Norbu Tea

YUM! I do love me some Oolong! This is a remarkable Tie Guan Yin. Very rich and flavorful – brothy even! Sweet, floral and buttery.

An exceptional Tie Guan Yin … Norbu is one of the very best when it comes to Oolong!

Interestingly, taking this one on again, I’m enjoying it a lot more. The sharpness of the charcoal roast is still right there, and I have to be very light-handed and circumspect with the first few infusions (several flash infusions to 15 second infusions before getting to more typical minute or two), but then the classic Alishan notes of warm sweetness are still there underneath. I think the extra year of aging helped this one.

This one just didn’t work for me. I just taste charcoal when I drink it, whether I brew it very lightly with a light quantity of leaf, or pack the pot with enough leaf to fill it when wetted and expanded. I’ve tried varying temperatures and times, tried steeping several times before I start to drink the infusions, and airing it out for a few weeks in an unused pot without improvement in my drinking experience. I’m a bit puzzled because I’ve had some lovely deep-roasted Taiwanese TGYs and other teas from Norbu before, some requiring quite a light touch with the brewing to find my sweet spot, but I can’t find a sweet spot with this one. Bummer.

Round II: out of curiosity, and because I had an open pouch already of the ‘White Oolong’ (spring 2011 from Jenai Township, Nantou County, Taiwan), I compared them this evening. I used a little less tea so the leaves wouldn’t be pushing up the lids of the gaiwans.

3.5 grams of tea on small gaiwans, about 75 mL per infusion, kettle set to maintain 205 degrees throughout
The Tsou Ma Fei has a richer, more floral scent; the White Oolong is sharper. TMF has larger leaves, and the dried leaf balls are a little paler sage color.

15": probably could have been a little longer, and the white oolong is distinctly lighter here too—even with only 15" infusion, the TMF is sweet and though not yet deeply flavored, it has more depth than the lightly sweet and grassy WO.

30": Very similar to the first infusion distinction: both sweet, spicy, but the TMF is definitely richer, deeper, sweeter—a stronger flavor at the base. The WO is delicious, but in a more delicate way, and it shines better when I sip it first, enjoy the lighter tea, then drink up the TMF.

30": Similar distinctions, both very similarly sweet and floral and spicy, but definitely a deeper richer oolong-ness in the TMF, and a grassier, more delicate white-tea-ishness in the WO. I understand better now why Greg calls the WO ‘White’ ‘Oolong’.

30-45": delicious again, such a nice ‘comparison’, where the teas are each so nice, but so distinct.

Several minutes (forgot!): still delicious, and both forgave the long infusion

1 minutes: this time, a little light—although normally this would be a good infusion length at this point in the series, the long prior infusion took a lot out of each of the leaves.

Almost 3 minutes: more delicate, but still delicious, floral and sweet both, but distinct

5 minutes: still a difference between them, but both are now floral, sweet, and the astringency and spiciness are mostly gone

I think I missed at least two infusions towards the end here, long infusions where I just ignored the gaiwans for a while and then poured and drank. They were also good. A lot of people might have stopped before this point, but the leaves were still yielding an improvement over plain water, so I enjoyed them. And interestingly, the flavors of both lasted to this point about equally well, with the same consistent flavor profile difference maintained to the end.

5 grams of tea in a 100mL gaiwan, with about 75mL water per infusion, water heated to about 205 degrees. The leaves are quite large rolled up, and large and lovely unrolled, deep green with reddish margins.

20": elegant, floral, spicy, sweet—a wonderful starter infusion.

30": spicy sweet dominates the floral a bit in the first sip. There is a hint of astringency in the last few drops, so I will decrease the next infusion time.

20": rich, spicy-sweet, floral and deep. It reminds me very much of the ‘white oolong’ from Norbu, but they are not quite the same. I will need to do a head-to-head to figure out why there are not.

30": a little more astringency and spiciness, with the sweet lighter—more apparently if I slurp with a lot of inhalation. It’s not the grassy astringency of a sencha, but some drying on the tongue, a woody/herby/spicy quality.

