Roasting experiment

[Intuit]

Decided I wanted to try roast-your-own oolong, to resuscitate an everyday (better than restaurant, but crappier than middle grade oolongs). Long leaf, fragmented. When fresh, it had a characteristic leather and raisins aroma, and surprisingly decent flavor, on the sweet side for a finish. It sat for a year, in a the heavy plastic-lined paper bag that I purchased, sealed, in the dark and at the back of a deep storage cupboard. Ambient humidity averaged about 45-50%, with a pretty low temp, maybe 55-65 deg F. Total weight, 1 kg.

Sorting teas after relocating, I decided to hang onto this oolong, because I wanted to test the idea of home roasting. This prolonged heating amounts to controlled drying that may provide little flavor concentration and aroma pick-me-up). What I didn't expect is the deepening of the base notes, a trade off for the loss of the sweeter finish.

Before: almost zero flavor although there was some body to the liquor and a nice color. Most bothersome, it had a very strange, solvent-like aroma. I couldn't put my finger on the exactly solvent, but it smelled... dunno, maybe ester-ish. Definitely not wanted in a tea.

I threw it in my larger Rival microprocessor whizbang crockpot. Set the temperature to high, let it heat for 30 min, with stirring every 15 min, using a large silicon spatula. When I started to see condensation on the lid, I cracked it, turned down the heat, and continued to roast it for another hour on low, with stirring and wiping the lid of condensate, about every 10-15 min.

Let it cool. The entire place is redolent of a tobacco, raisin like aroma, deeper and less sweetish than the original aroma of this tea (a polite, high oxidation, medium roast low-elevation oolong).

The tea tastes very much like it's aroma, not surprisingly, except that it has gained a bit of a very slight camphor finish. Very decent for a wakeup tea, which was my goal, since I am looking for something to fill a gap in my breakfast tea stores. The Assams I ordered are too polite, better for afternoon than breakfast.

I wanted something to practice on before trying it on a better Wuyi yancha that has been slowly drifting downward in cup quality in the last two months. Pretty sure its 2007 or lackluster 2008 autumn stock. I've had it since June. I'll use a lighter hand in re-roasting this tea, less heat and less time.

[judyw]

I would never think to roast my own tea, so I am glad to read your report.

[Drax]

Ooh, very interesting, thanks, Intuit. I'm glad to see that you can use a crockpot and not some $100 specialized roaster.

So when oolongs are sold from the 70s or 80s, have those usually been re-roasted? I'm just curious what dictates when an oolong needs re-roasting (other than a decline in taste... assuming one knew what it tasted like at the 'top').

[gingkoseto]

by Intuit » Oct 19th 09 4:29 pm
...Total weight, 1 kg.

Why did you buy 1kg of a tea?

by Drax » Oct 21st 09 4:35 am
what dictates when an oolong needs re-roasting (other than a decline in taste... assuming one knew what it tasted like at the 'top').

The common saying is, for a oolong, if you pinch one between your fingers and it can be easily broken in tiny pieces, then it means the tea is dry enough. Otherwise, roasting is needed to dehydrate it.

[Bubba_tea]

Nice go, Intuit! You might want to monitor your temps a little bit on the roast though and that high temp setting might be a little stout, depending on your gear. I don't remember what I reported before when I did the crock thing, but IIRC, the Houde blog had something about temps of roasting in there.

[Intuit]

I monitored the surface temp and bottom temp of the tea, and it's bulk humidity with my handy-dandy inexpensive weather station and probe. Heat transfer into the tea was slow. Drove off enough humidity over the course of an hour of low heating to saturate two paper towel sheets.

I easily go through a couple pounds of favorite teas in a year. This tea probably wasn't very fresh when i bought it - it was the beginning of the present economic slowdown. We also had unusually cold, wet weather (first time in 14 years) here, suboptimal for storage.

I wanted to use the worse-case scenario a machine harvest tea. The tea is a disposable test case. I wasn't about to try it on premium taiwan oolongs.

Most of the better small oolong retailers do this 'freshening'.

[jackdaniel]

I was in my local tea shop a few days ago. The owner has two "ovens" or "rosters" designed specifically for tea. She was roasting an oolong to change the taste.

I have an old stash of oolong I didn't care for much and was thinking of roasting it. What's the procedure to do this? Are there any articles or how-tos available?

[Herb_Master]

What's the procedure to do this? Are there any articles or how-tos available?

There are a few about, if you google them, such as

http://houdeblog.com/?p=141

http://tea-obsession.blogspot.com/2007/ ... -here.html

http://www.teacuppa.com/Tea-Roaster.asp

[kymidwife]

I've re-roasted some tea in a crockpot, low and slow, with good results. I've also thrown leaf in a nonstick pan on the stovetop on low, shaking/tossing it frequently so it won't burn... usually I do this immediately prior to brewing, just to wake up and add a smidge of character to some old oolongs that didn't "wow" me. They always taste better so I must be doing something right. It's a great, quick way to get a heavily-roasted taste when you crave it. I don't really buy much heavily-roasted oolong, but occasionally I just "need" it... so I make my own.

Be forewarned, it will burn easily... go low on temp and move the leaf around constantly.

Sarah

[Victoria]

I've re-roasted some tea in a crockpot, low and slow, with good results.

What a coincidence, as I tried this yesterday at work. I had been wanting to try, and I had some older oolong and a mini crock pot, so I went for it. The oolong wasn't vastly differently, but surprisingly it did perk it up a bit.
I only went for an hour. My office smelled wonderful.