The Oolong Identification Game!

[Maitre_Tea]

Okay, this is a little harder than your plain run-of-the mill identification questions, since the canister/box it came in was of no use in identifying the varietal of the Taiwanese oolong mentioned before, sans saying how it's award-winning and the leaves are high-quality, blah, blah, blah.The leaf looks machine harvested, or at least it's a low-elevation tea. Not very exciting stuff.

Now, what makes this tea very interesting is that it's aged, unintentionally. It's been sealed away in those vacuum-sealed bags, and it's been sitting there since 1996, when the tea was purchased. I'm thinking of aging it, just to see how an aged green oolong would turn out, but I would like to know the varietal of the tea.



As a Taiwanese, I'm ashamed that I can't identify by leaf size what kind of varietal this is...I'm thinking maybe jinxuan. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[gingkoseto]

The bottom left (and probably top second left too) looks typical jin xuan to me, round, with a round bottom and pointed top end, and does it feel somewhat smooth? The top left, does it have a pointed top end? If not, it may be a cui yu (jade oolong), and does it feel thicker and tougher than some other leaves? The bottom right looks quite slender. If it's expanded and is still slender it may be a qing xing oolong. The tea could be a blend of different varietals, as many (if not mot) Taiwanese tea products nowadays. I didn't deal with any Taiwan tea back in 1996, but I always imagined back then, people labeled tea products in a much clearer way than nowadays.

By the way how does it taste after 10+ years? Was it green oolong to begin with? The leaves look quite dark and seem semi-oxidized, but maybe it's just the room light?

[Maitre_Tea]

I'm drinking it now, and I'll feel the leaves after this session and maybe clarify once and for all what varietal(s) it could be. The tea itself is pleasant enough. There's a very upfront floral aroma (which is what initially led me to think it could be jinxuan), but it's not over-powering or artificial...the aroma seems complex, and kind of honeyed in a way. The infusion is yellowish in color, and it tastes like how it smells...if that could be understood. It's slightly astringent, but not sour at all.

I'm dividing it up into two ceramic canisters for continued aging. One will be slightly roasted just to see how it'll turn out, while the second batch will be sealed away (with wax) in its green state. I also have enough of it so I can enjoy some nice "aged" oolong right now. (I put aged in quotation marks because I'm not quite sure how much a tea could age in a vacuum sealed bag)

[Intuit]

"It's been sealed away in those vacuum-sealed bags, and it's been sitting there since 1996"

It's not aged, not in the convention sense of intentionally aging oolong teas.

What kind of an storage environment? Gramma's Attic?

[Maitre_Tea]

"It's been sealed away in those vacuum-sealed bags, and it's been sitting there since 1996"

It's not aged, not in the convention sense of intentionally aging oolong teas.

What kind of an storage environment? Gramma's Attic?

But I do wonder what time does, even to these vacuum-sealed teas. Japanese greens, even when sealed and stored in the fridge can lose some of their edge over time, but the bag seemed really air-tight...since the oolong is the balled up kind there's almost no air at all inside. It was stored in its original canister, inside its original box, in a closet in my house, kept away from excessive heat/light/etc.

[Intuit]

Generally speaking*, green oolong not good candidate for aged oolong tea.

Your cupping results suggests minimal loss of volatiles/aroma and flavor (maybe a hair that could be improved by modest roasting), consistent with very little oxidative aging. Anaerobic reaction conditions. Very, very slow condensation reactions**

*Aged pouchongs seem to defy logic for green oolong aging. However, this takes a long time, as in many decades (hands worth).

** You have to first oxidize teas to certain level to release and form the smaller complexes that initiate condensation reactions resulting in the larger plant cell wall complexes responsible for known flavor traits of aged teas.

If you wish to age this tea, you may have to wait quite a while for results.

[Maitre_Tea]

Sounds similar to the advice I've seen on the other aging oolong threads. Even though most people might call this attempt crazy, but I have enough of this stuff to experiment with, and I've heard that greener oolongs will probably show changes the quickest, so I'll see...I live in a relatively dry environment so it's good for these aging oolong experiments. If it turns out well, than I'll be happy to offer some samples...assuming that we're still on TeaChat decades later

[Intuit]

1. The aromatic flavors aren't 'fixed' in greener oolongs by successive cycles of oxidation and drying.
2. Therefore, don't age particularly well and are prone to fading well before attaining 'aged' character.

