Alishan oolong review; related tea discussion

It's been so long since I've had a rolled lighter oolong--hardly any in the last couple of months--that now it's like a change of pace.  This is a sample that May Zest tea sent along with teas that I ordered.  They're a bit different as tea sources go, a higher volume sales oriented vendor in Taiwan, a great place to get a half a kilo of a couple kinds of nice tea, or maybe even more.

The dry scent of the tea is nice, sweet and fresh, with butter and corn scent, maybe more towards popcorn than fresh corn, but sweeter.  The taste is similar, nice, sweet and buttery, with more of a fresh sweet corn flavor.  More floral range is also typical for this type of tea but I've ran across that sweet corn aspect in other lighter oolongs.  More of a mineral element would also be normal, which does become more pronounced on the next infusion.


Over the next infusions the mineral keeps picking up, along with floral elements, and the sweet corn aspect fades.  The flavors aspects are nice and clean, bright, even, with a reasonably full feel and lingering aftertaste.  The general effect is also nice; it all comes together.



There is potential for the tea to have a slightly fuller feel, or even longer aftertaste, the types of aspects that separate exceptionally high quality teas from good teas, but this version is good.  The touch of butteriness is a nice compliment to the other components, bringing it to a good balance.

The tea keeps going in that range, aspects shifting just a little, but brewing a lot of infusions without flavors going off in any way.  A mineral aspect stays pronounced; typical, and positive.  The effect of freshness stands out in the experience; the tea is really bright for having that degree of richness and depth.  To me this is a nice, basic lightly oxidized oolong, a bit better than we tend to experience from teas made in Thailand but probably in the normal range for tea from Taiwan.

Ideas from discussing tea online

With a tea like this it's normal to think of aspects that place it on a scale of quality level, or maybe that's always normal.  Someone commented on a recent post about Bai Hao / OB that they'd tried an exceptional version made by a Taiwanese tea master.  That's a real thing; the quality level and types keep going.  But the "my tea is better than your tea" theme can get old fast, along with input that "you are making it wrong," regardless of the suggestion.  Then again good input about better teas and better brewing can be helpful and interesting, sort of relating to how it is offered, just in that case the implication seemed to be that person had tried much better tea.

Related to concern over quality and levels of teas, turning tasting a tea into a competition could potentially drain the experience of what drinking tea is all about, appreciation and enjoyment.  This was a really nice tea, with no flaws, in one sense, just room for existing aspects to be different.

Someone visited the North of Thailand and mentioned seeing tea labeled for sale as Taiwanese tea, in an outlet for direct sales from Thai plantations, selling Thai tea.  Make sense?  It would have been "fake" Taiwanese oolong, except they were pretty open about the local origin and the mis-labeling.  This tea I reviewed is surely really from Taiwan, but how could one know?  In tasting it I was reminded of some grade-related issues that "reading" the leaves may have cleared up, about when it was harvested (leaves were a bit large), and which leaf / plant type it was, although I'm confident it was Chin-Shin from Taiwan, as it was described.  Not much more to add about all that; not every vendor tells it like it is, and errors (false marketing) could creep in from "upstream" sourcing.

I don't lose sleep over all that.  If I had bought a great Wuyishan tea that was really from outside the park reserve area instead it wouldn't matter so much, although per my understanding they really do control use of chemicals in that area, so that may not make for the best example.  As you continue to get better teas from better sources those sort of trust issues dissipate, to some degree, but never completely end.  Back to the scope of Chinese oolongs, I'd trust Cindy Chen with my kids (my favorite tea maker), so if she says a tea is something it probably is, but then again my own confidence doesn't exactly change the facts of the matter.

A different tangent:  another recent tea group discussion comment about Oriental Beauty / Bai Hao style teas being produced in places other than Taiwan expressed that regions should stick to their own processing styles, and not borrow region-specific versions from other places.  That seems crazy to me.  Taiwan wouldn't be making black tea based on that premise, and probably not oolong, if you trace the history back far enough.  I think the comment might have been a gut reaction to that idea not matching something from a training class, something they'd not really thought through.  Making "fake" Taiwanese OB somewhere else and selling teas as something it's not is something else entirely.  Of course that shouldn't happen, even if they do a good job of matching aspects, or even if a really good counterfeit could potentially be just as good as what the tea is supposed to be.

