Honestly, this is far from my favorite thing that I’ve tried out of the TTB. Not the worst, just… not as good as it should be.
For starters, it’s annoying that there’s not a lot of practical information about what type of oolong this is or how to brew it. Based on the available info, it seems to be a high elevation mountain tea from Nantou County, Taiwan. No brewing instructions/recommendations are provided by the company. The leaves are tightly rolled, very dark green, and smell sweet and floral rather than roasted. So I took an educated guess and brewed it like an alishan oolong. Unfortunately, in 3 hot steeps and a final attempt to make iced tea with the leaves before tossing them, the best I could do is identify that 195f is the best steeping temperature for this tea to avoid any bitterness. But it never quite delivered on the promise of either its pleasant smell or what a high mountain Taiwanese oolong should generally taste like. It was just sort of… generic. I can smell and taste other things today, so it’s thankfully not an early covid symptom, it’s just the tea – or else I never landed on the perfect steeping parameters to bring out the best in the leaf which is why it’s important to provide brewing suggestions!
