Alishan GABA Oolong

I received a 4 gram mini sample of this tea as a freebie with my first, and to this point, only order from Unytea. I could not find a listing for this tea in their online store, but I was able to find a blog post about it and a few photos. Sadly, I was not able to glean much information about the tea itself.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped all 4 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was followed by 12 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes. Clearly, I had no idea how to proceed with this one and just went with my gut.

Prior to the rinse, I was able to pick up interesting aromas of osmanthus, stone fruits, butter, cream, and malt. After the rinse, I picked up additional aromas of brown sugar and magnolia. The first infusion produced a similar, though somewhat smoother, more integrated aroma. In the mouth, I detected gentle notes of cream, butter, malt, cocoa, brown sugar, dates, osmanthus, nectar, honey, peach, nectarine, and magnolia. Subsequent infusions saw the additions of baked bread, mango, and papaya on the nose and in the mouth, though the tea mellowed fairly quickly. The later infusions were heavy on cream, malt, and bread notes underscored by extremely distant, barely perceptible impressions of dates, mango, osmanthus, honey, and peach.

Overall, this was a nice oolong. It was very approachable and displayed admirable complexity and depth. I found it to be very difficult to accurately describe. It was almost like a cross between a Gui Fei and a roasted Jin Xuan, though that comparison is not exact. One aspect of the tea that I would like to highlight is the texture. It started out syrupy, progressed to being creamy, and then finished slightly on the dry side. It was extremely interesting to experience and would have been worth the price of admission alone. While I do wish it had a little more staying power, this was still a nice tea to experience. I am glad I got the opportunity to try it.