A Tea Addict's Journal

Tuesday July 25, 2006

July 25, 2006 · 2 Comments

Among the many samples I acquired before I went down with the wisdom tooth extraction was a Pinlin Baozhong that Hou De sent me for free. I suppose this is a nice gesture of them — buy enough stuff from them, and they always throw in something for free.

The Baozhong is supposedly from the 80s. It is, of course, high fired. The leaves are slightly broken, smaller, and very dark.

When I brewed it, it yields a nice complexity of woody and charcoal flavours, while not being too overpoweringly charcoal like. It’s actually quite nice in that way — still retaining a decent amount of complexity. The problem with this tea, and this is pretty much true of any Taiwan tea, is that it smells better than it tastes, and ultimately, the tea disappoints in that the aftertaste is very flat to nonexistent. The tea goes into the mouth with a burst of flavours that dies as it exits. The feeling I always get drinking Taiwan tea (and this applies to both high and low fired oolongs) is that they are just a little too low on the aftertaste. The end result is always a little less satisfying than it really ought to be. Compared to a good, high fired oolong from Fujian, I will take that over this any day.

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2 responses so far ↓

  • Resumpsi // July 26, 2006 at 12:43 pm | Reply

    Flavor/aroma competition is a problem I have always had with tea. The lighter and more alluring the aroma of a tea is, it seems that the tea must necessarily be increasingly light-bodied to offset that. That’s a big reason why I am always committing sacriligious acts by mixing tea with fruits, or steeping the tea with different mints out of the herb garden.

  • MarshalN // July 26, 2006 at 11:48 pm | Reply

    Why do you need to do that? Do you like your tea with more body? Or…?

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