Sugar Caramel Oolong

I’m just beginning my extended session with this tea and it is delicious so far. Looking forward to more infusions!

Having a very quiet afternoon in the office – the quiet before the storm! Tomorrow is Commencement, and one of my jobs is to give out diplomas each year!

I thought some tea would make the down time enjoyable, plus I could go for something sweet :) This is hitting the spot. Carmel corn date tea. Two nice steeps today. Now that I’ve had some naturally sweet oolongs, I think I prefer them to this (and I was crazy about this when I first tasted it!!). I’m going to lower the rating a bit – I think it’s now a solid 85. Delicious, and I’ll enjoy every curlywavycrazy leaf, but I rather have an Oriental Beauty or Dragon Ball!

Sipdown! 850.

So I brewed up two last cups of this, side-by-side, to compare straight cold-brewing to hot/cold-brewing. It’s really hard to note much of a difference, except that when teas are hot-brewed, the leaves sink, and when they’re cold-brewed, they float. Water penetration, I guess.

Anyhow, I actually wasn’t a big fan of this one cold. There was too much astringency for me; I should have just had them hot. Ah well. Live and learn! I think for dark oolongs, a hot brew followed by chilling in the fridge without the leaves in the cup might be the best bet. Of course, that require more effort, but for anything with astringency, I think it’s the only reasonable option. (Which, of course, is why I like cold-brewing whites, herbals, and now rooibos. Even greens usually end up too astringent for me.)

But yes. This one’s all gone now, and I’m officially at 850 teas. It’s kind of late, so maybe I can get one or two done tonight, or at least throw the last of something in the fridge for tomorrow… (I really should just go to sleep… I’m at 33 hours of awake with only a short ~3hr nap. I should be a lot more tired than I seemingly am.)

Still meh about this one. I have had it for awhile now but it’s been stored properly and everything. Given my last note from it, I think my tastebuds have just grown out of taste for this one. There’s still enough for a couple cups though, I think it might be interesting in the oatmeal experiment.

It still smells so good, but I just don’t get the sweet flavors that I used to taste. And I know I’m not the only one who was in love with it with the first cup and subsequently didn’t like it after that.

Ohhh earlier this afternoon we went to Delta’s small museum and I picked up a teacup for 50 cents and a box of prepackaged green tea sachets for $1. Seriously the gift shop was just as cool as all the planes and memorabilia. You could buy cups, mugs, plates, utensils, etc from first class. They had vintage posters, postcards, travel brochures, first flight cards, pins, models, stickers. I really want to go back just to buy utensils, they were fifty cents each! But the teacup I am really excited about. I’ll get a picture of it later.

This caught my eye yesterday but I made the coconut pouchong instead. Today, it is this one’s turn.

More leaf in this sample so I’m making a big cup tonight. Yay! The dry leaf smells nice. Almost candy-like but not quite like a caramel chew. It brews up to a pretty dark golden liquid with a smell that reminds me of a more roasted oolong – almost a sweet cigar smell – but with heavy caramel overtones. It’s more of a rich, decadent caramel syrup that you’d put in coffee smell instead of a caramel candy smell. I imagine that comes from the burnt sugar part of the flavoring.

The taste is rich yet mild. I can’t taste a lot of oolong, however the caramel taste is such that it doesn’t taste like I’m drinking a flavored tea but more like a scented tea. (Now I’m picturing tea leaves spread out with little caramel candy buds being set on them in preparation for their opening to flavor the tea before they are switched out for more. And more. Anyone know where I can get a caramel plant?) No chemical or fake flavoring taste to be found. This is another well-flavored tea – I’m impressed!

The caramel taste is strongest on the front end, when I can smell it, too, though the smell seems more burnt/caramelized sugar. Then the tastes morphs seamlessly into a sweet dark oolong flavor of floral cigar (though no smoky hints at all – there’s just a similar sweetness) and then the finish that coats my mouth after I swallow is more of the sugar but with caramel tones. Almost like about five minutes ago I finished a dessert that had a caramel whipped cream topping.

I like the coconut pouchong best between these two, but this is still a very good tea. Darker and sweeter in taste than the coconut. But just as good of a pairing of flavoring + tea. If GM’s plain teas are as good as these two flavored have been, I’m going to be a big fan.

ETA: The second steep has lost a lot of the overt caramel/burnt sugar flavoring. Or else that was because of the spicy peanut sauce I just had. But even though the smell and taste aren’t as obvious this time around, it’s still got a great dark sweetness to it and a soft burnt sugar smell.

I so made the right decision to bring this tin home from work: it has to have controlled brewing to bring out its best. Winging it at work made it taste…kinda like a wimpy off-brand of Frosted Flakes. At the right time/temp with filtered water: NOM!

