Author: Michelle

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Oollo Tea’s Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong

Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong by Oollo Tea
Oolong Tea / Straight
$12.00 for 25g

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This is my 150th tea review on One More Steep! Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong is also called Pear Mountain High Mountain Oolong on Oollo Tea’s website.

First Impressions

I bought Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong from Oollo Tea’s booth at the 2016 Vancouver Tea Festival based off of the recommendation from one of the lovely ladies there. I just love the classy look of the white and silver packaging, it’s just very nice to look at. Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong is described as have “peony and lily” notes, while having a “refreshing long aftertaste”. This tea is grown at 2000m elevation in Cuiruan, located on Pear Mountain.

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The dry leaf of Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong has a very light floral aroma to it, the tightly rolled pearls of tea are beautiful to look at.  This specific type of oolong is called qingxing oolong (or green heart oolong).

Preparation

Oollo Tea recommends steeping this oolong tea for 2-5 minutes in 95°C (203°F) water. My initial steep was for 2 minutes.

First Taste

Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong steeps to a pale yellow for the initial. The tea itself has a great floral aroma to it that wafts up to you when you pour it into a tea cup. On first sip, I found that there was a light sweetness to that mingles well with the floral flavours. The taste of the tea does linger for a while in the mouth after it’s gone. It’s a very smooth tea, there’s zero bitterness, no astringency, and has a great mouthfeel to it because the tea just coats the entire mouth with the beautiful floral flavours.

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A Second Cup?

I always resteep my oolongs, and Oollo Tea suggests that the tea can be steeped up to 5 times so I had to give it a go. The first resteep, I noted that the liquor of the tea was a more golden, darker yellow than the first steep. There was a mix of floral with some nutty notes to it. There’s still the light sweetness, and the long lingering aftertaste. I continued to resteep Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong until I reached seven resteeps (eight steeps total with the same leaves). I found that the flavour profile of the tea reached a nice balance of floral and nutty by steep three, and the intensity was fairly well retained until the sixth overall steep. The seventh and eighth steep were lacking in flavour intensity, but the flavours were still there. For each sequential steep, I add an extra 30 seconds to the steeping time.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved Oollo Tea’s Cuiruan High Mountain Oolong. The flavour profile is complex, and I love how the tea tastes and changes with increasing steeps. This tea holds up well with an amazing number of resteeps, and I could have continued past the eighth steep since the flavour was still there, albeit not as strong. I think this tea could easily be paired with a savoury meal with the nutty flavours or with sweets, since it has those floral notes. It’s a delicious tea and I would definitely recommend resteeping this one throughout the day to experience all the changes with each steep.

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DavidsTea’s English Breakfast

English Breakfast by DavidsTea
Black Tea / Straight
$4.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

I am always a sucker for a good straight tea, and I cannot believe it’s taken me so long to try DavidsTea’s English Breakfast. Maybe it’s because they have so many other teas to try, or because I was on an oolong kick for the longest time (because, let’s face it, oolong is one of my favourites), but I do love drinking black teas, and I do love trying straight black teas so lets get to it! English Breakfast is a straight black tea, consisting of black tea leaves from Sri Lanka.

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The dry leaf has nice floral notes to it, and a natural sweet smell that reminds me a bit of the smell of honey. The leaves themselves don’t appear to be very large, so I can’t say much about that.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping English Breakfast for 4-7 minutes in ‘near-boiling water’ (90-95°C/194-203°F). I did my first initial steep for 5 minutes.

First Taste

English Breakfast steeps to a nice deep golden orange, it has a great honeyed smell to it. The overall aroma I get from this black tea is one of floral mixed with a bit of maltiness. I found that the tea had no bitterness or astringency when steeped for 5 minutes – always nice. The honeyed taste to this black tea just adds a little touch of sweetness to each sip, which makes it quite enjoyable.

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I added a tiny bit of honey and evaporated milk to this tea. The honey helps accentuate the honeyed flavour in the tea, and the floral notes were a bit tempered by the milk, but still tasty.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped English Breakfast three times, adding an additional 30 seconds per subsequent resteep. I found it held its flavour well, and still made for a peppy cup of tea. The overall flavour of honeyed and floral notes stays pretty much the same for two of the three steeps, the third resteep was a bit weak and required a bit more honey to make it palatable. If you’re not one to add anything to your cup of tea, I would keep it to a total of two resteeps.

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My Overall Impression

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I liked DavidsTea’s English Breakfast. I generally do like straight black teas, and English Breakfast did not disappoint. I love the natural floral and honeyed notes in this tea – both dry and when steeped. The fact that it resteeps to a decent number of times is an added bonus, considering how small the leaves are. While it’s perfectly fine straight, I did enjoy it better with a bit of honey and evaporated milk (personal preference!). The ability of this tea to be resteeped adds to the value in the tea, and it isn’t terribly expensive as far as straight black teas go, which is a nice added bonus.

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Tazo’s Awake English Breakfast

Awake English Breakfast by Tazo Tea
Black Tea / Straight
$2.50 for 61g (24 sachets)

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First Impressions

Just a note on the price, I bought two boxes of Tazo Tea while they were on sale for 2 boxes for $5.00. Regular price is usually higher ($4.99-6.99/box, depending on retailer). The box itself is cardboard, I like recyclable packaging. The tea bags come individually packaged in paper and the tea bags themselves feel like they’re biodegradable.

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Awake English Breakfast is made up of “a blend of black teas”. There’s a malty aroma to the black tea that reminds me a lot of Assam tea, so it wouldn’t surprise me of one of the black teas in this blend is Assam. I did rip open the tea bag to see what it looked like inside, I was not surprised that the tea leaves inside of the tea bag were tiny, definitely not the whole leaf tea that I’ve been getting used to. I mostly bought the bagged tea for the convenience factor that tea bags have when it comes to having tea on the go (where I work, I don’t have a desk and I can’t have open mugs).

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Preparation

Tazo Tea recommends steeping Awake English Breakfast in 100°C (212°F) water for 5 minutes. I followed the steeping directions.

First Taste

Awake English Breakfast steeps to a deep orange, it’s got a great smell to it that reminds me of other breakfast teas. I think 5 minutes are far too long. I ended up trying again (and again) with other tea bags and found that 3 minutes was a good amount of time. 5 minutes – I wound up with a very astringent and bitter cup of tea. Less than 3 minutes and it was just very weak. 3 minutes was a good length of steeping time because I wound up with a strong cup of tea with a very strong malty flavour, but minimal astringency and no bitterness. 5 minutes is definitely far too long for this tea (perhaps if it was whole leaf tea, it would be a different story).

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Awake English Breakfast was good on its own, but also good with some honey and evaporated milk. It helped tone down what little astringency there was with the 3 minute steep.

A Second Cup?

Awake English Breakfast is a one steep wonder, I found that a second steep resulted in a very watery cup of tea.

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My Overall Impression

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I thought that Tazo Tea’s Awake English Breakfast was just okay. As far as breakfast teas go, Awake English Breakfast is okay. I don’t recommend their recommended steep time (5 minutes is just far too long!) and I wouldn’t buy at full retail price ($0.30/sachet vs. $0.10/sachet). It’s very convenient to have tea prepackaged into tea bags, which is what I typically have when I’m at work (each to steep and easy to discard). If you can find it on sale, I would recommend snagging some Awake English Breakfast for some black tea on the go. For the love of tea, don’t over steep this one and pull the tea bag out at the 3 minute mark – life is too short for a bad cup of tea.

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