I detected aromas of violet, mandarin orange, coconut, sugarcane, and dandelion. The first infusion then introduced aromas of butter, roasted almond, and roasted peanut. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented pleasant notes of cream, bread, butter, dandelion, dandelion greens, vanilla, grass, and sugarcane that were balanced by hints of roasted almond, coconut, banana, green apple, mandarin orange, coriander, white grape, and pear. The majority of the subsequent infusions collectively introduced aromas of pear, white grape, dandelion greens, geranium, caramel, and cashew. Stronger and more immediately apparent notes of roasted almond, pear, coriander, mandarin orange, and white grape emerged in the mouth alongside impressions of minerals, tangerine, violet, carambola, geranium, fennel, and caramel. I was also able to pick out delicate hints of apricot, yellow plum, cucumber, honey, cashew, and roasted peanut. As the tea faded, the liquor continued to emphasize notes of minerals, cream, bread, violet, dandelion, dandelion greens, butter, grass, roasted almond, and sugarcane that were backed by a melange of lingering vanilla, white grape, cashew, pear, honey, banana, fennel, and mandarin orange flavors.

Honestly, this was easily one of the most unique and satisfying oolongs I have ever tried. My only real complaints with it were that the tea liquor was a bit thin, and some of the more interesting aroma and flavor components never emerged to the extent I would have preferred. Aside from those two quibbles, I could not find anything to fault, and again, this tea was awesome regardless.