Organic Iron Buddha Oolong

I believe this is the tea sample I received from Nature’s Tea Leaf, although my package says Buddha Hand Oolong.

I have never had a Buddha Hand oolong so I looked up several and found that some sites consider it to be just another name for Ti Guan Yin, and some referred to it as a Wuyi Rock Oolong. If anyone has more detailed information, I would love to know it!

The leaves are a mix of dark green and light green, very pretty to look at, hard and tightly curled, and very consistent in size. I almost did a rinse but decided to keep a close eye on the tea instead and make a decision based on how it was shaping up. The leaves began to unfurl very well, so I left it and drank the first steep with no rinse.

The liquor is a fairly strong golden yellow color, not pale. The aroma is sweet and that rock mineral quality is present, though not as strong as in a monkey picked oolong. There is also another elusive aroma that is so hard for me to describe that I find in Ti Kuan Yins – perhaps slightly vanilla? It really is an aroma that for me is so distinct and so particular to oolongs that I don’t know how to describe it otherwise!

The second steep is an even more golden yellow and seems to have greater clarity of color than the first. This was a nice tea start to my morning! I only wish I had time to drink more, but I must go work at early voting. My evening cups will be desperately needed!

Oh, and I got the big news I was waiting for last night! The phone call came just after midnight. My daughter’s Irish boyfriend, the one you guys said was a keeper because he brings me tea, proposed on Myrtle Beach at midnight, and she said yes! He had asked last Sunday for our permission to propose, so I knew it was coming! :)

Additional notes: ICED! This is my first oolong to try iced, and I don’t love this one hot, so why not try this one cold. Not my favorite oolong, not even from Nature’s Tea Leaf. A couple days coldbrewing and this one isn’t bad. There is a bit of a bitterness to it, but really I think that was just because the leaves had been steeping for days. I think it’s much better just brewing it cold than if I had hot brewed it and then left it in the fridge. But I almost expected more bitterness from leaves that had been sitting so long! I love seeing a mason jar full of leaves though. It looks like a tea snow globe!

First I want to thank natures tea leaf for the sample!!!

Dry leaf: The dry tea leaves are really pretty. They are tightly rolled and filled with light and dark greens. They have a very sweet yet vegetal flavor. They remind me of dark green vegetables mixed with celery and rock sugar.

Wet leaf: The wet leaf is deeeeelicious. It smells so fantastically sweet. It still has dark green vegetal smells but no more celery note. I can still smell something that reminds me of a rock salt. The leaves expand to be very large and full.

Taste: This is a really good tea. It has a nice, sweet, and light taste. It has a lettuce like vegetal taste, but it also has a nice sweetness. It is a lot sweeter than most oolongs I have tried and not nearly as vegetal. I really enjoy this tea and will definitely be ordering more

Sample provided by Nature’s Tea Leaf. The sip when hot is a little light on the first cup. It at first seems non-descript, then suddenly bam, bam, bam. It goes from tasting watery to mineral, then immediately changes to floral, followed by mellow roasted. The aftertaste lingers long and floral green oolong with a cooling breath sensation. Pretty awesome for one sip. Yet, it is so light that gulping this, you would miss all but the roasted note and aftertaste. As the cup cools I am noticing more of a woodsy taste early in the sip. The floral aftertaste is somewhere between tiguanyin and high mountain oolong but more subtle than either.

Steeping a second mug resulted in a press full of huge leaf. It is still not completely unfurled but there is a lot of it. The brew is golden. The roasted taste has mostly gone in to hiding. It is replaced by a creaminess. The aftertaste continues to grow stronger. It is now largely tiguanyin but the cooler the cup, the more it takes on a citrus type flavor.

I decided to try something different on the third mug. I cold brewed. I poured cool water over the leaf and set the press aside for an hour and a half. The result was the most flavorful cup yet from this tea. Seriously good. The sip was what I call geranium as that is what it reminds me of as I taste. It had the same great aftertaste as when I used hot water.

I wish I had more time as I am sure this has lots of steeps left in it.

Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for a generous sample of this tea.

This oolong, like the dragon pearls before, is so much fun to watch steep and unfurl. You really have to brew these teas in a clear vessel, otherwise you’ll be missing a good tea show.

This is a very nice and solid tasting oolong. Very robust and not bitter at all. This is a good pure oolong without flavoring. Nice and smooth with some buttery notes and a natural hint of sweetness.

Big ol’ nuggety leaves. Lovely antique gold angel-hair color, steeped. (Stereotypical angels, that is; I firmly believe angels are really huge muscle-bound Navy Seal types; scary looking dudes. Check the Christmas story—first phrases out of the angel’s mouth is, “Don’t be afraid!”)

Enough preaching. Truth is, this was a sweet and pleasant oolong, but it didn’t wow me like the other Nature’s Tea Leaf samples I’ve tried. (Their Fujian Congou is superlative.) I didn’t get “audacious” as put forth in the tea description. I’ll have to play around with it a bit in the event I was too chintzy with the leaf. (When I don’t get a good result the first time around, that’s generally my problem.)

Took this from the Traveling Teabox B. The dry leaf is sweet, buttery, and slightly floral. The flavor is vegetal with sweet, light floral notes. There is a slight buttery flavor going on, too. There is a bright note of something. I want to say a really mellow citrus flavor. Like a sweet orange mixed in with the light floral flavors. Mmm this was a nice first cup :]

Another TY to Nature’s Tea Leaf for a sample of this tea!

DRY: tight chunky lumps of oolong, smells grassy and kinda sweet.
STEEPED: Golden tea, smells floraly veg.

TASTE: light floral sweetness sweeps through, kinda buttery, naturally slightly sweet and a veggie bite. Full of flavor, no bitterness of astringency. I could sense if this was oversteeped astringency would peek through.

COMMENTS: Not bad, I am enjoying the full flavor of this oolong. OIBO is a good earthy veggie oolong. I feel kinda picky, but I prefer my oolongs a little sweeter or more floral, so this doesn’t wow me, but still a decent cup of tea.

Nooooooooooo! I wrote out a nice, really long tasting note, and ended up with the “oops” screen the first time… ugh. :P

This is a nice light oxidation oolong at a pretty affordable price. I brewed it gong fu style and got nine steeps out of it. My oolong notes tend to be pretty long, so brace yourselves!

Dry leaves: The dry leaves are tightly folded and have a more linear shape than ti guan yin. The smell is nice and roasty.

Brewing: This tea brews up to a nice, light golden color. It has a strong honey aroma that evolves over the steeping process. The smell begins like fresh trimmed bushes, develops a more floral note, and slowly fades to warm honey.

1st: The first steep was very fresh and grassy with notes of nutmeg and lemongrass. It has a strong natural sweetness and moderate astringency.

2nd and 3rd: During the second and third steeps, the grassyness and astringency mellowed and were replaced by the warm, floral flavor of honeysuckle.

4th and 5th: In the fourth and fifth steeps, the former flavors were joined by fruity black currant notes. The flavor continued to grow smoother.

6th to 8th: Over the sixth, seventh, and eight steeps, the flavors continued to mellow and the honey flavor was greatly increased. The flavor was milky smooth.

9th: On the ninth steep, the flavors and smoothness began to fade, so this was the last, though it probably could have gone one more. Honestly, at this point I’d had more than my fix of tea. haha :)

This was a nice, grassy oolong that felt to me like a cross between ti guan yin, milk oolong, and a Japanese green. Once unfolded, the leaves were very large, some up to three inches. I definitely plan on ordering some of this when the sample runs out :)