Tag: Oolong Tea

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Aroma Tea House’s Tieguanyin Oolong

Anxi Tieguanyin by Aroma Tea House
Oolong Tea / Straight
$12.00 for 100g

First Impressions

Anxi Tieguanyin is one of my Vancouver Tea Festival purchases that I’m finally getting around to reviewing and sharing. This oolong came to me in a cardboard tube with a bright green label telling me what type of oolong it is. The leaves are tightly bunched together, with an almost reddish-brown hue to the colour of the dry leaf.

Aroma wise, this straight oolong has a woody aroma to it, with a hint of stone fruit and some roasted notes to it.

Preparation

There weren’t preparation recommendations on the packaging. I did an initial steep of Anxi Tieguanyin in 195°F (90°C) for 2 minutes.

First Taste

Anxi Tieguanyin steeps to a beautiful golden yellow, it’s quite vibrant and very pleasant to look at. There’s a nice honeyed sweetness to the tea, a light amount of creaminess with a pleasant fruity flavour that reminds me of dried apricots. There’s some roasted notes to this tea, that have a touch of woodsy flavour to it, but it’s not overwhelming the rest of the flavours.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Anxi Tieguanyin a total of six times (seven steeps total), adding an extra 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the fruity notes got stronger while the woodsy flavours subsided into the background. Very pleasant mix of flavours and it’s well balanced.

My Overall Impression

I loved Aroma Tea House’s Anxi Tieguanyin. I found the flavour of this oolong to be really enjoyable, with a nice balance of flavours between the sweet, roasted, and woody notes. It resteeped really well, and made for an enjoyable tea drinking session. It was complex enough to hold my interest throughout each steep, and just had a well-balanced flavour profile that made me want to drink more. I think it could have done a few more steeps, since the sixth resteep that I did was still quite flavourful.

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BrewTime’s Oolong Tea

Oolong Tea by BrewTime
Oolong Tea / Straight
28 sachets

I received BrewTime’s Oolong Tea as a gift, I was unable to find information online on where to purchase or cost. Oolong Tea was purchased in Hong Kong.

First Impressions

Oolong Tea came to me in a simple card box with some information on it – mix of Chinese and English. There were steeping instructions, best before date, and information about the umbrella company (The Dairy Farm Company, in case anyone was interested). Inside of the box was a sealed plastic pouch holding the 28 tea bags.

All of the tea bags came individually wrapped, and each bag was pretty standard – nothing too exciting to comment on. The tea bags have a very mild earthy aroma to them, and when I ripped one open to take a look inside, I saw mostly tiny bits of tea leaves. These are not the tightly rolled large tea leaves that I’ve come to know and love when it comes to oolong (still, going to give it a try). There were no ingredients listed on the packaging, but from what I can tell there’s only oolong tea leaves in the tea bags.

Preparation

BrewTime recommends steeping Oolong Tea in boiling water (100°C/212°F) for 2-3 minutes. My initial steep of Oolong Tea was for 2 minutes.

First Taste

Oolong Tea steeps to be quite a dark reddish brown. The aroma is very earthy, it reminds me a bit of portobello mushrooms (which I love). It’s a bit musky, which I think some oolong lovers may find a little bit off-putting, I’m not sure how long ago the tea was packaged. I found it have a very full-bodied flavour, it was very strong and tastes the way that I expected it to from the aroma of the steeped tea. The overall flavour reminds me of some roasted oolongs that I’ve had before in the past.

A Second Cup?

I attempted to resteep Oolong Tea and found the flavour to just not be quite enough. I would say that Oolong Tea is good for just one steep, which really isn’t too surprising to me given the fact that the tea leaves are quite small in the tea bag.

My Overall Impression

I thought that BrewTime’s Oolong Tea was just okay. I love a good oolong, and I think this one does have some great flavours in it. A nice earthiness, but it lacks the quality that I’m really used to in an oolong. The leaves are very small pieces, and it just doesn’t resteep well because I think all the flavour got sapped out in the initial steep. I think it’s an okay oolong to take out with me or to steep at work (since I don’t work in an office setting, I really can’t have a teapot set up), but not something I’d use for long steeping sessions at home.

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Aroma Tea House’s Ginseng Oolong

Ginseng Oolong by Aroma Tea House
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$14.00 for 100g

First Impressions

Starting off the week with an oolong review – one of my favourite types of teas for the last little while now! Ginseng Oolong was a Vancouver Tea Festival purchase that I recently rediscovered in my tea stash as I was organizing it. Ginseng Oolong came in a cardboard tube with a bright green label telling me what it is.

The leaves of Ginseng Oolong are a dark greeny-brown, with an almost dusty appearance to the tea leaves. There’s a mild ginseng aroma to the leaves. It’s not a knock-you-over type of ginseng aroma that a lot of Chinese medicine shops have (if you’ve ever entered a shop that carries traditional medicinal ingredients, you’ll know what I’m referring to!). Ginseng Oolong consists of oolong tea and natural ginseng flavouring.

Preparation

There were no steeping instructions to be found on the packaging or on the product page. I opted to steep Ginseng Oolong in 195°F (91°C) with my Breville IQ Kettle‘s oolong tea setting for 2 minutes.

First Taste

Ginseng Oolong steeps to a light golden yellow after just the 2 minute steep. The aroma from the cup of tea was primarily that of the oolong tea – with a light ginseng aroma. The flavour of the tea is a mix of earthiness, ginseng, and a mild astringency that wasn’t off-putting, it added a bit of mouth pucker to the tea itself.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Ginseng Oolong five times, adding an extra 30 seconds for each steep. The tea became a deeper golden yellow, peaking in colour for the third resteep. The ginseng flavour was strongest for the second resteep, while the earthiness from the oolong base peaked at the third resteep. The last resteep (sixth steep overall) still had the ginseng and earthy aromas, although it was weaker.

My Overall Impression

I loved Aroma Tea House’s Ginseng Oolong. This oolong tea has a lovely flavour to it, and resteeped so well. It’s definitely a tea that I would recommend resteeping multiple times in order to fully exhaust the leaves out of all that beautiful flavour. It’s a gorgeous colour, and makes for a good cup. I think this would pair really well with something savoury.

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