Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Nutty and moonlight oolong

I tasted the moonlight before the nutty, for reason of its appearance. It has silver hairy young buds mixed with dark green leaves.

The first brew was a quick 10 s pour, light with floral aroma; the 2nd brew was a 1 minute steep, I tasted sourness, bitterness and wood/compose, sour stiff and cinnamon sweet after taste. 3rd and 4th was a minute each, tasted similar to 2nd but less floral.

Nutty is the least attractive looking leaves among the 3 samples. It's also the reason I saved it for the last, however to my surprise, it tasted the best of the 3.

Quick 1st pour - 10s, clean mouthfeel, very floral, sweet in taste; 2nd was 30 s steep, stronger aroma of floral and fresh mulch, hint of mint, sweet pu-erh like after taste.

Both the Snow and Moonlight oolong resemble sun dried peony. Nutty is high in floral aroma, hence more like a oolong, it's also less oxidized than the other two.

My preference is Nutty, Snow and Moonlight in that order. However I won't replace my TGY and high mountain oolong with the Darjeeling varieties any time soon. They are more of the European afternoon tea choice, the term oolong associates with these tea does not match the Chinese oolong in "spirit", perhaps a imitation of technique, but without the essence.

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