20": shortening again, as the unfurling leaf has filled the gaiwan with long, deep green leaves with red tinted edges, so full that I realize its a LOT of leaf, and the shorter infusion is, indeed, very unlike water: a little lighter than the first, but still spicy-sweet in that wonderful Ali Shan way, mmmmm.

25": such a fantastic spicy floral scent—sweet, but not cloying, hints of cinnamon and almonds, and I just want to sniff and sniff. Eventually, a sip proves just as lovely, but more of the spicy flavor is dominant.

40": (last infusion was a little thin) sweet, floral, spiciness receded a bit for mellower feel this time

45": (lost track of time) we’re mostly at sweetwater here, but very delicious sweet water with hints of flower and spice.

10 minutes (lost track of time again): spice, warmth, some hay/caramel base but still light, floral notes mostly gone but a little sweetness remaining

about 5 minutes: warm, light, sweet with just a little warm depth to it, better than the last one, though thinner, because the sweetness was better balanced

about 5 min: warm, sweet, delicious but light.

Had at least another 3-4 infusions like this, long, slow, just mild and warmly sweet for the end of the evening

I did prepare a thermos full of this tea earlier in the day, and one of my regular tea-buddies said of it, “really high class, that one !” It does stand out.

I received this as a sample with my gaiwan that I purchased from Norbu. I almost missed this in the box. Very floral, it reminds me of Shade Grown Tie Guan Yin with a floral sweetness.

Thanks Norbu for the great sample.

I was hoping to taste more mace or spice in this tea but as pleasant as it is, it is not much of anything in particular. The leaves are large and clearly plucked, processed, and packed with care. I recommend trying it to satisfy one’s curiosity about the Burmese x Taiwan varietals but with managed expectations. This is a good tea- mild, friendly, inviting, but not an exceptional one. Steeping for about 4 minutes seems ideal to get all of the potential into the cup.

I prepared this wonderful oolong “gong fu cha” style. Its taste is soothingly mellow and bittersweet floral, and the really standout quality is the lingering sweet spice aftertaste. The “hui gan” is long lasting. On the fourth steep, the overtones became less pronounced but the sweet finish remained clear.

This tea is delicious and smooth. It possesses the honey orchid & woody flavors of (Norbu Tea’s) Mi Lan Dan Cong (it’s the same varietal) without the more bitter components, and also with a lighter astringency. Calling the mouthfeel oily hits the mark. This is an extremely pleasant tea to drink.

This tea is exceptionally fruity and sweet, and these flavors are not very subtle but are rather immediately apparent. The leaves are also quite large, beautiful, and twisted. The finish is pleasingly astringent. I hope this tea is available for a long time!

It’s a night to yang my yixing teapots. I just brewed up this Song Zhong to feed my huangni yixing dedicated to Fenghuang oolongs. It’s really good tea, which I found more interesting and flavorful this session than the first time I brewed it. The first session was in my gaiwan, and I brewed it at the start of a gathering with tea friends the day I received the 10g sample of this from Norbu.

Honestly, that first time my friends and I all thought it was a pleasant and enjoyable tea, but nothing particularly captivating. This time, however, I found the tea substantially better. I’m not quite sure what the difference comes down to, but there are a number of possibilities that come to mind. Could it be that my young Fenghuang yixing pot is already giving back some of the flavor I’ve been feeding it? Could it be that the water I used that first time had been boiled even once before I heated it up (again) to brew the tea? Could it be that this time I was more attentive to preparing the tea along suggested guidelines for Fenghuang oolong? Perhaps all of these factors could have contributed something to the results.

The things I definitely did differently this time are the use of my yixing, the certainty of freshly drawn and freshly boiled water, and my following Imen Shan’s suggestions for brewing Dancong oolong. Her guidelines were pretty rigorous and I tried to meet them as closely as possible. With new (current year) teas, her suggestions were as follows. . . . 3-5g of leaf for no more than 120ml of water per infusion. Use water at rolling boil for immediate rinse and first infusion, specifying that the water should be poured from low to high to make sure that the leaves tumble around (I did this style of pour for every infusion). Quoting her instructions, “Force plus temperature will open up the leaves from aroma to taste.” For the next three infusions, she suggests using water at “crab eye” boil, which I assume is comparable to 190 to 200F. Then when the leaves have opened up entirely use water at “fish eye” boil, which I guess is like 180 to 190F. I don’t use a thermometer, so I’m just following my intuition with a boil-hot-warm progression in mind. For infusion time she provides a string of numbers that seems a bit overly-exacting:

infusion# / time-in-seconds : 1/15, 2/10, 3/10, 4/13, 5/13, 6/15, 7/15, then increase by +5 to +10 seconds for each additional infusion.

