2018 Semi-Wild Ai Jiao Pinglin Oolong

The impression is of a somewhat savory, alkaline mineral water with a lingering, disconnected roast. White lily, orchid and ginger leaf provide the higher floral and grassy notes. A body of dry grass, millet, sandalwood, walnut shell and faint warm, dry earth mixed with tones of apricot-orange-eucalyptus-balsam, golden raspberries, soft Ceylon cinnamon, crystallized honey-brown sugar, scalded milk. Sometimes I’d get fleeting impressions of yellow apples cooked in bacon grease, roasted pepitas, yellow currants, burnt sugar. The aftertaste was not a focal point of this tea, but I did sense sugared violets at one point.

While the mouthfeel and longevity are lacking, the roast brought out very pleasant, sweet incense-like aromatics that perfumed my room. Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable offering and I’m happy to have had the chance to try it. Thank you for sharing, Leafhopper, and exposing me to TheTea.pl. They look to have interesting options :)

Yay! This is my two hundredth tasting note. I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to develop my palate on Steepster and to meet so many fellow tea people. This is truly a great community, one that I hope to continue participating in for a long time to come.

I bought this oolong two years ago. Ai Jiao is usually a Wuyi varietal (and I had a not-too-impressive example of that version a few years ago), so naturally, I was curious to see how it would take to my favourite terroir, which seems to be all of Taiwan. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot using boiling water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of honey, flowers, grass, roast, and faint stonefruit. The first steep has notes of honey, raspberry, roasted grains, apricot, and grass. The honey, roast, and grains become more prominent in steep two, and the roast gets even stronger in subsequent steeps, with a hint of roasted walnuts. Though the stonefruit, berries, and flowers put in sporadic appearances throughout the next few steeps, mostly what I can taste is the honey and roast.

As someone who prefers greener oolongs, I’m not the ideal drinker for this tea, but I do appreciate its complexity. Maybe after another two hundred reviews I’ll be able to look past the roast to understand the full spectrum of flavours, though by then this tea will probably be gone.