TGFOP Tea Reviews (c) Silverneedles est.2005

QiLan Wuyi Oolong Tea .amazing-green-tea.com

Amazing-green-tea.com (review)(product link)
review sample courtesy of Julian @ amazing-green-tea.

pkg……………………..dry leaves…………..go!…………………….2min…………………and drink it

and 3min…………….drinked……………..another 3min……….4min………………..drunk & curious
pics a bit blurry, having jello hands lately… just a couple marginally white balanced, sorry, i’m kinda out of it.

Leaf: opened package & receive a strong smell like “dark chocolate“, ~8g leaf.

Method: 4g, ~4oz water, ~80-90C in cup, ~ 2min, 3, 3, 4. Other 3.5g went for ~3oz or less & 3min, 4, 4.

Taste: nice strong flavor, roasted dark oolong (not to the point of charcoal flavors), maybe i’d say burnt sugar?(speculating) , i didnt quite sense chocolate + some “green oolong” flavors = nice mix. I cant really define the flavors but i enjoyed the balance. The “green” tannins come out when steeped longer, makes for some astringency. Not really “green”, but …a hint of greenness… like adding pepper to food. With the longer infusions, you get the astringency & tannins, but also a nice, pretty long lasting sweet aftertaste everytime – take that you fickle pu-erhs…. A bit less “rounded” than i imagined from my first time with qilan, did not find the “silk” i remember – then again, i may have not found the optimum infusion parameters, and i’m not sure the notes from my first qilan were completely right.

Overall: ok but the variegated flavor keeps it exciting.

WordPress editor can be quite irritating especially when not in the mood for its crap. I asked them why there’s no button for changing font size and i got some nonsense answers…so you have to go in the html editing mode and add some silly script that changed from last year… ok? … but theres a friggin “insert more” <-wtf is this for & a stupid “quote button” ; the underline button is not next to the other style buttons. there’s a stupid erase formatting button, when they could’ve put that in the formating dropbox. yah dont get me started mmkay…

Organic Wuyi oolong (Qilan).Rishi Tea

had this at whole foods market, as always didnt take pic of tea leaf, so heres some area pics instead of Columbus Circle’s Time Warner Center,

cup 12oz $1.6

it was called “organic” …pass on that, and “wuyi oolong” …nice and…generic name,
for which reason i almost didnt buy- due to my previous experience with a wuyi (shui xian) oolong,
but it turned out alot different…

Flavor:
a deep smooth/silky/satin feeling, with a flavor i cant describe, pretty long lasting silky aftertaste
the astringency (not much) had notes of chocolate,
there was some minor roasted flavor,
didnt taste any green feels.

the leaf was about 1 cm cuts, mostly dark green mixed with brown

very good i liked it alot.

got home and internet-vestigated
i think its from rishi tea because ipot (the other sold in WF) doesnt have wuyi oolongs

Rishi says this “organic wuyi oolong” is the Qi Lan WuYi Oolong
http://www.rishi-tea.com/store/product.php?productid=5028&cat=23&page=1

Babelcarp says: qilan = Wuyi oolong, literally Rare Orchid (奇兰 or 奇蘭)

online rishi doesnt sell too expensive 4$/oz, 22/.5LB
…cant find anyone else selling this except rishi … !!!

100% Organic Wuyi Oolong Tea .Rishi Tea

Found at WholeFoods 8.99$ for 1.75oz in metal tin = 5$/oz = 80$/lb
online Rishi sells it cheaper than in 2007 (see bottom of this page) 1oz 3$, 1/2lb 17.75, 1lb 31$ … nice (hopefully this is not the 2008 crop ;))

to be updated- missing some words from tea notes lost due to shredder malfunction 😛
… its not supposed to shred tea notes

Leaf: its included with the nice container. smell a little green+tangy?! darjeelingish!

