Gaba Oolong

Owes its flavors to oxidation levels between green & black tea.


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Feb 27th, '17, 14:11
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Gaba Oolong

by Muadeeb » Feb 27th, '17, 14:11

About a year ago, I gave my mom some GABA tea from a bag I bought back in 2012. She mentioned to me that she really liked that tea and found it relaxing, and if I could get some more for her. I bought it at a local shop and am trying to find an online source that I can order from and have it shipped to her.

Since I haven't bought any GABA tea since 2012, I was curious if anyone had a good source for it. I know a lot of places have a version of it on the menu, but it seems like such a specialty tea that can be hit or miss, even from an otherwise great vendor. Any suggestions?

Mar 2nd, '17, 02:28
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Re: Gaba Oolong

by chefroyl » Mar 2nd, '17, 02:28

I noticed you are located in Chicago so this probably is not helpful to you, but Just last week I picked up some gaba Alisha oolong from a small shop in NYC called Sun's Organic Tea. I was pleasantly surprised by it. It was fantastic! I'm not sure if they sell online but if they do I highly recommend it.

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Mar 2nd, '17, 04:29
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Re: Gaba Oolong

by john.b » Mar 2nd, '17, 04:29

I just visited Sun's Organic shop in January; I did like it. But I'll say a little about Gaba oolong too.

I just tried a version that I liked better than any other I've tried, which tasted a little like asphalt compared to just tasting sour. I don't care for the type. I could mention a few vendors selling tea out of Taiwan but those tend to work better if you want to buy more tea, or else shipping offsets the prices running lower than in other countries (I'm in Thailand, just to be clear, so just saying).

For that particular tea type, based on what I've tried of it, you might not have good luck finding a "basic, normal" version, which could sort of work better related to other tea types (not that that's how tea enthusiasts tend to interpret sourcing variation). I don't mean the type is generally bad, the earlier comment was only about my own preferences, I just mean it may vary across a broader than average aspect range. As related background, it's my understanding--which may not be accurate--that most Gaba oolong is coming out of Taiwan, with the type originating in Japan, based on experimentation with nitrogen environment based processing.

I'll mention one mixed type source vendor that may be worth considering, but I can't recommend them based on exposure to the particular Gaba tea versions they sell:

http://what-cha.com/search.php?Search=& ... rrencyId=3

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