I bought this tea at the request of a friend who had heard about it and was interested in the purported health benefits of the GABA-rich tea. I thought it sounded intriguing, and I’m always up for an oolong, so I tried it. The dry leaf was brown rather the green I expected from their photo, and when brewed I was a bit disappointed at the relatively thin flavor: I used a quantity that usually is enough to fill my thermos with rich, deep oolong flavor from wuyi, anxi, or taiwanese teas.
I steeped it at 185 degrees, several infusions totaling about 2-3 minutes of infusion time, and combined the infusions to fill my thermos. The result was a brown infusion, with flavor of highly oxidized, almost black tea—no hint of bitterness, but a lightly fruity flavor, without much spice or earthiness.
I have passed it on to my friend after we shared the first infusion, and doubt I’d buy it again. It wasn’t particularly memorable, and I didn’t feel particularly mellow afterwards either.
Addendum: as I was cleaning up last night, I discovered the leaves from this tea were still left in my kamjove, and about 10 hours after the infusion, they were springy, not as soft as typically rehydrated tea leaves, and had a wonderful plum scent—probably more accurately, a very pleasant prune scent—fruity and sweet, and I was regretting giving the entire rest of the bag over to my friend, because it seemed like something with so much good scent must have more flavor potential as tea. Sigh. But if he figures out how to make it yummier, maybe I’ll try a smaller sample again.
Thanks for this review! I’m really curious about GABA oolongs. So sad to hear that that the taste is thin.