Maybe I'll get a chance to try that tea from that one "tea master" someday, and I hope I get around to trying a Japanese version of Oriental Beauty as well.

May Zest Honey Flavor Black tea from Taiwan

Not long ago I reviewed an Oriental Beauty (Bai Hao) from May Zest, a wholesale tea vendor from Taiwan, and now I'm reviewing a black tea from them, a Honey Flavor Black Tea.  Their description invokes the same story as for OB, as follows:


The tea is hand-plunked and made from Chin Shin Gan Tze which is cultivated in San Xia Township. The tea farmers won’t use pesticide, because they want leafhoppers come to eat the tea leaves. After the bite of leafhoppers, a chemical reaction occurs in the leaves and causes that fragrance and sweetness.


I'm not so sure about any of that but it is decent tea, well within the range of what I like in black teas.  It's a variety Sinensis black, given that cultivar reference, which is what it seems like, a soft and fruity black tea.

Review:

It does have some sweetness; maybe that does resemble honey.  Cocoa might come across as the primary taste element,  with a bit of subdued fruit, yam or sweet potato.  Another main aspect is an interesting dryness, an unusual feel I've heard described in other teas as resinous.  All that range overlaps with Jin Jun Mei, it's just presented differently, in a conventional black tea.  It's not really fair to compare this directly with that Jin Jun Mei from Cindy Chen, or even to her unsmoked Lapsang Souchong, because those were some really exceptional teas, some better versions of those types that wouldn't be so easy to run across.


There is not really any astringency to work around, but a little of the earthiness reminds me of Assamica black tea versions, just not the general character of the tea.  It seems like a variety Sinensis tea (which it is); soft, sweet, similar to Chinese black teas in style (although those vary a lot).

nice brewed relatively strong, per my preference

I really expected it to be closer to the Thai Tea Side black tea I've been drinking, slightly fruitier, with a trace cleaner flavors, not quite as dry as this comes across.  It's funny how expectations can shift an experience, how any change can be something to get past at first, unless a tea is somehow clearly better than expected.  I guess the point is that different than expected could easily be interpreted as not as good.


The flavors stay nice through multiple infusions, consistent, or maybe even improve.  The fruit seems to move towards cherry a little, a nice pairing with the cocoa element,  like a chocolate covered cherry.  The feel effect is nice, different, a touch dry and a touch juicy at the same time.


With lots of similar black teas it works well to use water a bit below boiling point to brew, then switch to full boiling after a few infusions to extract a bit more. That will also pull out a bit of dark toffee taste in that last infusion.  Per someone's preference simply ramping up the tea to water ratio and cutting the brewing times a little enables brewing more infusions, sort of shifting to a hybrid Western-Gongfu style, but I don't think that would change aspects results much for this tea.  At any rate it's not a touchy tea; there would be some optimum but it works well across a broad range of parameters, likely with similar results in spite of variations, but aspects might shift just a little.

would work well brewed lots of ways

To me it's a great breakfast tea, easy to brew, no challenge to drink, none of the stomach issues with green teas.  It pairs well with pastry and cereal, or would work about as well for an afternoon tea too.  To me it's sort of a basic tea, a general type I love to have some of around, so I'm not sure if it really lives up to a billing of being a black tea version of an Oriental Beauty, but it is nice.  I've tried a lot of black teas from a lot of places over the last year but it doesn't work well to put it on some sort of scale.  It's good, and a lot of good black teas vary more by being slightly different than by some being much better than others.


 There's a divide between Assamica and Sinensis types by characteristics, and I suppose I really do like variety Sinensis black teas better, in general.  But nice versions of the others can have lots going for them, and that's more about my preference than those really being better in some objective sense.



The vendor type shifts things a little, related to buying this tea.  Of course since May Zest is a wholesale vendor the general idea is that someone could buy a lot to resell, but really nothing is stopping someone from buying more than the usual 100 grams to drink themselves.  The smallest amount they sell is 250 grams, but that's essentially same packaging size one often sees for Thai oolongs (200 grams, for my favorite line of those, which I never drink now since I've burned out on lightly oxidized oolongs).  I gambled a bit and bought a half kilo each of that Oriental Beauty and this black tea and luckily I like both.  I have enough to share as gifts but I won't need to figure out what to do with them, since after a year or so in the rotation of teas I could just drink most of that.  They also sent some samples so I'll be posting more about their other teas.

