Gui Fei Oolong Tea, Lot 832

And yet another tea courtesy of White Antlers. Thank you :)

The session starts with a thin, brown sugar sweetness and a hint of vanilla. Really strong roast, so much that most of the time I taste mostly roasted nuts, roasted barley and brown toast. Past that I can taste apricot, peach, orange blossom honey, and orange zest. Strong mineral taste and tingles, light apricot and orange blossom aftertaste. In subsequent infusions, the fruitiness and sweetness are overtaken by malt, wood, straw, astringency and bitterness tasting much like a washed-out black tea.

Unlike LuckyMe, I didn’t find this oolong to be easy-drinking. The roast easily dominated the session for me. The leaf seems temperamental, unforgiving. Then again, I don’t have a finessed hand. I thought with the level of roast aroma in the dry leaf that I would brew this with water off the boil; based on the unfavorable results, the next session I will try with lower temperature.

Not recommended… for now.

I’ve always meant to order some of TTC’s Gui Fei, but demurred due to mixed reviews. Thanks, Derk, for the generous sample. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of honey, baked cinnamon bread, and fruit leather. The first steep has notes of honey, baked bread, grass, and stewed fruit. The next adds autumn leaf pile, apricot, raisins, and slight astringency, though the honey is still the star. In steep three, sandalwood, cinnamon, and a bit of roast emerge, and the autumn leaf pile flavour is stronger. The fourth steep is a lott less sweet, with roast, wood, pine, autumn leaf pile, grain, and honey. By the sixth steep, the roast is really asserting itself, accompanied by black tea-like minerals and malt. The session ends with nuts, honey, minerals, and roast.

While this Gui Fei is quirky and enjoyable, as LuckyMe pointed out, it’s more like a Dong Ding than a honey oolong. I might still pick this up, however, because it’s so affordable, but the strong roast detracts from it being truly amazing.

So glad I bought another pouch of this tea, especially in the midst of this brutal cold spell that’s hit Chicago and doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon (thanks Polar Vortex). The windchill was -15 F the other day and I knew my usual morning green tea or green oolong wasn’t going to cut it. I was craving something warm and toasty and this tea came to the rescue.

It’s been a year since I last had this tea which was picked nearly 3 years ago. Despite the age it was still mind-blowingly good. Credit to TTC’s hermetically sealed foil bags…I wish every company packed their tea like they do.

Grandpa steeped 1.3g of leaf in my 8oz mug @ 200 F. I was immediately greeted by that familiar yet delicious honeyed flavor. Nectar sweet with notes of wildflowers, toasted pine nuts, and caramelized minerals. As the tea steeps, wildflower honey gets mingled with a subtle bug bitten sweetness. A wonderful example of a skillfully roasted tea that brings out complex flavors without tasting roasty.