Da Yu Ling Oolong (Winter 2012)

Thanks to Tea from Taiwan for this lovely sample, which I picked up at the post office today after they attempted to deliver it to an empty house yesterday. I decided to start with this tea as I want to compare the two milky oolongs (my other samples), which requires a bit more time.

The balls of tea here are probably the hugest I’ve seen! There’s a sweetish, oolongy aroma to them, which is intensified in the brewed cup.

The flavour is not as sweet as I would have expected, but falls into the category of sweet, vegetal oolongs. I really don’t know how to divide green oolongs up into different categories (i.e. milky, sweet, vegetal, etc.), or what the different names mean, but this is certainly the type of oolong that I enjoy! I feel like it might be a touch oversteeped (somewhat astringent and drying), but I didn’t have any parameters to go by, so just went with my standard 3 minutes for oolongs, which was perhaps a bit too long.

Ok, back to the tea. Trying to be more precise than “sweet and vegetal”… but I’m really not sure. It’s a boiled veggie sort of vegetal, not green and fresh and the sweetness is rather caramelly, although not overwhelming like it is with some teas. Quite a nice combination. I do wish that the astringency wasn’t present, as I’d enjoy this cup more, but overall, I’m pretty happy. However, looking at the price, I have got to say that a tea this expensive is probably wasted on me, as I typically brew western-style and don’t seem to catch nuances that other people do. That said, it was great to get the chance to try it! Thanks again, Tea from Taiwan!

What a lovely Oolong! I selected this as one of my three samples because I don’t recall ever having tried a Da Yu Ling, and today as I read through the whole description of the tea, I see that it grown in the Li Shan Mountain, so perhaps this is similar to a Li Shan or an Ali Shan. I don’t know, I fear I’m not as knowledgable about the tea growing regions of Taiwan as I’d like to be.

But, I will say that while there are some similarities to some of the Li Shan Oolong teas I’ve tried, this one seems different. It has a crisp, fresh taste to it, very light and floral, almost perfume-y, but not in a chemical perfume kind of way but more like the flavor of the air when you’re walking near a field of flowers … specifically, I taste orchid. Perhaps also some lily. The flavor is sweet and exotic and very enjoyable.

There is a slightly fruity undertone to the flavor too… like a delicate flavor, like an Asian pear (or what I used to call apple pears) … sort of crisp and light in flavor like that.

I am really enjoying this. Please watch for my full-length review of this tea to be published on November 19th on SororiTea Sisters. http://sororiteasisters.com

This one was really good it was vegetal yet floral and slightly sweet with a sweet grassy aroma, I chose this one for meditation, yes you can meditate while brewing tea and even looking at the tea, long story nyways this is a very good tea for meditation :)