Superfine Taiwan Ali Shan Oolong Tea
22
Percentile
4 ratings |
|
Commercial Description
...Sunshine time is short, as a result, the astringent substance in the tea leaves is reduced, thus the tea becomes sweeter. In the mean time, temperature in daytime and in night is distinctive, which make the tea tree grows slowly. Therefore, the leaf is soft and thick with high content of pectin substance...
Ratings & Reviews
Page 1 of 1 page with 4 reviews
70 Aroma: 7/10 Flavor: 3/5 Value: 3/5Amanda (338 reviews) on Dec. 14th, 2014
The aroma of this tea is really quite sweet, like sesame candies with honey (ever had those things, they are delicious!) along with a touch of honeysuckle nectar and sweet cream, the cream notes border on buttery. Ok, so this just might be a Southern thing, but it reminds me a little of that super creamy honey butter for biscuits, yes I have been guilty of just eating the butter and forgoing the biscuit.
The first steep is light in taste but powerful in mouth feel. It is so smooth that I will go out of a limb and say it is silky, it does not fill the mouth, it caresses. The taste is sweet, blending yeasty bread and honeysuckles with a distinct green quality, not vegetal, just green. I find myself wondering if the taste is really that mild or if the sensation of the tea is so intense that I am distracted by it, a very real possibility.
63 Aroma: 6/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5SarsyPie (119 reviews) on May. 17th, 2014
I thought this oolong was ok, but not amazing. I've been drinking some outstanding oolongs lately. Maybe it's becoming harder to impress me!
I was feeling very lazy this AM, so I made the mistake of brewing this grandpa style with about a tsp of leaves in my Dr. Who mug at 208 degrees. I didn't get many pleasant flavors or aromas. It just tasted kind of weak. As it sat and cooled, it started leaving a kind of dry feeling in my mouth, but it didn't really get stronger.
This afternoon, I decided I should brew this properly, so I used 5 g of leaves in my gong fu set and did some shorter steeps, still at 208 degrees. The tea was better this way, but still seemed weak. It did smell and taste green with some light florals, but something just seemed to be missing.
I only did about 3 steeps before I stopped getting much of anything out of the leaves. I'm thankful to Alex for the sample. I just don't think this is the oolong for me.
13 Aroma: 1/10 Flavor: 1/5 Value: 1/5Val1 (6 reviews) on Nov. 27th, 2013
Taste resembles brewed field grass: very crude, plain, and left my stomach cramping for whole day.
77 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 3/5Alex Zorach (1453 reviews) on Oct. 18th, 2013
I enjoyed this oolong but, in contrast to the Dong Ding I recently sampled from TeaVivre, it did not jump out at me as outstanding quality, and it was perhaps a bit too smooth or mild for my tastes. I also found it was comparable in overall character to other examples of Ali Shan oolong that I've gotten for a much lower price.
Dry leaf is not as aromatic as some of the other oolongs, has a faint floral, herbaceous, and slightly skunky aroma.
Upon brewing this produces an interesting cup. I've found that Alishan often has a more complex and slightly more alien aroma than some of the other Taiwanese oolongs. This cup is buttery smooth, and has a very green character, yet has some darker qualities in the aroma. Unfortuanately, it also smells quite soapy to me.
There's almost a hint of bitter greens, like sauteed watercress. I really like this quality. I dislike the soapy quality though. I find that this tea tastes much better hot, and as it cools, the unpleasant aromatic tones come out more.
Overall, my impression was that this tea was too smooth to the point of the flavor being a bit uninteresting. There's also so little astringency that it seems thin-bodied. Even with a slightly longer steeping time, it seemed a bit watery. I found that I needed to use more leaf than average (a little over one teaspoon of dry leaf, which expands to A LOT of big, thick leaves).
I was able to easily make 2 infusions, but I found that the soapy quality was magnified in the second cup, and it still tasted a bit thin-bodied. I used boiling water and Western brewing. I found this tea to be tricky to brew to satisfaction--I experimented a bit, and one time it came out very enjoyable but the other times, not so much. I think it comes out thin if brewed too weakly, but can be soapy in later infusions, and I can't figure out exactly what made it come out better some times than others.
Good, but nowhere as easy to enjoy as the Dong Ding I more recently sampled from TeaVivre, and I'd take that tea any day. I also have tried other, inexpensive Ali Shan oolongs, such as the one from Tradition brand, which I actually preferred to this because of their bolder flavor and greater astringency, which led to a richer, more full-bodied cup without having to use as much leaf.
Page 1 of 1 page with 4 reviews
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