Organic Kagoshima Oolong

Took longer than I expected to get back to this tea, and I went in a completely different direction: I was determined to get a mellow brewing, so used a small quantity of leaf and brewed up a whole thermos of tea with relatively cool water—185°F/85°C. This came out toasty, a little earthy, mellow and pleasant. I’ll work up from here now, to try to get more of those plummy fruity notes without reactivating the astringency that was off-putting the first time through.

Whoa, a Japanese oolong – it’s a first one of a kind for me. I had two sessions worth of it, and the first one was kind of ruined because I oversteeped it by a lot. This tea, unlike traditional oolongs, requires short brews and relatively low temperatures. Treat it like a sencha (with potentially higher temps up to 80-85 degrees) and you should be fine – that means be especially careful about the second and third brews.

In terms of its profile (and, to a lesser extent, appearance), the tea reminds me of Himalayan oolongs. At first it is fruity, sweet, and woody with a strong minerality and mild tartness and a vegetal finish. Subsequent infusions further see the onset of some biting bitterness and notes of coffee and bread. The aftertaste is a bit more floral and cooling, so I’d say overall there is quite a lot packed into one session.

Aromas are quite pronounced too, dry leaves smell of roasted hazelnuts, croissant and stonefruits, while the wet leaf aroma is more floral with an apple note. Based on the aroma alone, I would actually place the tea somewhere in the vicinity of both dan cong oolongs (such as mi lan xiang) and lighter roasted rock oolongs.

The body is medium (unless you overbrew it, but then the astringency will kill any sort of mouthfeel) and the texture quite bubbly. I find that the liquor gets quite heavy as it cools down. The energy from the tea is both relaxing and sedating – somewhat distinct from your average sencha.

All in all, this is a remarkably aromatic and fairly complex tea – it makes me curious about the space of possibilities of tea production in Japan.

I’m desperate to sipdown some tea due to recent tea orders and aging teas in my cupboard.

This tea is from the Oolong group buy in 2016. I added the whole tea sample I received to my 100ml shibo so this is probably (surely) overleafed.
190F: wet leaf smells overwhelmingly of spinach, dark green
15s – woody, green, soft, green bean, creamy
20s – too strong, unpleasant green
10s – green
I don’t like this tea. Very green. I’mma go drink something else now.

Definitely interesting to see what kind of dark oolongs Japan produces. The flavor reminded me of Tie Luo Han Chinese oolong. Roasty and nutty, with some cocoa and fruit notes. Most noticeable, however, is that interesting pleasant sourness that TLH has (I called it “blue raspberry” in my TLH review – basically an underripe raspberry or sweet grapefruit flavor that produces a very pleasant sweet/sour flavor). Anyway, very engaging flavor profile – plenty of complexity.

However, it does lack the staying power of Tie Luo Han. After infusion #4, it started petering out. The leaves are small and give up their flavor very quickly. Keep steep times short for the first three infusions, and don’t bother rinsing it.

It would be interesting to brew this up at lower temps and longer steep times just to see what would happen. The leaves remind me of soft, delicate sencha leaves. Treating them with more finesse could yield interesting results. But, I only had 7g, so I brewed it like a hardy oolong and didn’t use kid gloves!

All that said, the price is right. Just over $5 for 50g. So, well worth purchasing, in my opinion. Certainly if you are drinking a bunch of sencha, this would be a welcome change of pace.
*
Dry leaf: dark cocoa, nutty, peanut shell, hints of cinnamon, red fruit, and citrus pith. In preheated vessel: strong roast nut and chocolate

Smell: Mexican chocolate, roasted peanut, dried red fruit

Taste: roasted pecan and almond, chocolate, cherry-infused milk chocolate, dried strawberries. Finish has chocolate cherry cordial, dried strawberries, underripe raspberries, and sweet grapefruit. Pleasant fruitiness and sweet/sour in aftertaste.

Prep: 140cc shibo, 4g, 85C water, rinse x1, 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 90s, 120s
Sessions with this tea: 1

Taste: Opens like a black tea, with typical tannic and cocoa notes. After steep 3 it settled into more familiar oolong territory, with some playful woody notes.

Body: thin/medium thickness, more astringency than expected on the first 2 steeps, but then settled down and was actually somewhat lackluster in terms of body. Mild energy, not very stimulating.

Leaf: normally don’t comment on this, but this leaf is quite chopped up. It steeped out longer than I expected given how chopped up this is, but I ended up using a shibo with straining edges rather than my gaiwan for this reason

Overall I need another session with this to evaluate. Not my favorite off the bat, because of the black tea opening, but interesting nonetheless

This was very oolongy with more cocoa notes in the roast that I usually do not expect from an oolong. Overall, it reminded me of toasted grains, oatmeal, and cedar wood, but it was on the sweeter end. I enjoyed it, but I am glad that the sample is not too big. It good enough for me to enjoy another session respecting it as a quality tea but not good enough for me to seek it out.

Nicely intense and fragrant aromas of dark chocolate and cedar. Palate has good depth and persistence. Interest comes mostly from its different style to many other Oolong teas that I have had.

Price paid: $10 USD for 50g
Buy again: Yes