Ginseng Oolong
 |
|
Commercial Description
...selected from the high grades of Oolong Tea grown by Ten Fu in China, and using the same grade level of North American ginseng available. When tasted, you not only enjoy fragrant aroma, you also get the nourishment of ginseng.
Ratings & Reviews
Page 1 of 1 page with 1 review
85 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5Difflugia (170 reviews) on Jun. 19th, 2017
Before discussing the tea, I want to mention a little about the branding and packaging. First, the "Ten Fu's" font and graphics look like they're intentionally similar to Ten Ren's trademark logo, but Ten Fu's and Ten Ren are different companies. Second, cans of Ten Fu's tea include a Taiwan logo on the can, which many brands of Taiwanese oolong teas display, including Ten Ren's King's Tea, which this tea seems to be a clone of. As far as I know, however, this tea's origin is mainland China. While I really like this tea and drink quite a lot of it personally, shady marketing practices should always be considered a red flag. Caveat emptor.
The dry tea is dark green, has a strong aroma and smells sweet, rich and lightly grassy. The tea smells wonderful while brewing.
The tea's flavor isn't quite as rich as the aroma, but it's still flavorful and has a nice body to it. The taste starts out mildly astringent and lightly fruity, reminiscent of ripe plum skins. The ginseng becomes apparent in the finish as a slightly bittersweet flavor reminiscent of licorice. The ginseng flavor lasts a long time on the palate. If you savor the finish before the next sip, a cup of this tea will last you a while.
I usually drink this tea Western style, brewing the first cup for four minutes. Even so, while subsequent steepings have much less ginseng flavor, the oolong is high enough quality to get one or two more brews from the same leaves.
This tea is so similar tasting to the Ten Ren fourth grade King's Tea that I have a hard time telling which tea I have from a single cup. Tasting them side by side, the Ten Ren tea has a slightly richer flavor overall, probably indicating a slightly higher grade of the base oolong tea. Ten Fu's tea tastes slightly more strongly of ginseng, which may be a pro or con depending on how much you like ginseng.
In any case, the differences between the two are subtle and Ten Fu's tea is a little more than half the price of Ten Ren's 103 King's Tea ($2.03/oz compared to $3.34/oz).
Page 1 of 1 page with 1 review
