Dong Ding

So I got a couple of sample packs of oolong from the generous Allison Tsui. Unfortunately, I don’t know if there’s a particular brand name or even what farm it may have come from. All I know is that it’s from Taiwan, so we’ll just say it’s the Allison Tsui brand unless she tells me otherwise. :)

This is a really tasty Dong Ding. I remember the first few times I tried dong ding oolongs I was disappointed it was more of a roasted flavor since I preferred green fresh tasting oolongs. However, my tastebuds have grown to appreciate darker more roasted flavors, and as a result, I actually really liked this tea. The first thing I noticed about this tea is the autumnal roasty toasty flavor. Then on the swallow, I’m surprised by the sweet fruitiness that hits the middle of my tongue. That sip was gone too fast for me to really get the flavor down. I held onto the next sip a little longer and tasted that fruitiness again. It was like the juicy sweet flesh of red globe grapes. And peachiness. Mmm, tasty. I really enjoyed this one!

I was also able to steep this tea about 4 times, western style throughout my work day. I probably could have gone more, but it was time to go home. :) Tasty and economical! Thanks Allison!

Okay I’m moving my tasting note over to the page Mercuryhime created to be more concise and deleting my old tasting note from 12 days ago. So sorry for the repost on your feed.

First a huge thank you to allisontsui for her generosity and hospitality in sharing three teas from Taiwan with several Formosa lovers on Steepster! This package arrived a couple days after I had gotten my samples from Nuvola and I had already brewed their delicious Dong Ding (review coming soon) so I opened this one first. Unfortunately I could tell just from feeling the 5 gram packet that the leaves were crushed. There were maybe half a dozen whole to partial pearls and quite a bit of dust, so sad it seems to have suffered the damage on its journey.

Still I treated the leaves with respect and brewed them gongfu being sure to put a fine mesh strainer over my cup, but even this let quite a bit of sediment through. Still the first cup was quite nice, it had somewhere between a woody to floral aroma, it was less charcoal and mineral than the orchid oolong I had been drinking earlier that day, but still had a nice light roast to it with some greener notes. Floral is what stood out to me the most, thought it wasn’t like a scented or intentionally floral blend, just very pleasant and soothing.

Unfortunately this first infusion was the only one worth drinking. It pains me to write this since the tea was given so generously, but try as I could to reinfuse this, no amount of temperature lowering or time adjusting could save these leaves from turning astringent. By the third infusion it was unpalatable and I had to pour it out :( Dong Ding/Tung Ting is a tea that in my limited experience (recent order from Nuvola, sample from Fong Mong and a wonderful yixing session at Essencha Tea House) has been a very unique, generous and forgiving tea.

I cannot speak to the quality of this tea before it was shipped, but I would urge everyone who swaps tea to package in a padded envelope or box where applicable as this one was rendered to bag quality. I will be trying the other samples this week and sending Allison some of my Dong Ding from Nuvola as well. I am glad I got one good cup out of this though.