I have to admit I’m somewhat incredulous at the thought that Fenghuang oolongs are really so sensitive that 2-3 seconds of steep time can make a significant difference, but I recognize that Imen truly lives for (and by means of) these oolongs, so I’m willing to suspend disbelief to some degree. I thought it couldn’t hurt to at least try taking this seriously; if it might yield a better cup of tea, I’ll try it. Though for those first 7 infusions I basically figured approximately 10-15 seconds each time was acceptable.

As for the results, I must say that I found them to be deeply pleasing with this tea. As I said, my experience of it is noticeably better this time around. I think I’ll have to experiment with this approach further on other Fenghuang Dancong oolongs, such as the Huang Zhi Xiang I just wrote of.

But coming back to the Song Zhong… this tea really started to get under my skin around infusion #3. I think Norbu is accurate in saying this tea has a profile similar to Mi Lan Xiang. This session I found zero bitterness or astringency in the liquor. It was always a heady combination of woody, sweet, and smooth throughout the 20-something infusions I drank. Fragrance to match comes out heavily when you breathe in and out while appreciating the aftertaste. Whereas in the first session my friends and I thought the profile of this tea was a little disjointed, this time I found the profile fully integrated and delicious. Strangely, there was a significant citrus note that didn’t seem to mesh well with the woody base through the beginning of that first session, but I found that whole dynamic completely absent this time. It definitely has me wondering if the lackluster quality of that first encounter could really have just been an issue of fumbled preparation. Maybe those seemingly negligible seconds do make a difference?

In any case, this time around like last time, I thought at first that the tea lacked the complexity I appreciate in Verdant’s Huang Zhi Xiang, but the tea proved me wrong. It doesn’t lack complexity, it just takes longer than the Huang Zhi Xiang to reveal its complexity. The session was getting really heady around infusion #10, when I went to refill the kettle and wait for fresh water to boil. The aftertaste grew a lovely peachy quality given the time to unfold, then later it entered a very tasty lime-like territory. That’s when I started huffing “Woah…” This Song Zhong proceeded to go the distance for another 10 infusions, and when I thought I was done I filled my pot once more for a long steep. Forgot about the steeping tea for maybe ten minutes, and came back to give my pot its final coats. I decided to try a sip of this tail end 10-minute infusion out of curiosity, and to my very pleasant surprise it was really tasty with zero bitterness. That’s got to tell you something about quality here.

And in the end, I think my teapot was very pleased with the tea as well. I gave it two coats per infusion, and five or six coats on that last long one. It looks all fat and happy now. Nice find, Norbu! Wish I had more to try it again. Now my dilemma is what to drink next… Da Hong Pao or Shu Pu’er? Hmmm……

True story: I tried this right after getting out of a showing of Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1. Even two beers couldn’t erase the badness of that movie. Perhaps tea could do what alcohol failed to do. Thankfully, it (mostly) did. This is the anti-sencha; the anti-Japanese pan-fried green tea. There was quite a bit of complexity going on with the flavor – equal parts citrus, tang, sweetness, seaweed and a tickle of vinegar. And the best part? It was a green tea I could boil the s**t out of with a lazy brew-up.

Full Review: http://lazyliteratus.teatra.de/2011/12/05/in-a-pickle/

This tea has a very nice aroma. The initial taste is something like toast, then some grass flavors, and a very satisfying sweet finish that lingers for a long time. I tried it gong fu style initially, but I enjoy this tea more ‘western style.’ The first and second steeps (165ish degrees, 3 min) were both wonderful. I’m on the third steep, and the toasty overtones are less pronounced, but the lingering aftertaste is still very present. Definitely a great value!

Nice taste of fermentation, but surprisingly light. Light on the stomach, too. Good for everyday use. Very pricy.