Category: Review

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Sunny M’s Formosa High Mountain

Formosa High Mountain by Sunny M
Oolong Tea / Straight
$48.00 for 100g

Sunny M has provided me with Formosa High Mountain for the purposes of writing an honest review.

First Impressions

Formosa High Mountain comes in a sealed, resealable pouch. There’s a thin almost fishing-wire like seal that is easy to pull in order to open the pouch. There’s a funny little disc on the back to allow you to push air out of the bag – what a fun feature to help maintain the freshness of your tea! This is one of the teas that I was able to taste at the 2020 Vancouver Tea Festival and I was super stoked when Sunny M offered some of this lovely oolong tea to me to review.

Formosa High Mountain is an Taiwanese oolong tea that is exclusive to Sunny M, which I found interesting. It’s roasted, whole leaf, and natural (no additional flavouring). The leaves are gorgeous – a lovely mix of light and dark green shades and you can see the details in the leaves, so beautiful. The dry leaf has a nice aroma – it smells roasted, floral, and grassy.

Preparation

Sunny M recommends steeping Formosa High Mountain in 85-90°C (185-194°F) for 20-40 seconds. I opted to do an initial steep with 85°C water for 30 seconds.

First Taste

Formosa High Mountain steeps to a pale yellow colour. There’s a light roasted aroma. The flavour is a mix of nutty, floral, and sweet. The packaging suggests a chrysanthemum-like flavour and I can taste it – although how much is the power of suggestion? I like the lightness in the flavour, it’s pleasant and easy to drink.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Formosa High Mountain five times (six steeps total), adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the colour got more golden yellow, with a nice flavour to it. The flavour got more sweet, with hints of vanilla as I steeped it – it made for such a pleasant steeping session.

My Overall Impression

I loved Sunny M’s Formosa High Mountain. This oolong tea was a treat from dry leaf to steep to just admiring those pretty leaves after being done with them. While the tea itself is on the more expensive side, it’s nice to know that it holds up really well to being resteeped and has some great flavour. It’s definitely one that you’ll want to resteep over and over again until you get all of the flavour from the leaves, and just enjoy the floral and sweet notes that mingle with the nutty flavours. It’s a well-balanced oolong and it’s just nice to know how nature just creates a nice flavour from tea leaves.

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Wild Orchard Green Tea’s Late Spring

Late Spring by Wild Orchard Green Tea
Green Tea / Straight
$12.00 for 35g

First Impressions

Late Spring is a green tea from Wild Orchard Green Tea that I picked up during the 2020 Vancouver Tea Festival. This green tea wasn’t available for sampling in steeped for, but I did have the opportunity to smell it and it was just intriguing. The tea comes inside of a tin (with a little clear circle sticker over the opening. Inside is a sealed silver pouch.

The leaves themselves are gorgeous. Wiry, varying shades of green, with a lovely vegetal aroma to it. It has notes that remind me of asparagus and hints of floral notes. Late Spring is harvested between May and June, basically right before summer begins. This organic green tea is from South Korea – just check out those shades of green!

Preparation

Wild Orchard Green Tea recommends steeping Late Spring in 176°F (80°C) water for 1 minute. I opted to do an initial steep at 175°F (79°C) for 1 minute, because that’s the lowest temperature setting available on my variable temperature kettle (Breville IQ Kettle review).

First Taste

Late Spring steeps to a golden yellow after just the short one minute steep. There’s a nice aroma to it – it reminds me a lot of the dry leaf aroma (asparagus, grassy, vegetal notes). There’s a slight hint of floral in the background. The flavour of Late Spring is interesting. I found it to be sweet, floral, strong vegetal notes (that still remind me of asparagus!), and there’s a mild astringency at the tail end of each sip that is coupled with some nice umami notes with a slight saline quality to it. Just fascinatingly contrasting flavours that somehow all work together because it’s not a bad cup of tea.

A Second Cup?

Wild Orchard Green Tea suggests that Late Spring can be steeped 2-3 times, which means up to 2 resteeps. This obviously means that I had to push it and attempt four total steeps (three resteeps). I added an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent resteep, and found that the flavour remained fairly similar to the initial steep. The umami notes lessened while the astringency stayed the same. I found that the flavour got more vegetal and continued to remind me of asparagus, while the floral notes just faded away. It did well with being resteeped and I found even the third resteep was still quite tasty.

My Overall Impression

I loved Wild Orchard Green Tea’s Late Spring. I found the flavour of this green tea to just be fascinating because it has so many nuances to it, that it’s difficulty to simply describe yet somehow it all just works together. While I didn’t particularly like the astringency, it balanced well against the umami quality and the interesting vegetal and floral flavours. I just found it to be a nice experience, because a lot of the time when you do get a spring harvest, you don’t know when in the harvest season that the leaves were harvested/plucked. I find that early spring (or first flush) harvested teas are quite sweet because of how tender the leaves are, so it’s nice to experience the leaves that have been allowed to mature a bit before being harvested and processed.

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The Chinese Tea Shop’s Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh

Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh by The Chinese Tea Shop
Pu’erh / Straight
$18.00 for 20g

First Impressions

I know, I know, I bought pu’erh. It’s just so out of character for me! I’ll reach for basically any other type of true tea before pu’erh (I’m terrible, I know). Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh is a purchase that I made from The Chinese Tea Shop at the 2020 Vancouver Tea Festival that I actually made on impulse. (That may apply to most of the purchases I made at the tea festival… if I’m being honest).

Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh comes in a resealable plastic pouch with a simple label on it. I found from the product page online that this tea is from Yunnan, Xishuang Banna Region, it’s considered a sheng (or raw) pu’erh, and it was harvested in the 1990s.

The leaves are dark, there’s a bit of colour variation throughout the leaves which is nice to see. The aroma of the dry leaf is a mix of earth and mushrooms with a hint of mineral quality to it that reminds me of the smell of mineral water. It’s basically intriguing and also one of the reasons that I wanted to buy it – who doesn’t want to drink tea from the 1990s?

Preparation

The Chinese Tea Shop recommends steeping pu’erh in 95-100°C (203-212°F) water, and also recommends using the gongfu method of steeping tea (which is basically seconds for very short steeps. I opted to do an initial steep of Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh for 1 minute (60 seconds) with 100°C (212°F) water as I was steeping it in western style tea pot.

First Taste

Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh steeps to a golden peachy colour pretty quickly. There’s a strong earthy flavour to it that continues to remind me of mushrooms with a subtle sweetness throughout. It’s pleasant and enjoyable, which I do find to be a surprise to me since I normally don’t gravitate towards pu’erhs but here I am – buying and drinking it.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh six times (seven steeps total), adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the flavour got stronger in resteep 1 and 2, and then got weaker after that. The flavour of the tea remained consistent throughout all the steeps.

My Overall Impression

I loved The Chinese Tea Shop’s Ancient Camphor Wild Tree Loose Leaf Pu’erh. While I did make this purchase on whim – because why not? – I found the dry leaf aroma and the steeped tea to be both intriguing and inviting. I really enjoyed the flavours from this raw pu’erh, and it was really nice to get the opportunity to try out a tea that’s been aged. I think the flavour is really nice with that earthy quality, and I really liked how well the tea resteeped and stayed pretty true to the initial steep.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.