51 Tasting Notes
I’ve been drinking this lovely tea all day! Dry, it smells nutty with sweet caramel notes, so I had high hopes for it to taste as good as it smells. This tea delivers! It has a gorgeous, nutty scent and flavour. Mildly sweet, a warm and soothing brew – not too strong, not too weak; just right!
I made it exactly to the directions, brewed it for 4mins at just under 90 degrees temperature. I see from the post that you can brew multiple infusions from it, although when I tried a second brewing, it was really bland. I will try it again using the 1 min brew time instructions here on Steepster and see how that goes. I will definitely have fun experimenting with this tea, mixing it up, perhaps even adding some sort of sweetener to it, just to see what notes pop out next time.
If you don’t mind my saying, to get more than one infusion out of it, you may want to try your first infusion at a minute or less. I am able to get at least three decent steepings out of any oolong when I start the first steep at about 45 – 60 seconds, then add about 30- 45 seconds for each successive steeping.
I am grateful for any and all advice you have, thank you so much SimpliciTea, as I have a lot to learn. I’m definitely going to try that next time :) Thanks again! :))
You’re welcome.
You can start at even shorter steep times (as short as 5 seconds), which is sometimes referred to as Gongfu steeping, although it’s usually done in a Gaiwan with a larger ratio of leaf to water. But with that method I have heard it easy to get five or more flavorful steepings. Here is one link to more details on Gongfu brewing http://verdanttea.com/teas/hand-picked-autumn-tieguanyin/#brewing (look for the heading, “Gongfu Style Brewing”). Happy steeping!