This Tea is part of a Da Hong Pao sample pack I go from the Fu tea Store on Aliexpress. http://www.aliexpress.com/store/808949 .
Although they do sell other teas, this tea is grown and processed by the seller. I haven’t had much experience with this class of oolongs but I could foresee myself purchasing more of this in the future I really enjoyed it.
The dry reddish brown to dark brown intact leaves smell sweet and buttery and spicy all at once. They brewed up to a nice orange liquor. The tea did not come with brewing instructions so I decided to use the ones from Teavivre. I ended up brewing the tea 10 times after a rinse (25 ,40,60, 80, 140, 220,5*2, 6*2) The later steepings were still pretty flavourful and I could have probably coaxed out more steeps by using shorter brewing times.
On to the tea..
During the earlier steepings the tea smelled of poached dried apricots, faint buttery pastry, a light woody note, cinnamon, mango, banana, cream and vanilla orchid.
It tasted of a faintly green floral top note, followed by cream drenched warm fruit (apricot, and under ripe banana), a light cereal note, cinnamon spice and a hint of vanilla.
It had a very, very smooth and silky texture, and refreshing feeling at front of mouth and warm spicy feeling at back of throat. As it cooled the spice and fruit scent intensified, There was an aftertaste of cream fruit especially banana, with a touch of a woody feeling in upper mouth combined with the warmth of cinnamon with vanilla orchid flavour. The first steep was really good! The cinnamon intensified and lingered in the aftertaste leaving a warming buzz in the back of my mouth.
Middle steepings had a more prominent woody roasted cereal note and vanilla orchid flavour over the fruit tones with the cream remaining prominent. Whereas, in the final steepings a mineral cream note rose to prominence in the flavour profile, combining with the cream and vanilla floral notes.
I’m looking forward to trying the other three in this pack.
