Loongese

Gongfu!

This was a wonderfully brisk black tea session!! I love how glossy and black these slightly curly tea leaves are, with a wonderful dry leaf aroma of dark chocolate and dried apricots. Steeped, it’s very cocoa forward but in a quite unsweet type of way with a very woody backbone and undertones of different slightly savory-leaning spices. Thick and full bodied with a grizzy upfront astringency before plunging into rich, dense malt and fudge. Almost a bit of a rye whiskey note, too, especially in the curls of smoke that dance along the top notes.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-xvxMqO7fW/?img_index=1

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzHTqkAs4bg

Gongfu!

Another early morning session. Finding a good Keemun always seems to be a total dice roll in quality, but I’m really enjoying this one a lot. It’s quite robust and full bodied with malty notes of rye bread, oak, leather, bitter chocolate, and a gentle smokiness with buckwheat honey dark sweetness in the finish and a syrupy floral quality in some of the late steeps. Pretty much all the hallmarks I’d want from a Keemun! Plus, the glossy black tea leaves are just a total beauty!

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClL-sL8Ochm/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlIcfddQYK0

Picked this up from Loongese while I was there for the Wagashi class. Such a pleasant medium body, with the faintest bit of astringency to add dimension to the cup. I especially love the coating sweetness of this oolong, and the very slight green edge and naturally woodier leaning notes!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkJcqu0uUiy/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-QtlgWXrME

Gongfu!

This was the third and final tea from the class at Loongese. Unlike the two prior that were served to us, we each received a small tea set with premeasured out leaf and brewed the session for ourselves. This was part of an “intro to gongfu” portion of the class, but because a few people present (myself included) were already well acquainted to what we were doing we just got to enjoy a self led session over the next hour or so.

I really enjoyed the tea, as well. It was deeply roasty with lots of mineral and char notes right off the bat. I used all the leaf that was provided (unfortunately I don’t know how many grams – but it was a lot) but kept my steep times very short and so I got to really maximize the amount of infusions I got. Easily ten before my leaf was tapped out. It took a while from those strong rock oolong characteristics to subside a bit, but as they did the tea got a little more plummy and floral with a bit of fresh herbs in the mix as well; dill and thyme. It was very good and I was definitely feeling the tea drunk glow of an afternoon well spent by the end.

Gongfu!

This was the second tea served to us during the Nerikiri class I attended last weekend. Like the Jasmine Pearls that had proceeded it, we received just a small tasting cup worth of the first couple infusions that were split between the attendees.

I’m not a huge fan of TGY generally speaking so this was probably my least favourite of the teas from the class. I thought it leaned particularly grassy with strong notes of fresh cut lawn and citronella. Not nearly as nutty as I would have liked. That said, it definitely didn’t seem like it was poor quality or anything like that – just heavy in tasting notes that aren’t my own preference.

Gongfu!

Last weekend a friend and I went to a Nerikiri (https://foodinjapan.org/kanto/nerikiri/) sculpting class at a tea shop in Montreal. Both Kotoan (the Wagashi company) and the tea company (Loongese) were at the MTL Tea Festival – I ended up buying some of Kotoan’s Wagashi and it was excellent, so I was excited to get to learn a bit more from them! It was also my first time at this tea shop, since it’s on the exact opposite side of the city from me. In fact, it was over an hour long metro ride (one way) just to get to the class…

In addition to the Nerikiri portion of the class, we were also served tea and led through an intro to gongfu brewing. I didn’t really need the intro to gongfu as, well, that’s something I do almost daily. However, it came free with the class and I definitely wasn’t going to turn down tea – and my friend seemed to be having a great time with it as he’s a large tea drinker but had never actually brewed gongfu himself before despite being served during sessions many times.

This was tea one that was served to us – just a couple small little tasting cups to wet our palates during the Nerikiri sculpting. Very simple and very classic jasmine pearls. Because we only got the first few infusions (split among the ten or so class participants) they leaned especially jasmine heavy in taste and were very sweet.