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“The second tea I am having gongfu today. I was very intrigued by this tea from the March reserve club. Tieguanyins are probably my favorite type of oolong, but I usually am not super into the aged...” Read full tasting note
“sipdown! I’ve been drinking this one this morning trying to figure it out. On the whole…it mostly just confuses me. I don’t dislike it, but it so isn’t the tea for me.” Read full tasting note
“This his been in my cupboard for so long that by now it is probably 13 years aged TGY :) Anyway, it is still tasty, and I haven’t been drinking nearly as many Oolongs as I used to, although I am...” Read full tasting note
Verdant Reserve Club – March
We have always had trouble searching for aged Tieguanyins. After training under Wang Huimin and coming to understand the way the greener Tiegunayin honors the creamy floral notes that Anxi’s soil imparts, it is hard to jump into dark roasted Tieguanyin where much of the original flavor is obscured by caramel notes.
I decided this month to give Wang Huimin a chance to show off an aged Tigeuanyin of her choice. Growing up in Anxi, Wang Huimin has plenty of friends to call up. It is no surprise that she found such a light tea to show off. I don’t know anyone as fiercely proud of Fujian province, and specifically Anxi country as Wang Huimin. We first met in Qingdao, where she would lower her voice conspiratorially to mention how food, or flowers, or music, or anything at all is better in her home town. This tea is her way of sharing a bit of that pride and evoking the green terraced mountainsides of Anxi.
This tea is a real surprise if you go into it imagining the dark caramel notes you would expect from a Tieguanyin aged for so long. Unlike its relatives, this example was never roasted, and only allowed to oxidize a little before being dried and finished. It was not taken out each year and re-roasted over charcoal like so many aged Tieguanyins.
Instead of caramel and chocolate, you can immediately smell rising bread dough with semolina flour, the sweet fruity adge of apple juice and the creamy notes of banana.
The early steepings are delightfully crisp and sparkly. While fresh Tieguanyin is often creamy, this is light and vaporous. The aftertaste grows with fruity notes of golden delicious apples.
Later steepings reveal tangy light florals, almost like candied rose petals and dried apricots. The texture builds up to be almost mouth-wateringly juicy.
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The second tea I am having gongfu today. I was very intrigued by this tea from the March reserve club. Tieguanyins are probably my favorite type of oolong, but I usually am not super into the aged varieties. But this one was interesting because the description mentions that it was never roasted, and was not taken out and roasted each year like many aged tieguanyins.
The resulting tea has hints of floral aroma along with a sweet breadiness, like a sweet challa or tsoureki (Greek Easter bread). There is definite sweetness in the flavor as well, and it grows in the aftertaste and as it cools. Mmm, sweet bready notes, though a somewhat surprising lack of butter, which I might have expected. In the second steep some tart, juicy appley notes come out to play, and now I get something like an apple pastry. Definitely a unique tea, and I am definitely enjoying it. No roasting for me!
This his been in my cupboard for so long that by now it is probably 13 years aged TGY :)
Anyway, it is still tasty, and I haven’t been drinking nearly as many Oolongs as I used to, although I am making more of an effort lately to either drink an oolong or a green each day, as I have quite a few (mostly oolongs, actually).
TGY always has a soothing quality to it, at least for me.
You didn’t count the birthdays you had for it each year :p
No, but I think that is because I had planned it to be a sip down long before now! It was from Verdant’s original TOMC. I have enough to drink it one more time :)
I’m trying to drink & let go of all the teas that have been in my cupboard for awhile, especially in small quantities. It’s been an ongoing process, but I’d really like to get the collection down to a more manageable & drinkable number, all teas I love.
Then again…you can never REALLY have too many teas, LOL.
This sounds fantastic! Thanks for the review.
The smell of this tea was like nothing I’ve ever had before!