Taiwan GABA Oolong Tea

I’ve had a handful of GABA teas and was not that impressed, but Derk’s glowing reviews made me want to try this version. Thanks, Derk, for the sample and for the recommendation to use more leaf than usual. I brewed 7 g of leaf in my 120 ml porcelain teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus a few long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of honey, nuts, baked pears, apples, raisins, and a slight GABA sourness. The aroma of the wet leaves is mouthwatering! The first steep has notes of honey, nuts, raisins, baked pear, apple, dates, and other dried fruit. It reminds me of a liquid fruit roll-up! Mild spices, brown sugar, and GABA funkiness emerge in steep two. The honey and nuts become slightly more prominent in the next couple steeps, although the tangy, slightly syrupy fruit is still the star. The raisins, dates, apple, and tangy dried fruit overpower the pear in steeps five and six, and I get malt, baked bread, and wood in the background. Finally, on the seventh steep, I notice cream and the sweet potato Derk mentioned. The session ends with malt, wood, almonds, earth, minerals, tannins, and those lovely dried fruits.

This is a treat of a tea. I’m still not a fan of that distinctive GABA taste, but love the array of fruits and the nutty, spicy, comforting profile. I’ll have to stew part of my remaining sample to make the most of those flavours.

[Spring 2019 harvest]

This GABA tea is pleasant, but it didn’t strike as particularly special.

Dry leaves smell of cinnamon buns and poached pear, while during the session I also get a kind of metallic scent on top of those. The taste is sweet, fruity, tannic, and lightly woody. There are notes of pear, dill, mint, and a sort of char bitterness. I found the profile somewhat disintegrated to be honest. The liquor texture is very interesting though. It has a body kind of like red wine and a foamy, chalky mouthfeel.

Thanks so much for sharing, Kawaii433! :D I had to bust this one out when others were talking about it. I was certainly even more intrigued than before. I used less than a teaspoon to have another steep session later, just didn’t fill the mug all the way each time. This certainly tastes completely differently than any other oolong I’ve had, even the couple GABA oolongs I’ve tried. It’s almost like the lightest of charcoal roasted oolongs, mixed with one of the non-fuzzy white teas. Hints of white grape, but it might really be pear I’m seeing mentioned… Otherwise, it’s very tough to describe the flavor. Smooth, sweet. I was in an even better mood today, so maybe that was the GABA powers.
Steep #1 // less than 1 teaspoon for a 2/3 mug // 20 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 10 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 2 min

Oh my glob. I had 4g of April 2019 harvest stewing in my thermos all morning. Incredible. I moaned during lunch, 6 hours after pouring hot water over the leaves. A coworker asked me if I needed a room. So Thick. So Spicy. Sweet and Fruity. Bought 25g so I’ll be coming back with details but I had to pop in to say

Daaaaaang.

This is quite different from the Vietnamese GABA Oolong. The aroma of the wet leaves reminds me of yummy fried plantains, the sweetness, and slightly tart aroma. The flavor profile was complex (beyond me).

It was mildly sweet with brown sugar and honey notes. My throat is kind of sore today (hope I’m not getting sick but have no other symptoms.) I found it to be very soothing to the throat due to the thickness and comforting creamy feel. I love to read the great reviews and there were lots of different notes mentioned. This time around, I got the pear, nuts, baked bread, malt, vanilla, and some mineral notes. It is a solid GABA oolong and I look forward to trying it again, perhaps alongside What-Cha’s Vietnamese GABA. I “think” I prefer the Vietnamese one but I recommend both to anyone into GABA oolongs.

5g, 195°F, 110ml, rinse, 8 steeps: 10s, 25s, 35s, 45s, 55s, 65s, 75s, 85s

I’ve almost finished the 50g bag. It was my first GABA oolong, and likely won’t be my last. The texture of this tea really stands out to me—it’s thick and has a wonderfully full mouthfeel. It tastes of cooked fruit alongside some of that bready taste of a roasted oolong. Very complex and fascinating to drink, I love the way that the sweet taste of cooked fruit mixes with the spicy (not spicy as in hot but tasting of spices). Definitely one to come back to. The GABA does make me feel less anxious, it’s different from a tea-drunkeness and more like a mellowed calm.

I’m still getting used to these GABA oolongs. I like them, but I often find them a bit confounding. I finished the last of a 10 gram sample of this tea yesterday afternoon, and now that I have had a little time to process my experience with it, I can safely say that I found it very enjoyable.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, I detected aromas of cream, raisin, and pear coming from the dry tea leaves. The rinse brought out aromas of honey, fig, and prune. I failed to detect any new aromas on the first infusion. In the mouth, I noted flavors of cream, pear, fig, honey, raisin, and prune. Oddly, there was a hint of straw toward the finish. Subsequent infusions brought out stronger straw impressions as well as baked bread, brown sugar, vanilla, malt, orange, mineral, and date notes. Hints of roasted almond, roasted peanut, wood, peach, red apple, and herbs were also detectable in places. The later infusions offered lingering mineral, straw, baked bread, and roasted almond notes that were underscored by traces of orange, pear, honey, red apple, and raisin.

A complex and relatively long-lived tea, I found a lot to enjoy with this one. It was very smooth and mellow in the mouth despite being a touch syrupy at times. All of the aroma and flavor components worked well together. Overall, this was just a nicely balanced, pleasant, aromatic, and flavorful oolong. I could not find any glaring flaws and would have no issue recommending it to fans of Taiwanese oolongs.

The first time I brewed this tea I didn’t quite know what to expect. I had heard much about how this tea was processed and I was excited to try something that was pretty unique. Along with being from Taiwan which is probably my favorite tea making region. The first time I steeped this I went crazy and went with a 6g/70mL ratio. The first steeps were incredibly sweet. The front notes just taste like deep baked cherries that were shoved in a pie with a bunch of spices like cinnamon. It reminds me a lot of my mom’s kitchen when she would back in the winter and let me have some warm cider (non-alcoholic). I’ve had this tea many more times and bought a pretty large amount after receiving the small sample I got from my first order at What-cha. Every time I make it those strong baked cherry notes transport me back in time. This tea is delicious at almost every temperature but I think 195 is the best for me. A little cooler you get more fruityness but like smokyness and less spices. Hotter and there is not enough fruitiness and a lot more smokiness.

Love this stuff.

Burnt honey with a glossy, almost cloying sweetness-effect. Vanilla aroma.

I cant believe these GABA teas get such mixed reviews, whats not to like about burnt honey & vanilla?

I do it gongfu, slightly more aggressive than for shengs. Nom factor 10

Hoalatha’s note got me excited for this one, and after finishing off the last of my GABA oolong, I figured to try some more. Alistair’s notes were also promising and my gut feeling told me this would taste on the Oriental Beauty side of Formosa/Taiwan oolongs.

It did, and for me, was very grapy. Thank heavens it lacked the drying effects that an Oriental Beauty normally has, and is less malty. The taste and the tea’s color reminded me of red-skinned pears and had a fruit sweetness. The texture was smooth and thick. I partially understood the vanilla note because it has the boozy rising aftertaste vanilla does, but without the sweetness. Instead, it ends with more with the grape note.

I’m quite happy with my sample and would probably order this again. It was very similar to the GABA Oolong Taiwan Sourcing sells because the oxidation and the roasting were very close. I like it period.

Now there are so many other teas to write about…