Wuyi Ensemble

Sipdown (2128)!

Finally decided to brew up this single serving sample from a past Adagio order! I thought it tasted okay and, if I can remember correctly, this is a pretty cheap oolong so the quality to price ratio didn’t feel off to me as I was sipping. It’s a bit woody and mineral with notes of grilled nuts and cinnamon and a semi-floral undertone. Nothing special, and I probably wouldn’t buy it for myself because I’m at a point where my yancha preferences are a bit on the “snobbier” and high end side – but it felt like an approachable entry point to this style of oolong for someone looking to just dip their toes in.

Adagio sent me a tea mail with 4 samples and suggesting a place an order. I will say their little sample sizes do travel well. This wuyi was pretty tasty, but the third steep has lost its punch. Floral, sweet, and a tad smoky, certainly not a bad example of an oolong, but I’m not inspired to place an order until I sip down some of the rest of my tea. Though I am in Texas, and I did buy a box of cinnamon chamomile from HEB yesterday, so I guess I’m not on a buying hiatus?!?

Floral and mineral wrapped up together. Very large leaves. Fantastic everyday strong oolong.

Sample 12/19!
Just making a not that I had this yesterday. It was fine but not anything incredible in my opinion. Glad I got to try it!

A very nice Oolong thats deep, toasted/smoky, earthy and lightly honeyed. Lightly floral noted appear as the smokiness lessens in subsequent infusions. Not as toasted/smoky as a lapsang souchong or a genmai cha. Great for multiple steeps. Adagio version is actually very good. One of their better teas.

I liked this more than I expected based on my experience with Adagio’s oolongs. The roast is on the lighter side for a Wuyi, so it’s a little more floral and fruity than I’m used to Wuyi oolongs being. There’s also a sweet cinnamon note and some dark chocolate. I enjoyed this sample, but I wouldn’t buy it because there’s a lot of high quality Wuyi oolong out there for a similar price.

So this is my first experience with any type of Wuyi. Smells good in bag, lets see how it tastes. Western prep, 3min at 195F.

Totally getting that famous mineral flavor, followed by a mild earthy and strangely peppery? flavor. I don’t know what that flavor is. It reminds me of black pepper, but there’s no pepper recorded on any previous tasting notes. It’s bitey in my mouth and leaves it tingling. About a minute or two after sipping, the remaining after flavor changes to and stays as a massive grape flavor. I have no idea where or how that happened, but suddenly my mouth is full of grapes. As it’s cooling I’m getting a mild wood flavor, but still plenty of that rock taste. Overall I do like this. It’s not my all time favorite, but it is a totally acceptable tea. I would gladly drink this again.

In classic fashion, the packet is deeply enriched with notes of cocoa nib and deep stone fruits, combined with a gentler tobacco scent. Once steeped, the liquid turns a dark colour, emitting a strong fruity and toasted aroma, along with an added floral-mineral backdrop. The flavour is predominately toasted, with a slight astringency in the aftertaste, which easily attributes to a dark chocolate note.

Final Thoughts: This was not my first experience with Big Red Robe, so whilst these leaves produced a tasty cup, I know that there are better out there. What’s great about this tea though, is that Adagio are such a big company operating globally, so this particular tea is available from the UK and US websites.

Honestly, the Wuyi tastes like a riceless genmai cha, but with the toasty flavor. It has a couple unique undertones that I don’t even have adjectives for which make it pretty flavorfull, but it hits my “meh” button, sadly.

~4.5g in 100 ml water at 99C, initial steep ~20 seconds

So I almost lost this session’s tea as a result of dropping the gaiwan for no apparent reason. It just slipped out of my hand mid-pour. Some tea leaves fell out, but I got most of the liquid in my cup and a lot of the leaves stayed in the gaiwan, so I decided not to let it stop me.

The first steep is amber-colored, smooth with a charcoal flavor (like, fresh, cleansing charcoal, not barbecue bricks or something), has no astringency, and leaves a sweet honey-like scent clinging to the empty cup.

The second steep has an almost creamy scent, a bit more smokiness coming out in the flavor, is still very smooth going down and has maybe the slightest bit of astringency on the back of the tongue. A nice honey scent still clinging to the empty cup.

Third steep…Maybe the universe just didn’t want me to drink this tea. I got distracted by an interesting issue brought to my attention at work and oversteeped. By a lot. Ended up with a dark amber liquor, but the taste was still good and the mouth feel still smooth. I got so absorbed in what I was doing that I didn’t give sufficient attention to the tea. I will see if I can get any more infusions out of it.

Fourth steep. Yeah, it’s done. I did get a good amber color and a good charcoal scent, but the taste is starting to get watery and not much lingers to the empty cup anymore.