Tea: Jade OolongVendor: Mighty Leaf
Price: $28.95 / 4oz.
Vendor Description: Jade Oolong tea, made in China's Anxi province on a small co-op farm, is a competition grade, lightly oxided oolong tea with a complex, orchid-like taste. This oolong tea has a distinctive silk mouth feel and a medium body. The perfect loose tea for multiple infusion as the flavor will become more nuanced with each steeping.
Leaf: The leaf for this tea consists of large balls down to small fleck. This is probably the first oolong that I have seen with this degree of size variance. The leaf is a spectrum of light green to a dark green.
1st Infusion Parameters: 5g, 5 oz, 208F, 45s, 5s rinse
1st Infusion: There was quite a bit of sediment in this cup. The tea is a pale clear green color. The tea has a very light green oolong aroma. The tea flavor matches the aroma in being a typical green oolong. It has the normal green oolong tanginess, and it finishes with a light sense of astringnecy.2nd Infusion Parameters: 208F, 1:00
2nd Infusion: This infusion has a clear yellow-green color to it. The aroma is richter and more full bodied in flavor. Again it has alight sense of astringency. The flavor is still quite distinctively green oolong. It's hard to describe the flavor more than this. It seems to have the same bitterness and tanginess as before.
3rd Infusion Parameters: 208F, 1:45
3rd Infusion: The color is still a strong yellow green hue. It has a very ful bodied and bold flavor. The flavor is starting to show signs of emptiness. The strength is a bit sharp for an oolong.
4th Infusion Parameters: 208F, 2:30
4th Infusion: The color switched to a darker yellow hue thi time. The aroma was all but gone and the flavor started to lighten up. It felt full bodied, but empty. The flavor was very light and still characteristic green oolong.
Used Leaf: The spent leaf was rather small leaf for an oolong. The leaves themselves were very thin and had a lot of tearing around the edges. This was probably the source for the significant amount of dust / sediment.
Rating: 6/10
Conclusion: This tea is a very generic tasting green oolong. It feels hard to distinguish it from other green oolongs. The price seems a bit steep, but as with most oolongs it turns into a rather nice price per cup. The leaf seems to have been handled a bit roughly, and the sorting seems a bit lax. The tea was flavorful and enjoyable, despite being a bit mundane.
1 comment:
Sad to hear that this was generic tasting for such a price! Oh well, I guess that's how it goes. Let me know if any steeping times are decent enough to buy! Haha kidding, but great review!
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