Simon Pratt Send Message

This is my go-to Wulong. It tastes wonderful when it’s fresh from the gaiwan, but I don’t have a kettle by my desk so my habit is to brew it western-style in a pot, and take frequent small tastes as it stews. My first taste is before even a minute has passed, and it is quite mild. The liquor is a light, almost fluorescent, green/yellow. The smell is a little grassy. The taste is quite mild: a little toasted rice, a little dandelion, and something sweet like honey. The mouthfeel even so early is quite distinct. You can really feel the oils in the tea coat your mouth and leave a dry kind of feeling well after the flavour is gone. The next taste is around the 4 or 5 minute mark. The colour is much more yellow now, with just a hint of brown. Not much smell, although my nose is pretty stuffy so I may be missing out. The sweetness is still there in the taste, but there’s also something umami. Very slightly like mushrooms. My habit is to keep tasting it even as it stews for much longer, but I don’t want to prolong this note much longer. Needless to say, it gets much more bitter as it sits longer in the water, but I used to be quite a fan of hoppy beers in a previous life so I enjoy a good bitter bomb.

Smells: sweet and earthy like freshly mown grass.

Taste: mellow and earthy, like hay and dirt.

Personal note: this tea marks the point at which I have begun to favour unflavoured tea, and I have ceased to add sugar.

Loose-leaf Lady Grey doesn’t seem to expand, nor does it have much tea flavor. Citrus flavor is nice, though.

Mild, but nice. Combines the best attributes of black tea, green tea and bergamot.

Pleasant, light on bergamot. I find it tastes better with a cooler and somewhat longer steep.

Before this tea, I never understood those who say bergamot tastes like soap.

Very pleasant citrus flavour.

Delicious! Heavy on the bergamot as one would expect, but very well balanced with the taste of the tea itself.

Beautifully balanced jasmine and oolong.

Consistently pleasant.