A Vietnamese green oolong nearly 7 years old, sent my way from Leafhopper. What does this session hold?
The dry leaf smells like… flowers, honey-cooked sweet potato, grass, halva. The warmed and rinsed leaf produce aromas of bitter grass, narcissus edging perfume, butter, halva.
The aroma is mild and floral and smells only of narcissus to me. That leads into the sip, where the tea becomes medium-bodied with a grassy-lettuce-stale herbs note that quickly turns tangy and full of butter. There’s a strong interplay in the aftertaste of narcissus, lemon and butter with the halva-like bitterness that morphs sweeter into the honey-cooked sweet potato of the dry leaf; throw in a dash of cinnamon. Later I notice jackfruit in the aftertaste.
The tea at times has a tendency to be rather drying and unpleasantly catching in the throat. It makes my body feel heavy, rather than the lightness that Taiwanese green oolong can bring.
For being a green oolong of such age, I think it’s held up okay, though to me it’s a stale tea. The tastes and aromas are nice but disjointed. Thank you, Leafhopper, for the opportunity to try!
Flavors: Bitter, Butter, Cinnamon, Drying, Floral, Flowers, Grass, Herbs, Honey, Lemon, Lettuce, Narcissus, Nuts, Perfume, Sweet Potatoes, Tangy
I’m glad that you once again got more out of this tea than I did. I need to stop keeping these samples so long!