Comparing aged teas, 21 and 30 year old Chin Shin oolongs

Hojo 30 year old oolong (Dong Ding, from Taiwan)

Tea Side 21 year old Chin Shin (from Thailand)

This post is about directly comparison tasting a 21 year old tea from Tea Side (an aged Lao Chin Shin Thai oolong) with a 30 year old tea from Hojo (described as a Dong Ding).  Why review two teas at the same time?  Good question.


The idea was to try to identify common aspects related to aged teas, if such a thing could be done.  If two teas aren't very close in character drinking them together, at the same time, can just make it more confusing, by bringing on a bit of overload.  That's sort of how it worked out but it was interesting anyway, and there was some common context, if not so much similarity.


According to one online reference (see following table from the Tea DB site) given that Dong Ding typically is Chin Shin both teas would be the same cultivar, but of course standard types used for a region doesn't always hold up for a specific version.


Twenty one years is a long time related to the Thai tea industry, still in it's infancy then related to its modern commercial form, unless one considers there really are very old tea plants here, so some forms of making tea go back centuries.  It's my understanding--perhaps not much of a reference source, what sticks in my mind--that one main basis for modern Thai people was immigration of Southern Chinese people on the order of 1000 years ago, with advanced practices like making Chinese pottery imported here later, in response to varying export limitation policies by Chinese government.  That would relate to old forms of Chinese government, to us, but given the span of their history perhaps those were relatively more modern developments by Chinese historical standards.


At any rate it doesn't take much for one person to bring tea harvesting and processing knowledge with them from one country to another, so the state of the industry in Thailand in the 90s wasn't so relevant; the skill of the people involved with making this particular tea was instead.

Comparison tasting

For the first infusion the Thai oolong (21 year old Tea Side tea; I'll reference these by vendor, not that it matters) started to show some nice character,  dark caramel, and earthy tones hard to make out.  At first the Hojo tea (30 year old Dong Ding origin / Taiwan-originated oolong) tasted old, and not in a good sense, musty, hinting towards peat and mushrooms under that.

By the second infusion the Tea Side tea was picking up a lot of complexity, earthy wood tones, some dates (or could be raisins), a dark caramel / toffee; good sweetness and richness in general.  The Hojo tea got even worse, from tasting like something that had been stored in an attic towards tasting like the floor boards in one.  There was interesting complexity under that but it was hard to pick up and appreciate under the nasty front end flavors.  To be fair, the friend that gave me the tea said he didn't notice this mustiness in his version, from the same package, and another friend advised giving older teas several washes rather than a more standard quick one to offset any storage taste issues.

assistant taster; this means approval

My two year old daughter helped me with the tasting, and on the first infusion she agreed the Tea Side tea was much nicer.  By the second infusion she would only taste the Hojo tea but would pass on actually drinking it, just taking a sip and handing it back.  I think she would have agreed that the Hojo tea drew into a more even range after a few infusions but she had dropped out of the tasting due to us limiting her intake of tea.  It was a little odd that the similarly aged Tea Side tea had no issues with any mustiness to clear up through initial infusions, which one might guess related to storage conditions.


On the third infusion the intensity of the Tea Side tea kept picking up, with flavors transitioning, now more like roasted nuts (non-specific nuts, maybe).  There was a trace of rusty earth tone that reminded me of those found in some red wines, not in most versions, not so much in Californian wines, more in the Burgundy range, with just a hint of a component.  Of course the tea didn't taste a lot like wine.  The sweetness was still very nice, altogether a great, complex balance.


At the same infusion the Hojo tea flavors started to clean up, moving to a roasted chestnut effect.  The tea might work out.  Some sweetness finally started to kick in too.  An earthy element was in the range of a tree bark; different, not bad really.  The mustiness was still there but as a faint background element, no longer a negative factor.

Finally less transition was occurring on the fourth infusion, but both teas did change slightly.  The Tea Side tea softened and became slightly earthier, just a little towards a dark wood / leather range.  The Hojo tea flavors cleaned up just a little more, with the mustiness essentially completely dissipated,  with more mineral tones joining in.  The roasted nuts taste shifted slightly to a light wood, but still quite nutty.

