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Aged oolong seems to be my weakness and what I keep searching for. When I received this as part of the angel swooping in because my Halloween partner hasn’t appeared on Steepster again, I was quite excited.
The first thing to note is that I don’t believe this was reroasted from the original roast. The second thing to note is that the roast was a light to medium and not a full blown one. These are both initial thoughts as I looked at the leaf and smelled it. Upon brewing it I am more confident that those two things are true.

This is an aged oolong that was charcoal roasted and stored well as it has similar characteristics as that of the aged oolongs from Tea Urchin who has (from my experience) amazing storage. That being said, there is a cocoa malt mixture going on within the tea where the small buttery texture ends up becoming a way for tasting notes of mild roast to be appreciated over the flavor itself. If you steep this out you will find the mild sweetness that I refer to as the candy bar that sat in the sun for four hours and just had to taste to see what it was like to find out it lost flavor.

I used 3.5 to 4 grams of this in a small little vessel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Much better than a lot of aged TGY out there that has been roasted and wet stored for a small portion of time but is noticeable.

I really enjoy ETTE Tea’s Instagram post and have been wanting a tin for so long so I made the purchase during the Black Friday sale. Included in my order was four samples; FOUR SAMPLES, that’s a lot for such a small company and small order.
Although I don’t get to try their Kris Grey… I have quite a few to try (some again).

I pulled this one out for this morning because a black mixture sounded like a good way to wake up with a bit of fruit at the back notes. While it is smooth, there is a long lasting flavoring taste almost as if there is a weak bergamot flavoring within the tea somewhere. If I was able to pick up the icing flavor that is suppose to be in here I may end up enjoying it more, however I am not finding any sweet notes as the black tea base seems to be the main taste as the liquid is drank. Oh well, I know this doesn’t reflect the works of ETTE very well. The lychee and mango are still rather vivid in my mind as I remember them being what I call ‘juicy’ within the tea. Not something I would end up buying, but I will try everything ETTE puts out :)
Peach Perfect is on my list as it is a tea that is made after Pitch Perfect the movie and uses a mixture of Assam and Japanese black tea. That’s a must try, one day.

Black Friday gift to myself…

So, I remember reading about someone stocking up on these during every Davids Tea sale because they thought they were amazing. After trying them I am going to say that jasmine doesn’t go well with malt. I view jasmine as the gentle handshake and malt as a firmer one (coffee being the body builder squeeze). That being said, these things smell great and look wonderful but the taste seems to be a battle in my mouth between a calming drink and a semi brisk black tea.

I’ve drank darker oolong with jasmine and have the same conclusion; while lighter oolong can fair with jasmine. This is also true with the jasmine shou and sheng, as sheng is the only one I’ll drink again with jasmine.

I’ll be trying this two more times and if it doesn’t grow on me I’m sure others will enjoy it as part of a swap :)

This is a very smooth ripe with a nice sweetness at the end of it. I really enjoy the sweetness that ends the notes because I thought it might be just pure earth because of the dry aroma. It could be to do with the storage too :)
It’s something I could rely on.

Drinking some 1980’s Yunnan Hongcha from a swap.
This is like some light assam mixed with sheng… if that makes sense. Somewhat like a mild malt that has a leftover bitterness which you can tell has faded over the years. A little wetness to the taste as if it hasn’t had the best of storage, but meant to taste this way as well as a dry aging taste would result in a bitter malt versus a moist malt; which I prefer.
Overall this is a darker cup tonight than I expected. I do enjoy it and hope to try similar teas since I believe this is among the first of this variation of leaf for me.

Right now I am sitting down with a lot of tea in front of me and Christmas cards… who would have guessed that I’d spend over $100 to send tea to people I never met just to bring joy to others during the holiday seasons?
Not me.
Anyways, I decided to pull out something special while I package up some of my favorite teas because holidays are meant to show that you care not just that you can; so goodbye to a few of my favorites.

You’re wondering what this taste like? It taste like you need to go buy some :p

Dang… this is some good tea. I thought there would be an odd transition of roast/rock oolong to buttery green oolong. It didn’t work that way, which is fine. I ended up getting a rather smooth steep after steep of a roast/wood taste with small texture and nut notes. This is lighter than a normal Big Red Robe and a bit smoother. While this was nice, I think with the TGY title I would want a buttery texture that is more noticeable or the TGY floral notes behind the BRR. This has a lot of potential if they execute it to have the notes of TGY and not just a slightly lighter taste with a higher smoothness to the tea overall.

This was the ugliest tea I have set eyes on. Looks like a birds nest that was stepped on outside, picked up, and placed in my Kamjove.

I actually looked at it for awhile because I couldn’t bring myself to pour hot water over something like that… and then I remembered, a lot of tea looks this way.

I ended up steeping this six times and work and realized that it isn’t very strong for a ripe. It’s somewhat mellow which for some is a positive, but I like my sheng mellow and my ripe strong. Light color are light and dark colors are dark, for me that is how it works. This would one to drink while eating though!

This is the second best aged oolong that I’ve had. Decided to try it because I thought the 96’ wasn’t that good and I was just wanting one cup… turns out, I steeped this one over 10 times. Nice texture to the sweetness that is in the background constantly. It’s a little dry, but for the notes that it has and its resteeping value, i am able to deal with it. The leaf opens up at around the third steep and gets a bit thicker which when it is best.

Damn, this is some good raw.

I was expecting some astringency to wake me up a bit since I’m exhausted from frisbee golf today… but no, there is no astringency. In fact, as weird as this sounds, I am eating chocolate along with it because the texture has a bit of silk/cream to it which is making me one happy happy person.
The leaf is ugly though which made me already think negatively of it, but again… looks are deceiving.