I was also glad that this was my first tea of the new year (Happy New Year Y’all!) since it reminds me of the tea journey I started last year since Golden Moon’s sampler was the first “big” tea purchase I’d made. I’m still a-steepin’ these leaves (adding a minute to each steep). Yuppers. This is good stuff. TG

Steep 1: 2:30 Minutes Toasty Roasty Oolong with a lovely sweet brown sugar, caramelized sugar, brown sugar flavor. Delicious and intriguing!

I had this when I first began drinking loose leaf and do not recall enjoying it quite so much. Now I appreciate all the elements in this tea!

The leaves in this tea are SO huge and expand SO large that you really need quite the large brew basket for them or just put them in your pot or cup and strain them.

You can really smell the vegetal roasted oolong in this blend and the flavors do not over take the aroma or flavor of this very nice oolong.

Steep 2: 3:00 Minutes – I concur with others who have said that the sugar comes out more prominent in this steep, yet there is a wet leaves earthy flavor there as well. It has not lost the toasty element and a nutty flavor is present as well. These remind me quite a bit of those caramelized nuts you can get at fairs and in the mall.

I probably won’t have time to continue logging this but if I do I will come back and add to my notes here but this is really quite lovely.

They have this tea along with coconut pouchong which I ADORE on Open Sky for sale 28 for both. I may have to grab some one of these days if they don’t sell out.

Finally got everything set up at least tentatively working in the living room so I can start drinking gongfu-friendly teas (mm oolong) in the evening after dinner while watching my favorite shows or reading, yay. Involved playing the “how to rearrange the living room such that a) couches are not right next to drafty doors and windows b) couches don’t set on fire over heating old vents c) walkways between rooms aren’t blocked d) the electronics are situated such that they’re close enough to the only two outlets in the entire room, one of which by the way is only two pronged and the other which, the only three pronged/grounded one, is crazily wired such that if I run the dishwasher off in the kitchen (which I always do after dinner right when I want to drink oolong) and try using a water heater or kettle in here at the same time it shorts everything—the kicker, because now i have a water heater along with an area lamp and the TV” tetris puzzle game (fun times in midtown rentland). But anyway. It’s a little odd as it stands now but the comfy couch is a decent distance and angle away from the TV and all that, with an end table with my new water heater, a tea tray, and everything else I need to make tea (measuring spoon, timer, etc.) in a container that slides beneath. My gongfu-y and evening tea-friendly teaware (prized gaiwan, kyusu, cupping set, glass teapots with glass infusers, etc.) are all in the living room now too on the mantel, which is conveniently now right near the couch too. And my pull-out drawer of oolong and green tea is right in here as well. Yeah, that’s right: I’ve got it so that when I settle in for the evening, I don’t have to go to the kitchen for pretty much anything until it’s time to clean up and go to bed. Whee!

…that was a long intro to trying this tea, sorry. This is unlike any other oolong I’ve tried so far. The dry scent immediately made me go “whoa!” because it’s so sweet and straight up caramelized sugar. Steeped it’s not quite as intense, but it is incredibly sweet. There’s a floral lightness to it, and upon resteep a mysterious perfumed element grows strong, but there’s also that ever present toasty, nutty sugar. It was a surprise. I keep saying that this week about the teas I’m trying, eh? But it is! I would drink it again. Oh, and it takes a while to unfurl; I got 4 solid steeps of this, maybe more (I lost track).

I’m in need of a good comfort tea today – I’ve been wallowing a whole lot lately and it’s starting to get pathetic. So hopefully this will blow my mind and make me forget where I am.

The smell of this was divine. It was a whole lot of burnt sugar and caramel. Now, I much prefer caramel to chocolate; it is probably my favorite sweet out there. So you can see why I chose this tea today.

Right away, I taste the oolong. It’s one of those nice buttery, creamy oolongs, so it is complemented very nicely by the caramel. The caramel doesn’t come out and assault your taste buds, but rather it very gently massages them into submission until you’re lost in the taste. The longer I hold the tea in my mouth, the stronger the caramel becomes. It’s not the sickeningly sweet caramel you would pour over ice cream; it’s almost like there’s nuts added.

This doesn’t come right out and scream “Desert Tea!” It isn’t sweet enough, so it’s perfect to have around as a comfort tea. Which is what I needed right now. I bet after a couple more infusions I’ll be wondering why I was ever in a funk in the first place.

This has nothing to do with the tea, but it just started absolutely pouring. Like, the kind of storm that sends my poor dog running under my bed with her tail between her legs. It was perfectly nice out a minute ago. The weather is so weird here…

EDIT: Oh, lovely. Now it’s hailing, too. And raining sideways.

I got home from work today and really needed a good cup of tea so I picked this one. I also recently purchased a scale to measure my tea with. It is new for me but thought I would give it a shot because it did feel I wasn’t measuring proportionately and it seems I was right. I measured the traditional way and then measured it on the scale and noticed I had been using too much tea, at least this time. After measuring a bit more conservatively I noticed a huge difference which in this case resulted in a better score.

This is sweet and yummy like burnt sugar, in a good way. Definitely, one of my favorites.