For the most part, I really like oolong tea, but I don’t drink a lot of it. Lately I’ve been very focused on pu-erh, but I have made some recent interesting excursions into “the other gong-fu tea.” So here are a few recent oolongs of interest:
2007 Spring Feng Huang Lin-Tou DanCong “Mi Lan”
This one comes from Hou De. I’d never tried a DanCong before, so thought I’d give it a try. I’m very glad I did. It tastes a lot like some Wuyi oolongs that I’ve had, but is maybe a little more subtle than yancha (though I should note that Hobbes, a far more experienced tea drinker, has the opposite opinion). Dry, it has the strong cocoa scent that I associate with Wuyi, but in the cup is much more fruity and floral. The leaves are beautiful. Dry, they are long, dark, and twisty. These open up to green-to-chocolate whole leaves after brewing. This tea gave me a chance to use my under-utilized yixing pot that I dedicated to dark oolongs.
Oolong #40
This is a dark Taiwanese oolong from Adagio. Their website describes it as having “dark, silver-tipped leaves and produc[ing] a mesmerizing cup of delicate peachy notes and warm, soothing flavor.” This is entirely accurate. The dry leaves are gorgeous, with lots of silver tips. The liquor is burnt orange and the aroma is subtle stone fruits. The flavor is very peachy. I’ve read that the compound that provides the peachy flavor is a defensive compound that the tea plant employs against particular predators, but like most interesting tea stories, this one is hard to verify.
2008 Spring Premium Pin-Lin Bao Zhong
This is a Taiwanese Bao Zhong from Hou De. Unlike the Dan Cong, I just can’t get excited about it. I suspect that this tea is a perfectly respectable Bao Zhong, but I don’t think that Bao Zhong will ever be one of my favorites. Yes, it smells amazing. But once the novelty has worn off, drinking sweet flower-water just isn’t that interesting. I prefer something with a little more bite. If I do want flowery tea, the Li Shan from Tao of Tea was better.