Another free sample from Tea at Sea’s forum thread.
Packaging/Instructions: Same as Tea at Sea’s Indonesian Green: a small resealable bag with the instructions on a separate label attached with a piece of string. The instructions here said 100°C water, and, remembering my steeping experience with their Green tea, followed their advice. I made 4 steeps out of this, each time with near-boiling water.
Dry leaf: I gotta say that the smell of the oolong dry leaf was much less apparent than that of the green, though they appear to be sourced from the same estate. It was sweeter, perhaps, but it didn’t have any of the seaweed smells that I noticed in the green tea leaves. They did look different, though – they were slightly lighter in appearance, and looked to be clumped up like knots rather than pellets.
Liquor: All 4 infusions tasted fairly similar – I detected some nuttiness, but not a lot of sweetness. Oddly, this oolong tasted more like a straight green tea than the green did, and the green tea tasted more like an oolong than the oolong did! The final infusion tasted more mineral than the previous ones did. Also, as the infusions progressed, the liquor changed from yellow with a green undertone to yellow with an amber undertone.
Verdict: Although I did enjoy it, I think I may not have brewed this correctly. I still have half of the sample left to try, so fingers crossed.
Flavors: Mineral