Smell: nutty + a little tobacco

Method: 4g, 190F, + 1cm water above the leaf

Flavor: dark oolong, some dark chocolate, nutty/buttery? (and in aroma), some tobacco (aroma)
~3g? 4oz, 200F, ~20s : “simple” but interesting and very enjoyable, nutty/buttery aroma & flavor, no “tannin” (at least while drinking hot), some astringency(dryness in mouth)

Overall: nice, lots of nutty, i like this wuyi more than most.

need to drink some more of this because i lost my tea notes again.

– oh noes not more tea !!! –
😀

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
here’s my first rishi qilan cup from 2007:

November 4, 2007 at 12:05 am

Superior Grade Rock Oolong Tea .Puerhshop.com

Puerhshop.com (review)(product link) . $4.99/50g/1.7oz = ~46$/lb.

Its nice and hot today, 93F inside,
…and here i am drinking hot tea… addiction sure does it to yah 🙂

Leaf: dark. smells like a dark oolong.

the pictures are of the entire 5g of tea.

Method: 5g in 4oz + 180F water x ~ 40sec. then 40s, then 1min. or something like that. i didnt take notes.

Taste: first i smelled a nice “nutty” oolong then tasted it as well + some roasted sensations on the palate/tongue. Almost no astringency detectable in this infusion. There is no tobacco leaf/no heavy roasted-charcoal (shui-xian)/no green feel.
The first dark oolong i like… aside from that Qilan i keep re-dreaming about… one day, oh yes, one day ALL YOUR QILAN ARE BELONG TO ME.
By the 3rd infusion or hotter water i get some astringency and some present aftertaste but its not bad.

Overall: like it !

Fairies Tears (TM) (Shui Xian Cha) (Wu Yi Oolong) .Zhong Guo Cha

Zhong Guo Cha O-2-8-3 Fairies Tears (TM) (Shui Xian Cha) (Wu Yi Shan Cha) * sample
50g /$7 = 3.97/oz = 63.5/lb

leaf looks like a wuyi, maybe smaller than the shui xian from WHF, but lighter/varied-green+brown in color.

steeped smells of some roasted wuyi, taste: roasted like the xiao hong pao, but not completely charcoaled like this other Shui Xian(from WHF) i had, today maybe my mouth was not clean but there might have been some sour? there was also a tendency toward some sort of smooth-silkyness -small and not the predominant sensation… it still reminded me of qi lan 🙂 yes i am obsessed… i luv qilan….*there i said it*

again, as i like to repeat myself like a broken record or a drunken monkey: roasted oolong tasting toasted not on my tongue to be tasted. like that? sounds like one of those tongue twisters ….its the 3:25am side of the brain.

*intl tongue twisters*
bian³ dan⁴ chang², ban³ deng⁴ kuan¹, bian³ dan⁴ bi³ ban³ deng⁴ chang²,
ban³ deng⁴ bi³ bian³ dan⁴ kuan¹, bian³ dan⁴ bang³ zai⁴ le(light tone)
ban³ deng⁴ shang⁴, ban³ deng⁴ bu² rang⁴ bian³ dan⁴ bang³ zai⁴ ban³
deng⁴ shang⁴, bian³ dan⁴ fei¹ yao⁴ bang³ zai⁴ ban³ deng⁴ shang⁴.

i dare you to say that fast 3 times…. i double dare you…

Xiao Hong Pao Cha (Wu Yi Oolong) .Zhong Guo Cha

Zhong Guo Cha O-2-3-2 Xiao Hong Pao Cha (Wu Yi Shan Cha) * sample
50g /$10 = 5.68/oz = 68.2/lb

leaf looks like a wuyi, maybe smaller than shui xian, but lighter in color

as soon as i put it in water a familiar smell came about: it was the roasted vapors as i remember from ShuiXian Wuyi.WHF

taste was a little better- the roastedness seemed to have some more complexity, didnot taste like charcoal, so its not as badly roasted as the shuixian. but i feel no sweetness or softness/silkyness as the qi lan

dont have much to use here, so i hope i infused it good…

concluzjn: roasted tasteing teas are not my flavor yet, … except the qilan 😛 man i got to get me some of that…