What are your favourite green oolongs?

tea-masters.com all the way, you can’t go wrong with any of Stephane’s teas.

I’ll buy from certain Western retailers that specialize in Taiwanese or single origin teas. But large tea companies like Adagio and Rishi don’t offer anything notable and are overpriced to boot.

Honestly I’ve been a little disappointed with the jade oolongs I’ve tried so far this year. The 2015 winter and 2016 spring harvest were outstanding, but with a couple exceptions none of the high mountain oolongs so far have blown me away. What-Cha’s Li Shan was the best this year so far. However it wasn’t as fresh the second time I ordered it and I suspect packaging was the reason why.

The packaging of green oolongs is a real problem even with vendors who should know better. Last year I bought 2 oz of Alishan from TeaRen in Chinatown SF, a well known Taiwanese tea company. To my surprise their teas were sitting in half empty glass canisters frequently exposed to light and air. After one or two sessions, I chucked the entire pouch because it was horribly stale. Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company is probably the best western Taiwanese tea vendor out there. I’ve bought some truly mindblowing teas from them. But despite the high quality of their teas, I’ve sometimes received tea in zipper pouches (usually samples) or otherwise poorly sealed and the quality really suffers.

One reason Taiwan Tea Crafts has become my vendor of choice for jade oolongs is how well their teas are packaged. Every tea whether roasted or unroasted, 10g or 250g is properly vacuum sealed with an oxygen absorber. I’ve bought old teas from them that tasted just as good as the ones from recent harvests.

On a related note, I’ve observed the same phenomenon with Japanese tea. The best Japanese green teas I’ve had came vacuum sealed. The ones in zipper pouches are often lackluster.

I’m not the biggest drinker of jade oolongs, but I find MountainTea.com’s Taiwan oolongs to be good and very reasonably priced. They’re not top quality, but are great daily drinkers.

Floating Leaves Tea is top of my list. They are also local for me, but they’ve systematically ruined me for other taiwanese teas.

This season’s Baozhong is KILLER good. Shell out for competition style. I had various farmers at WTE and they all said this is the year for Baozhong if you prefer green oolong.

The packaging could definitely be one reason. Another reason might be proper storage conditions. Keeping the teas in the cold storage from picking to delivery date.

I don’t have problems to mention with Japanese tea. All my orders have been either in vaccuum sealed tins or bags (which are resealable only after opening). Alternatively, they have one time use paper/foil that you cut open and then place in your own tin. Dealing with reputable companies helps.

Ironically, I’m drinking tea that has been aged (ie to the air) for 1 1/2 years and it’s great!

Thanks for all the suggestions! I’ll have to take your advice and try some of this year’s baozhong, although I generally haven’t had great experiences with it in the past.

And yes, I totally forgot about Floating Leaves. I had their high mountain oolong sampler last year and it was excellent.