This is my first oolong from the 2020 spring harvest. Yay! I ordered some tea from Cha Yi a week ago Friday and it arrived the next Monday, which is amazing in this time of long shipping delays. Canada Post is really doing its job! I usually don’t go for Alishans, but the owner recommended it and it was the only spring high mountain oolong available, so I took a chance. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of heady flowers, egg whites, candied tropical fruit, and honeydew melon. The first steep has the buttery Alishan florals (orchid, lilac), plus sweet melon, cookies, and grass. It has a nice, heavy texture and no astringency. The second steep continues to be floral, sweet, and a bit vegetal, with slight tropical fruit. The description mentions cocoa butter, and I can kind of see where they’re coming from. The next few steeps continue with the fruity/floral/buttery profile, although the vegetal notes get stronger. By steep six, the spinach and umami are starting to overpower the fruity florals, but this tea retains some sweetness until the end of the session.
This is a high-quality Alishan with many of the fruity notes I like. Although the oolong fades quickly, those first few steeps are great, which is sort of what one can expect from this type of tea. I look forward to trying the two winter 2019 oolongs I purchased from this company.
Flavors: Butter, Cocoa, Cookie, Floral, Grass, Honeydew, Orchid, Spinach, Sweet, Tropical, Umami, Vegetal
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Good to hear you were able to get some of this year’s oolong!
Yes, I was very excited! To my knowledge, Cha Yi is the only Canadian company that has 2020 oolong in stock, since everyone is so behind due to the pandemic. Frustratingly, they don’t include harvest dates on their website, so I had to ask the owner. Apparently everything in the New Arrivals section is from 2020. They have two Taiwanese oolongs and a black tea, all of which made it into my cart.
Good to know! I’ve never heard of this company before, and it’s painful buying outside of Canada with the current exchange rate.
Indeed it is! And to make things worse, we can’t buy from the slightly more affordable Taiwanese vendors unless we use a courier. I was hoping to get the high mountain oolong blind tasting box from Floating Leaves as I did last year, but they’ve raised the price from $10 to $20 and shipping is $18—naturally, all in USD! That would work out to $50 CAD for around 60 grams of tea, which is a bit much. Shipping from the U.S. is really killing the oolong love right now.
Yay for new tea! This is the first 2020 harvest I’ve seen reviewed I think.
Let’s hope we see more 2020 teas being reviewed as shipments start to arrive. I’ve heard that the tea is good this year.
I hope so! I’m looking forward to buying new teas.
Good to hear you were able to get some of this year’s oolong!
Yes, I was very excited! To my knowledge, Cha Yi is the only Canadian company that has 2020 oolong in stock, since everyone is so behind due to the pandemic. Frustratingly, they don’t include harvest dates on their website, so I had to ask the owner. Apparently everything in the New Arrivals section is from 2020. They have two Taiwanese oolongs and a black tea, all of which made it into my cart.
Good to know! I’ve never heard of this company before, and it’s painful buying outside of Canada with the current exchange rate.
Indeed it is! And to make things worse, we can’t buy from the slightly more affordable Taiwanese vendors unless we use a courier. I was hoping to get the high mountain oolong blind tasting box from Floating Leaves as I did last year, but they’ve raised the price from $10 to $20 and shipping is $18—naturally, all in USD! That would work out to $50 CAD for around 60 grams of tea, which is a bit much. Shipping from the U.S. is really killing the oolong love right now.
Yay for new tea! This is the first 2020 harvest I’ve seen reviewed I think.
Let’s hope we see more 2020 teas being reviewed as shipments start to arrive. I’ve heard that the tea is good this year.
I hope so! I’m looking forward to buying new teas.