As the slow boat from Taiwan arrived, I finally got my stuff, among which are samples — samples from Will of LA Tea Drinkers, in this case. I picked out a bag at random, sample G, so sample G it is.
It smelled like a lot of “aged” oolongs I’ve had in Taiwan…. heavily roasted stuff, rolled, probably claiming to be 20 years old, but probably no more than maybe 5.
It looks like those tea brewed as well
I don’t know if it’s obvious here, but basically.. there’s a difference in hue of the tea. The stuff that is heavily roasted but without much age is generally brownish, whereas the stuff that have been aged, roasted or not, are usually more reddish. It’s a subtle difference that probably barely shows up on screen, but when you see it in person enough times, it shows. The tea is a bit thin, with not much beyond the roasty taste. A little sour. It’s not horrible… but probably not as old and as good as it claims to be.
The wet leaves
Also look true to form. Examining them though reveals that they might be benshan, a cheaper varietal of tea that is often used to make “tieguanyin”. Which reminded me — I have a bag of benshan from Beijing that I’ve been meaning to drink all along, if for nothing else than self education. Maybe that’ll be tomorrow’s tea.
4 responses so far ↓
lewperin // February 20, 2008 at 1:45 pm |
When you say the Sample G leaves “look true to form”, are you indicating that they’re stiff and crumpled by roasting? As you often note, a seeing a photo isn’t exactly like being there…
MANDARINstea // February 20, 2008 at 10:20 pm |
Bag said Wuyi Rock tea and is a soil grown Taiwanese oolong! Can’t trust packaging from the Far East! -Toki
ps. maybe is not a good idea to age this tea in a bag like that, sometime they add a plastic smell to the little “old” ones.
MarshalN // February 21, 2008 at 12:15 am |
Well, I mean that they’re stiff and crumpled, yes.
I believe Will repacked the thing in a dahongpao bag, not the seller.
Anonymous // February 23, 2008 at 4:05 pm |
Yeah – those bags are not the greatest, but they were what I had around when I was packing the samples. They are little tiny bags that I picked up for cheap in Wuyishan City. Lawrence – did they seem to impart any plastic taste / smell to the samples? I didn’t realize it would take you quite that long to get to them :P.
This is more a tea I was curious about than one I really like a lot. It’s a purported 18 yo TGY from a place in Shanghai (mail ordered before I went). The style there is more for the lighter stuff, so this was one of the only things they had that was on the darker side. Not horrible, but overpriced IMO, and probably not actually that old, as Marshal says.