Official what Oolong are You Drinking Right Now?

[Bok]

Jay, Is your farmer Chen, Chen Hua Yin or another farmer?.... reading about your re-roasting reminds me that I always use a preheated pot, swirling the tea leaves for a few minutes, just to smell the sweet aromatics coming of warmed leaves. Do other people do this also?

I mostly do it when the tea is new, afterwards less so. Only for the more oxidised, roasted teas though. Good Gaoshan oolong normally does not have any particular good smell when still dry, the nagic happens after the first infusion, so I usually sniff infusions one and two, afterwards there is not much point anylonger, the nicest part is gone. You can however detect by the smell if there still are infusions left or not. That and the surface of the leaves.

[ethan]

Sometimes I heat dry leaves in teapot or gaiwan before getting them wet. A minute or less often gets mid - heavily oxidized leaves & mid - heavily roasted leaves nicely aromatic usually. > 1 minute of heating this way often leads to overly strong scent. I have hoped this will help tightly balled tea open up. Not sure that it does.

I also try to open balled tea open & flavor come on w/ heating leaves after the rinse but before steeping. I don't think this is a smart move but try it once in a while when unopened balls of tea bother me (which may be silly because I think they still deliver flavor).

The aroma of heated leaves does not let me know what will be produced from steeping; yet, gets me ready to enjoy drinking.

[ethan]

Again back to Father's Love 2011 of Dr. Chen. It's been in a tea caddy for 16 days undisturbed.

Covered the bottom of my yixing pot, guessing 1 1/3 grams per 50 ml. Quick rinse, then 60 seconds, 40 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds for 4 delicioius infusions but none as good as all of them combined. Guess of water temp used 90 to 95C. Dynamic blend of flavors, not manifesting themselves individually, & it is a bit different than in other places. Makes sense. Water is different. Given up worrying about what I get because I seem to always like it. Cheers

[Rui]

High roast Tie Guan Yin from Adventure in Every Cup, now that was a smooth and sweet TGY.

[jayinhk]

Some Spring 2016 BaiYe dancong, direct from Chaozhou. Gaiwan session, and not too much leaf. Lots of osmanthus, some fresh peach, green mint flavors and pleasant huigan.

[JRS22]

High roast Da Hong Pao from TeaLifeHK in my favorite Junzo Maekawa red shudei pot. Different from any yancha I've tried to date.

[jayinhk]

How did you like it? One of my favorite teas. I wish I had some at home to drink now but my entire stash is at the office Looks like you're brewing it very light--I tend to gongfu it like shuixian.

[jayinhk]

Drinking a mild, sweet, certified organic tieguanyin from Anxi. This tea is very mellow since it's from 2015; what the Mainland would call a medium or even a high roast, but it's a light roast to me. I'm tempted to roast it to wake it up as I feel like it has more to give. Not offensive and the least. Still a very sweet, light tea that I feel is good and clean. Relatively cheap and enjoyable!

[gatmcm]

Having some aged wuyi oolong, dont have info on it aside from probably being 10+ years old and it being reroasted several times over the years.
It was very good, sadly I only had one session's worth, will wring the last bits of it tomorrow by boiling it, dont want to say goodbye

High roast Tie Guan Yin from Adventure in Every Cup, now that was a smooth and sweet TGY.

Ordered some myself along with a teapot, glad to see someone say good things

[jayinhk]

Sea Dyke Lao Cong Shui Hsien in a 100ml Chaozhou pot from a very talented maker; such a great pot. Picked it up right before Chinese New Year. My second time using it and wow, The pot doesn't drip at all and has a very fast pour; around six or seven seconds, I think. I'll have to time it with the next infusion.

I can see why people like CZ clay. It really smooths out the tea and removes the noise...you get pure flavor and aroma. I feel like it removes flaws, but also a slight bit of complexity, but this is the best session I've ever had with this Sea Dyke tea. This is one of the small bags direct from Sea Dyke (free sample), so I'm brewing 10g/100ml (flash infusions, of course)! I really like this pot for dancong and Wuyicha. I haven't tried pu erh in it yet!

[victoria3]

Will be interesting to try out a Chaozhou teapot one of these days, for now I'm slowly getting to know several new yixing I got from ferg and kyarazen... each one has its own personality. Just now I paired a late 80s Factory 1, Zini Yu Li by Liu Xiu Di, from ferg, with Origin's 2010 Traditional High Fire LiShan Oolong generously included with the pot. Wow, rich body spicy, sweet chestnuts, camphor...Aromatics coming off wet leaves an evaporating off glass pitcher are intensely perfumed and thick. This oolong steeps full throttle into 5,6,7,8th Steeps. Impressive.

[jayinhk]

Will be interesting to try out a Chaozhou teapot one of these days, for now I'm slowly getting to know several new yixing I got from ferg and kyarazen... each one has its own personality. Just now I paired a late 80s Factory 1, Zini Yu Li by Liu Xiu Di, from ferg, with Origin's 2010 Traditional High Fire LiShan Oolong generously included with the pot. Wow, rich body spicy, sweet chestnuts, camphor...Aromatics coming off wet leaves an evaporating off glass pitcher are intensely perfumed and thick. This oolong steeps full throttle into 5,6,7,8th Steeps. Impressive.

Sounds like a lovely session! Which pot was the Yu Li? I haven't tried any of the tea I got from Ferg yet, but I should get on that.

[victoria3]

Will be interesting to try out a Chaozhou teapot one of these days, for now I'm slowly getting to know several new yixing I got from ferg and kyarazen... each one has its own personality. Just now I paired a late 80s Factory 1, Zini Yu Li by Liu Xiu Di, from ferg, with Origin's 2010 Traditional High Fire LiShan Oolong generously included with the pot. Wow, rich body spicy, sweet chestnuts, camphor...Aromatics coming off wet leaves an evaporating off glass pitcher are intensely perfumed and thick. This oolong steeps full throttle into 5,6,7,8th Steeps. Impressive.

Sounds like a lovely session! Which pot was the Yu Li? I haven't tried any of the tea I got from Ferg yet, but I should get on that.

Ferg's teas are all very high quality. Here is the rain hat pot although I prefer to think of it as a helmet and a warrior. It is very compact and sculptural.

[jayinhk]

Gotcha, thanks! I tried the EoT Camphor Sheng Ferg sent along. That's a nice pot--EoT have them in hongni right now if you want a red yuli to go along with the zini one.

[victoria3]

Gotcha, thanks! I tried the EoT Camphor Sheng Ferg sent along. That's a nice pot--EoT have them in hongni right now if you want a red yuli to go along with the zini one.

Lol, TAD enabler ...somehow I went from 3 Yixing to 12 last year. One the other hand, it took me 8years to slowly acquire 16+Kyusu and then of course all the necessary accessories cups, caddies, pitchers, fabrics, trays....