This is one of the last 150 g bags of oolong I got from Bok last year. I also recently ordered a bunch of 2023 oolongs, and I’m already behind in drinking them! This Dayuling was the most expensive of the 2022 oolongs, though it was a lot more affordable than DYL from other vendors. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted steeps.
The dry aroma is of pineapple, cookies, honeysuckle, orchid, and citrus. The first steep has notes of orchid, sweet pea, honeysuckle, cookies, and grass. The next steep adds pineapple, butter, and minerals. Steeps three and four have lovely pineapple, orange, and sometimes even peach notes along with the buttery florals. This tea remains very soft, and it’s sometimes a challenge to pick out individual flavours. Spinach and more minerality emerge in the next couple steeps, and the tea is a little drying. Subsequent steeps are primarily floral, returning to orchid, honeysuckle, and sweet pea with some grass, minerals, and spinach.
I enjoyed this tea enough to drink it almost every day for a month, but I thought the DYL from Wang was more unique. The fruity flavours are nice, but they dissipate quickly. They also tend to pop more in clay than in porcelain and when I lengthen my steep times a bit. It probably didn’t help that this tea is more than a year old, so it might have been better if I’d gotten around to it earlier.
Flavors: Butter, Citrus, Cookie, Floral, Grass, Honeysuckle, Mineral, Orange, Orchid, Peach, Pineapple, Soft, Spinach
