This is a dark roast Sumatran grown oolong, with small tightly rolled nuggets of tea that seem to have been allowed to rest as there is no smoke or charcoal notes apparent.
After a rinse, the tea yields a maple coloured brew that maintained a fairly consistent flavour profile.
I used 1 TSP of leaves in 150 ml of 95°C water.
The first three steeps (35,30,25s). maintained a scent profile consisting of apples, and a sweet floral at times cocoa, malt and cinnamon were present.
The tea tasted of an empire like apple, sometimes with skin, cocoa, butter, malt, a floral note, and cinnamon. Often the darker more bitter notes would be most apparent when hot and then gave way to a more balanced tea full of fruit, floral and spice notes. In the last steep of this set an oatmeal note appeared.
I then did 2 steeps of 35 and 45s, that were fairly weak. Next time I would increase the steeping time by more than 10s at this point. The tea at this point had more oatmeal and malt, less cocoa and fading apple.
The last two steeps were 60s and 2 min. These steeps had tones of apple, oatmeal, malt, cocoa, cinnamon and a hint of honey.
Altogether an enjoyable oolong with good and distinct apple tones. Thanks Nicole, I’ve been wanting to try more of Mountain Tea’s dark Oolong’s.
