I was in a different city today, so I hit up the local Asian grocery stores to find some Ten Ren and Foojoy teas to try out.

This tea is mysteriously / generically labeled simply as "Oolong Tea." The tea brews to a nice golden amber color, a bit lighter than the Ten Ren Tieguanyin, basically a dark wulong. The aroma is rich and roasted with some sweetness and floral notes. Quite nice, really. The taste is a bit rough but clean, with some astringency and typical qualities for this style of wulong. One thing that struck me is that while the aroma has some complexity, the flavor of this tea is quite a bit simpler. For those looking for more flavor or complexity in a bagged wulong tea, Ten Ren's other wulongs are probably a better choice. When brewed at its strongest, this tea's flavor approaches that of Ten Ren's Tieguanyin.

For a medium-bodied wulong in a bag, this is not a bad choice at all. I have read that this particular Ten Ren tea is similar to wulong teas served at Chinese restaurants in the U.S. Although I have not had wulong tea at Chinese restaurants yet, I can imagine that this tea would be very fitting in that role.

Update: Testing this tea side-by-side with Foojoy's China Classic Oolong and Ten Ren's Tieguanyin (both also in tea bags), this tea was the least favorable of the three. It also became apparent to me at that time why the Tieguanyin costs slightly more and is characterized as a higher grade.

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote: on May 31st, 2011

I also have tried this tea and I had a very similar reaction to it, but it was so long ago that I do not feel comfortable writing a review. When I have decent-quality

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