28 Tasting Notes
This is a spectacular tea! Luscious, mellow, delicious, with an absolutely distinctive flavor. Although it is listed as an oolong/wulong tea, undoubtedly because of its method of processing, it tastes to me more like a mellow, warm, sunny red tea with a flavor vaguely reminiscent of butterscotch — it recalls sweetness without being sweet. I’ve never had anything quite like it. Shang has outdone himself with this tea.
Preparation
I like this tea — it is a delicate, rather than strong and pungent oolong and, like Shang’s other teas, retains some of its white tea origins even when not in white tea form. I found that I liked it best when I steeped for the maximum time of his recommended range and put in a slightly larger quantity than he recommended. On the other hand, Shang has pointed out that Americans tend to like their teas stronger than the way they’re made and consumed in China, i.e. in China there’s more emphasis on the delicacy of tea, whereas I think in the U.S., perhaps because of our history of drinking coffee or tea from Lipton’s tea bags, many prefer them stronger.
This is a perfect yellow tea — pure, delicate, intense, light. I find that with yellow teas I have to experiment with the amount of tea per cup. I just made it with two tablespoons instead of one, and I found it better with that quantity than with one. I will probably experiment with more and less to find what’s right for me. Mariage Freres recommends steeping it at 170 degrees.
Preparation
For me this is a mood tea, by which I mean that sometimes it’s striking, pungent flavor feels like just the right thing and sometimes it feels like it’s too much and too bitter and I can’t handle it.
Thank you for reviewing all of our teas! Just a quick question on this one, how did you brew this tea? If you have more to brew you should try steeping this tea at 205-208 degrees for 30 seconds to 1 minute (on the first brew) and let me know if you think it still tastes bitter or not.
We have a similar tea called Orange Blossom White Tea, where we leave the orange blossoms in the tea. This tea is very bitter and tart from the orange blossoms, but the Tangerine Blossom should be a very light and sweet citrus taste because we remove the blossoms.
I always brew the tea as precisely as I can according to your instructions, so I’m sure that I must have. I think this is more a question of subjective taste. I have one friend who really likes this tea; another who doesn’t like it; and I find that in certain moods I find it bitter and don’t like it, and because of that I didn’t drink it for a while, but recently I had sonme and liked it. And I like some teas that are quite bitter, so for me bitterness is not in itself a bad thing. Perhaps it is just a combination of what I guess could be called “pungent” and also a kind of bitterness in a combination that is sometimes too intense for me, given that over-all I tend to like unscented rather than scented ones. But I don’t think I was aware of your Orange Blossom White Tea, so I will order some and compare with the Tangerine Blossom. And perhaps mentally I’m comparing it with your Pao Blossom tea which is so delicate and subtle in an unusual way. In any case, my comment was certainly not a criticism of the tea. Human beings are weird: about certain things they can have complete agreement in taste, and in others complete disagreement. For example, when I was in France last year I got some tea that was extremely floral and scented but for some reason I really liked it (partly because it reminded me of the south of France), so I got some for a friend who shares a lot of my tastes — but she hated it! And since she was not going to drink it, she gave it back to me. Similarly, I’ve bought some teas that I really didn’t like (not from Shang Tea) and was going to throw out, but a friend said, “don’t throw them out, let me try them”, so I gave them to her — and she liked them!
That makes sense, thanks for explaining!