I went a little longer on the fifth infusion to keep the flavors standing out, and the interesting character of the teas was all the more so for concentrating fading flavors and changing body.  I might point out that someone inclined to drink very wispy teas, as many would be, could have went much farther in an infusion count covering the same ground.  The teas weren't brewed strong, not even approaching that, but the range of light to medium is very broad, and a more medium strength seemed optimal for allowing for really experiencing the complex aspects in both.  Both teas had a nice body, a good feel to them, just not the fullness and thickness other types of oolongs tend to show, and certainly not a lot of astringency in terms of having an edge.  One of the vendors (Hojo) mentioned that the tea was full flavored but approachable, suitable for all sorts of different people, and I would agree with that, although I would think a reasonable amount of experience would help someone more fully appreciate the range of what was going on with both.

At this stage the sweetness was hanging in there in the Tea Side tea, even though it was fading a little.  The dark caramel and leather moved a little into an unfamiliar wood-bark spice range, not exactly cinnamon, a different one, like one of those intriguing but unfamiliar scents one picks up in an Asian spice market.  The Hojo tea was still getting sweeter, picking up a root spice flavor, in the range of sassafras, a bit bright and round, right in between earthy and fruity; definitely something different.

I tried a relatively shorter infusion next just to see how the effect changed drinking both lighter.  With that complexity and taste range they were both still quite pleasant, holding up well.  Brewed even lighter the Hojo tea tastes still stood out, something related to that flavor range at that stage.  The Hojo tea was interesting, and quite pleasant, and both are unique, but the Tea Side tea component of dark caramel / toffee really worked well with that interesting range of earthy flavors, so it came across as a bit more pleasant.

At infusions beyond count the flavor balance of the Hojo tea got even better, although it was thinning a good bit.  The Tea side tea was still nice but thinning even more, but then it had been at it awhile.

Hojo left, Tea side right; both have a similar unusual color, greyed with age

The taste of age

I've tried aged oolongs before but it's not such familiar ground to me that I can reference it against lots of other similar teas.  When people describe such teas they often don't get far, citing something vague and a bit circular like "it tastes of age."  Both did express an unusual complexity, and beyond that there was an underlying feel to them in common, an impression I couldn't completely place.  I may not have had great versions before but I've not been very impressed with the few others I've tried, but of course it doesn't work to judge a type by a few examples, for all the obvious reasons.  

It's common for people to express a lot about aftertaste or feel related to aged teas, having some effect on the feel in the throat, for example.  With so much going on with tasting two I didn't make an effort to spell that out in the notes, although there was more to the experience than just those complex tastes.  Of course one really shouldn't drink two teas together if the idea is to observe the effect of the tea, the qi, but I'm not particularly tuned into that anyway.

It goes against convention but maybe vendor's descriptions could shed a little more light on all this, starting with the one from Tea Side:

Taste:  A thick, deep taste with rich aroma of cherry, chocolate, sweet red apple. Velvety aftertaste of aged tea with cinnamon and bark notes. It is not like any of the Chin Shin Oolongs that I ever tasted....  In addition to amazing taste and flavor, it gives a very powerful state. By the third-fourth brew different metamorphosis of consciousness begin to happen. The tea has a calming effect, it always brings relaxation to my mind and body and fills me with tranquility and light euphoria....

So my tasting notes missed some of that flavor list, but it was a really complex tea, with a lot going on.  He mentions in a part of that write-up that the tea can vary a lot with different brewing approaches, something I intend to work on verifying.  That definitely matched my impression; it had lots going on, and I didn't feel like I was going to spell it all out in that tasting.

On to the Hojo tea description:

When you drink this tea, you feel a dried fruity flavor. 30 years of maturation makes taste extremely smooth just like vintage brandy.

It was odd that even before reading that the Tea Side tea did remind me of the effect of aged wine (the reference here is from the tasting notes, written before I read that page description); not so much this tea though.  They also explain that ball-rolling was started in between the present time and 30 years ago, which explains the more open leaf presentation of this tea.  Of course I couldn't verify that, but it is interesting that both teas look similar in that regard, with leaves slightly rolled but nothing like the standard form today.

The age made it hard to factor in differences in oxidation or roast, since changes over time combined with the original style inputs of the processing.  I would assume that neither started out as a very lightly oxidized oolong, and that a mid-level roast gave both a complex flavor base as a starting point.

Both teas were interesting, a bit different than any others I've tried, very complex, with lots going on.  I will say this about the Tea Side tea, which I guess helps place the impression it made on me:  I  ordered some before I posted this, just in case.