It's remarkable that it's retained its floral notes and sweetness, despite the time since it was bagged. I would enjoy it, savoring a little at a time, storing the remainder carefully unopened, rather than try to age this tea.

Pick a suitable oolong for aging experiments.

[gingkoseto]

I don't think there is a common definition of "aged oolong" anyway. In history, people in Wuyi region (probably in some other regions as well) had the tradition of aging tea for a few years, some say for its medical benefits, some say for improved tea tastes - but either way it was not called "aging" since it was just a few years. Not many people talked about "intentionally aging" at the level of 10 or 20 years until recent years.

I have always been wondering when the non-puerh tea aging trend started. Occasionally I read a few articles saying that in old times when transportation was limited in the mountains, farmers had to re-roast tea from previous years that was not sold. But that doesn't sound like "intentional" aging.

Being skeptical as I am, I still ordered some 3-year old Taiwan Wuyi, because I did find some of my 2-3 years old dark oolong gained better taste, and thanks for some tea friends, I did tasted a few great teas several years old. I will need to take more time to decide if I buy in the idea of 10-20 year old tea, or like Maitra_Tea, I will wait for 10-20 years till my own tea get "aged"

Like intuit, I am even more skeptical about aging green oolong. But could that oolong be intermediate-oxidized from the beginning (like the dong ding style), since it still has floral aroma after all these years. Just that, I think, is a wonderful feature that can't be found in most green oolong!

[Maitre_Tea]

I have 600 grams of this tea, and I have a hard enough time finish teas in my stash. The original tea has a light roast on it, but it's still pretty green IMO. I gave a portion of the tea a light roast, so it's more a light/medium roast tea...I'll see how that will turn out. A small portion is going to be aged as is. I think Stefane had a post about aging green oolong, and most of us haven't been drinking tea long enough to see a tea age first-hand. So this is an instance where I must say "screw common sentiment" and just do it. I'm only aging 100 grams of it as is...so even if it fails it's not that big of a loss.

*note* the biggest reason I'm doing this is probably because aged teas, by virtue of the genre, is often expensive and rare when buying online...and I'm not going back to Taiwan or Asia for a few years to pick up some aged teas. I'm still in my early 20s, so if I start aging some tea...I can taste the results sooner in my life.

Also, Nada carries some aged light roast (well, a light roast back then) high mountain oolong form 1989, which was sealed in an airtight can for most of its life.
http://www.nadacha.co.uk/index.php?page ... t&Itemid=1
So maybe this kind of thing could work...I guess we'll see in 10-20 years

[ABx]

1. The aromatic flavors aren't 'fixed' in greener oolongs by successive cycles of oxidation and drying.
2. Therefore, don't age particularly well and are prone to fading well before attaining 'aged' character.

I don't know where you get this stuff. Greener ones do age quite well, although they go stale first.

[Zanaspus]

I don't know where you get this stuff. Greener ones do age quite well, although they go stale first.[/quote]

+1 Any level of oxidation ages well if done properly.

[braven]

Okay, this is a little harder than your plain run-of-the mill identification questions, since the canister/box it came in was of no use in identifying the varietal of the Taiwanese oolong mentioned before, sans saying how it's award-winning and the leaves are high-quality, blah, blah, blah.The leaf looks machine harvested, or at least it's a low-elevation tea. Not very exciting stuff.

Now, what makes this tea very interesting is that it's aged, unintentionally. It's been sealed away in those vacuum-sealed bags, and it's been sitting there since 1996, when the tea was purchased. I'm thinking of aging it, just to see how an aged green oolong would turn out, but I would like to know the varietal of the tea.



As a Taiwanese, I'm ashamed that I can't identify by leaf size what kind of varietal this is...I'm thinking maybe jinxuan. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I myself have no idea what it is, as I am an amateur tea drinker myself, and have only tryed one oolong.

[braven]

This is interesting!

[braven]

This must be the most technical topic on teachat!