Method: 1 heaping tsp, 182 degrees, grandpa style

Dry Leaf Aroma: Floral and Fruity. Sweet. Smelled a little like baking cookies.

Brewing Aroma: Vanilla and lightly citrus

Flavor: This had a very thick and buttery feel. It reminded me of a very light vegetable broth. This was a very hearty tea! I think it would be especially well-suited to cooler weather drinking.

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote: on June 8th, 2014

I've had other oolongs from the Shan Lin Xi district of Nantou, and I liked them very much...I'm not sure if they were the same cultivar as this or not.

SarsyPie wrote: on June 11th, 2014

One of the things I like about this company is that they list that info. Now that I am getting a better handle on tasting these different teas, their origins are more interesting to me.

Alex Zorach wrote: on June 11th, 2014

I also love when companies list info like that!

Even though I've tried a lot of teas, for most teas, I don't have a great sense of separating the influence of region, from cultivar, from production method, but there are a few cases where I can cleanly separate them. I find it easier to taste the difference between the different cultivars when I'm tasting the less-oxidized, less-roasted oolongs, than the roasted ones.

One thing though that has tasted really different, has been trying certain green or black teas produced outside their normal region, in attempts to emulate the original style. An example would be Keemun, which I've tried from Hubei (it is normally from Anhui province). There, the stuff from Hubei tastes noticeably different, and I've tried different batches from different companies that were different from each other, but pretty easily recognizable as the Hubei stuff.

Tie Guan Yin is one of those teas produced in different regions, but even though I've tried 4 examples from Taiwan, and at least 11 or so from Fujian, China (where it originated), I don't have a good sense of how the region influences the flavor. I also have detected an astounding variety of aroma in Tie Guan Yin, even just looking at the ones from Anxi, Fujian. Some of them smell like peaches or stone fruit, others more like orchid to me. I assume this probably has to do with oxidation and roast, or some other aspect of processing.

When companies provide more info, I like it because it helps me learn these things!

SarsyPie wrote: on June 11th, 2014

Have you ever considered adding a spot on the tea page to list the specific cultivar? It might come in handy, some day. I think that as tea becomes more popular, tea drinkers become more sophisticated and pay more attention to details like that.

Also, as I was reading your comments above regarding regions, I was thinking it would be great to have an extra field on the Ratings page for that info, since you already capture it. Right now, it looks like I can sort by Review, Brand, Rating or Date. But if someone wanted to explore the variations in flavor by regions, that would give them a way to sort and group teas by area, so they could review their tasting notes. It would be even better to sort by Style and then by Region. Since I am on an oolong kick, I could sort all my oolongs and then compare my notes by region. I think it could be an interesting learning tool!

Alex Zorach wrote: on June 11th, 2014

Yes! I've been unsatisfied with our classification scheme for oolongs in particular for some time, because for them, cultivar is very important, and because, for a particular cultivar, the tea may vary hugely in terms of style.

So I was thinking of adding a cultivar field, which would probably be most used for oolongs for the time being, and then changing the way oolong styles are done on the site, so that style only covers level of oxidation and roast. For example, we could have "modern green style" and "traditional green style" and "moderate roast" and "heavy roast" and so on. I'm not 100% sure exactly what different styles I'd like to list...it seems a bit of a tricky idea, and probably subjective and non-standardized, but I think it would be a huge improvement over the current scheme, even if done somewhat arbitrarily or haphazardly.

I also think sorting by region is a good idea...I'll have to take a peek at that page though, it may be a bit crowded and I don't want to add too many fields, but that is certainly an important one.

Thank you so much for all your feedback and suggestions! I really appreciate it!

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