Hong Kong-Roasted High Fire Tieguanyin Oolong

Backlog. From the oolong group buy – that has a lot more roasted oolongs than I thought.
200F, 2min, 12 oz
dark malt, stout, high roast, nutty sour
The roast on this has chilled, but it’s still too roasted for me. The level of roast is very high. I don’t find this level enjoyable.

Another decent offering from TealifeHK! The traditional charcoal roast makes all the difference to similar offerings. Quite different profile compared to high roast TGY from Taiwan.

I would advise to use not too little leaf, otherwise it can not show its true potential.

As usual the sellers description are spot on.

1st, 2nd Steep: Starts with a little burnt wood scent. Has a light yellow color. I get the light taste of char and goes down very smooth leaving behind a pleasant sweet floral taste.

3rd, 4th, 5th Steep: It darkens up to a beautiful red color. The charcoal flavor grows stronger.

6th and beyond: The floral taste returns and it grows weaker through the steeps. I went 10 deep.

If you told me that you liked charcoal-roasted teas, I would point you in the direction of this tea. The roast is strong but approachable, and the other flavors beyond the roast are nice, with a powerful and lingering aftertaste.

Personally, i’m not a fan of charcoal roasting. I just don’t like the flavor. I started a bit of a discussion to try to figure out the appeal of charcoal roasting, which you can see here: https://steepster.com/discuss/16026-regional-oolong-group-buy-discussion?page=2

Please add your two cents. There is quite a selection of these sorts of teas, and they seem well-regarded. I keep feeling like I’m missing something.

Anyway, approachable roast with a thick, sweet, and fruity aftertaste.
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Dry leaf: pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, dark cocoa powder, peanut shell, dill, roast coffee beans. In preheated vessel: coffee beans, prune, raisin.

Smell: charcoal briquette, baking spices, char, hints of honeydew melon

Taste: charcoal, generic nuttiness (peanut shell), Italian roast coffee bean. Aftertaste of char, some dark chocolate, thick melon sweetness, citrus, lemongrass, coriander.

Regional group buy, and this one was impressive. It had a natural caramel-vanilla thing going on with the char roast in every profile. Char, earth, cedar, and some bitter sweetness were the overall notes in the pinkish amber liqour. I love how there was a little bit of a rise in the taste with each steep being warming at the same time. It also gave me some energy.

This tea was one of the better roasted oolongs that I had and would recommend it for those looking for this kinda roast. I am not sure that I would have more than the sample size personally, but I do think that it is an excellent roast tea that is worth trying.

I received this tea from the 2017 regional oolong group buy hosted by Liquid Proust

The dry leaf is a very tightly rolled dark brown to black balls that have a strong roasted smell with the expected biting oolong scent following close behind. I brewed up 5g in my 200ml kyusu with 190F water and 30 second infusions.

The liquor is a clear dark orange/light brown reminiscent of a black tea. It smells sweet and roasty, more like a light roast coffee than any tea I have ever smelled. I want to accentuate that the sweet smell is overpowering like I have my head over a pot of burning sugar, but with the promise of some nice umami flavor behind the sweetness. The mouthfeel is like a thin vegetable broth with no lingering sweetness, but rather, a lingering char. The taste is heavy upfront charcoal, with sweetness but less than I was expecting, like vegetables that I meant to char on a grill but burnt instead. You can feel the granules of char on your teeth like a charcoal toothpaste I used in the past. Not what I was expecting but not bad with a high fired tea and no rinse. Sitting with the tea for a while I get some caramel out of the sweetness.

The second infusion is a notably darker color an amber/medium brown. The aroma looses a bit of sweetness trading off for more umami savory notes. The char is still upfront but loses some of it’s overpowering nature while the sweetness is more pronounced. I’m tasting fresh honey roasted peanuts and the traditional oolong flavor is shining through. The aftertaste has a smooth roast that I get from good coffee.

The roasted smell dies down a bit more on the third infusion, as do the umami notes, with the sweetness still there in force. The taste is much lighter/smoother and I get the caramel notes others have described more than the previous burnt sugar. This is my favorite infusion so far… maybe ill rinse it next time and see if I get these notes out of infusion #2

The fourth infusion looses more char and gains more sweetness, it’s now close to indistinguishable from coffee now. Turned the temperature to 200F for the fifth infusion, and it was like a slightly more flavorful #4. The sixth infusion on are all very similar as well, with the tea dying off around steep number 9.

This is a tea for coffee drinkers… seriously I think I can convert a coffee fanatic with this. For me it was an interesting complex experience with a tea that is a bit all over the place in it’s smell and flavors. I would definitively give it a good rinse and time to fully unfurl before my next session with this tea.

SECOND TEA TASTING (follow up a few weeks later)

I followed TeaLifeHK’s advice this time with a boiling rinse, and 200+F water using 30 second steeps in my 200ml ceramic kyusu with 5.5g of tea.

The wet leaf smells like sweet roast, I wish I didn’t already bias myself, but again I get fresh roasted coffee beans with a nice oolong backbone coming through.

The liquor color is a STRONG reddish-brown with a pleasant roasted sweetness reminiscent of honey roasted peanuts. The taste is very nutty again being similar to peanut brittle with a nice burnt sugar aftertaste. This session is more pleasant with the rinse allowing the leaves to open up before my first steep letting the caramel notes come through.

The tea continues to produce good flavor for about six steeps slowly loosing it’s sweetness. I think this tea is unique among roasted oolong’s for its sweet profile, where in most roasted oolongs I would be looking for grilled vegetables or a savory soup.

I got this tea as part of the Liquid Prost Regional oolong group buy.

At first the flavour was really light, I started with the water at 185 but bumped it up to 190 after two steeps. The smell of the wet leaf made me think of walking along a dirt path in a dense forest. Earthy, slight campfire smell. The taste for the first 4 steeps was pretty much like it smelled, but at the end of the 5th steep I noticed a faint floral sweetness begin to develop

This is my first time trying something from TeaLife HK, and I’ve really been looking forward to it. Since I ordered a bunch of samples I’m doing smaller sessions with these, so I put about 5 grams in the gaiwan. There’s not a very strong aroma off the dry leaves, but I do get a faint whiff of roast and minerals.

The aroma of the roast really emerges with a quick wash to wake the leaves up, and the liquor is a lightish brown in steep one.

The flavor starts out as sweet roasted nuts, light in flavor—clearly the tea is still waking up—and there is a hint of butter in the aftertaste.

The brown darkens in steep two, with notes of chocolate emerging. rhinkle is getting mint, which I also get a hint of at the bottom of the cup, but not with any cooling sensation, just the actual raw flavor of chocolate mint leaves.

These flavors strengthen and sweeten in steep three and last pretty much throughout the rest of the session. Definitely enjoyed this!