Guei Fei

grandpa style!
i love bug-bitten teas so much, and this is no exception. even when i brew it grandpa style, this guei fei has a wonderfully complex floral flavour that lingers for quite a while after sipping, with some nice berry notes somewhat similar to raspberry leaf tea. visually, this tea has long, narrow leaves and a dark amber colour. super comforting for autumn, but i drink this year-round.

TeaTiff TTB #29

This is my favorite oolong…and one of my favorite teas!…that I tried from this TTB. I’m not educated enough on oolong to know what Guei Fei means or what it’s “supposed” to taste like, but this one reminded me of a Yunnan black tea in the best way! It had that distinctive buttery-smooth mouthfeel of an oolong, but the flavor was much more robust than I’m used to, with a bit of maltiness and a hint of sweetness. I’d say the flavor reminded me of a slice of toast with honey. My second steep was as delicious as the first and I think these leaves still have more to give! I’d definitely consider purchasing this one at some point in the future!

Borderline decent tea that just falls short. I got the 2022 harvest of this tea from my recent CS order. Beautiful leaves with a nice but slightly weak aroma and decently vibrant liquor. The flavour is decent but could use more potency, and the texture is average to decent. Character is average, not a lot of steep variability. Finish & aftertaste is decent as well, nice malty note lingering at the tail end. Cha-qi is unnoticeable, and steep longevity is relatively decent, topping out at steep 8-9.

A little worried that these leaves have been tainted. The dry aroma is nowhere near what it should be. The first taste was fruity. Apples and almost a fruit cocktail drink without sugar. Still no aroma worth mentioning :/ This is probably one of the ..weirdest? oolongs I’ve ever had. As you steep longer you find charcoal and roasty notes. The apple stays but it doesn’t mix that well with the other notes. I wish I could find myself enjoying this tea but I just find each sip is somewhat of a grimace…

I tried this oolong out of the TTB after Wolf Tea’s Alishan Oolong and they were so different! This one was definitely more robust, with dominant cinnamon notes and a much darker brew. It didn’t hit the spot for mid-August, but I can see this being very comforting in colder weather.

This tea is so tasty! I have such mixed feelings on the Gui Fei it seems. I loved Butiki, did not enjoy Taiwan Tea Crafts, and now love this one.

I’ve drank 2-3 steeps of each cups worth from the sample. The floral aspect is very much toned down and far more in the background. There’s a sweet baked type flavour with very little to almost no mineral flavour.

1st steep 4 minutes
2nd steep 5.5 minutes

Dry leaf smells like pure, intense honey and flowers. Warming brings out stewed red fruits, cinnamon and this flowery scent that for some reason reminds me of lipstick. I’ve experienced that kind of powdery floral note in many keemun. Brewed up this tea has a strong, sweet aroma but is not sweet in taste. I get a perfume of honey-drenched toast and berries-redfruits, cinnamon. Taste is mineral, tangy, and much like stewed apples and berries or apple bread with a bit of wood. A very clean, viscous tea with an oiliness felt after the swallow. It’s very warming, gently at first especially in the chest and face, and becomes stronger while still leaving a minty cool, mouth-watering finish.

I haven’t had many gui fei. In fact, the only one that stands out in my recollection is an unpleasant one. This one, though, is very nice. Recommended? Yesyesyes, especially for people new to oolong. It’s very approachable and rather straight-forward. This shares a lot of notes with aging pressed Fuding white teas if you have an interest in exploring those. Thanks for the share Leafhopper :)

This is part of my huge 2018 haul from Camellia Sinensis. All of you know my fondness for bug-bitten teas, and based on my rave review of their Bai Hao, I thought I’d like their Guei Fei as well. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of intense honey, flowers, and stewed fruit. The first steep has notes of honey, baked bread, flowers, sweet apple, and other stewed fruits. (Camellia Sinensis says “red fruits,” which I kind of agree with.) A tart berry note emerges in steep two. The tartness, stewed fruits, flowers, and, most of all, the honey characterize the next couple steeps. This is definitely a dessert tea. The honey and baked bread just keep getting stronger in the fifth and sixth rounds. Sadly, I don’t notice any cinnamon, which both Roswell Strange and the website point out. The flavours become slightly attenuated as the session ends, although the honey and red fruit are still present. The final steeps have a bit of astringency and are somewhat vegetal.

This is a sweet, luxurious Guei Fei that’s easy to drink. Though it lacks the complexity of the Bai Hao, this is kind of expected given the nature of this type of oolong. I’ve had a lot of bug-bitten oolongs recently and the flavours have become somewhat predictable, but this oolong executes them very well.

This is a queued tasting note.

I had a weird/wonky Gong Fu session with this tea, which Camellia Sinensis added a generous free sample of into one of my orders this year.

It wasn’t the tea itself that was weird; just how I prepared it. I only had two infusions and then I just sort of, well to be perfectly honest, just forgot about the tea? I don’t even remember why: I was taking notes on the infusions and then I must have started cooking or watching TV or something else and the tea just sat there. But anyway, here are the notes I took for those two infusions:

- GORGEOUS leaf!!!
- Sweet, honey notes! Like ambrosia? Most dominate flavour
- Very light/gentle overall with a delicateness to it
- However, despite that the flavours are NOT subtle
- Also has notes of spring flowers, red fruits and white peach

After those delightful, wonderful Gong Fu infusions I popped the leaf into a mason jar and cold brewed the leaf (when I finally did remember I was drinking tea) so as to not waste it and get the most out of leaf which clearly wasn’t spent yet.

The cold brew was similar in flavour notes to what was observed in the Gong Fu infusions, just even sweeter and richer with more honey notes and more sweet fruity flavour. However, I also tasted a light finish that reminded me of Easter Buns a little bit? Kind of that sweet, doughy quality with a sort of cinnamon note as well? And of course a fruitier glaze but that easily melds with the honey and preexisting fruit notes.

I definitely look forward to further, more conscious exploration of this tea.