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yellow tea left, oolong right, in all photos |
Another review of teas from the Great Mississippi Tea Company. We talked to Jason McDonald in a meetup not so long ago, essentially the main owner there, and he sent a number of these for review (many thanks!).
In trying a pair of plain versions prior and trying a set of two flavored teas I suppose I liked the flavored versions better. They were distinctive, interpretations of standard blends that worked well with their tea base. The plain teas were fine, but it takes some adjusting to different versions from different places, and it's hard not to judge them against the highest quality range from other countries, since those are familiar, and styles are never going to completely match. No one is going is to be able to grow tea plants and match style (aspects / character) and positive aspects with Taiwanese oolong within the first 5 years; it just doesn't work like that. But then being novel can be positive, and variations in terroir, plant type use, and processing can really add up.
These are plain teas again, and I'll get back to reviewing more blends later too. Yellow tea is a good starting point for novelty. It's a fermented version of green tea, not age fermented as sheng is over time, but wetted and left to naturally ferment in a related but much more moderate process than shu pu'er goes through, which is wet piled. I didn't check what oolong style this was intended to match before the tasting, since it seemed like judging it on its own merits versus matching something else was fair.
Review:
Yellow / MS Sunshine: one part of that is really catchy, another maybe just a little off. I would expect that the catchy part will develop and that rough edge is going to drop out, but we'll see. All in all it's quite positive. On the off side a bit of sourness stands out, like dill pickle, and an odd earthy edge, like some form of cardboard. Tasting it again that edge is more like a collard green sort of thing (not that I remember what my grandparents used to eat so clearly). I'm tempted to start on a tangent about Southern foods, which are fantastic, but it doesn't connect enough for that to make sense. The negative range isn't a primary part of the experience, but significant. On the positive side--most of what you get from this, to be fair--it has a nice creaminess to it, and a nice light fruit edge, towards citrus, although it could be identified as floral instead.
There's a main underlying aspect range that's harder to pick up that defines it all though. It's a little like the smell of fresh cooked rice, something catchy and positive. If you don't already own a rice cooker I'll add that in as a life-changing tip; they're cheap, and no one in Asia would consider living without one. We're onto owning a slightly more expensive Japanese version, with a non-stick cooking surface, and a bunch of functions we couldn't figure out if we wanted to.
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. If that dill pickle and slight rough edge were to ramp up it could be bad, but I expect the exact opposite, that those are kind of typical early-round aspects that will be faded next round and gone in the third.
Mississippi Belle Oolong: This is nice. Of course it's not so close in style but it reminds me most of Dan Cong, that hit of floral and fruit range that comes with those. Surely they aren't using a cultivar remotely connected to those? It's missing the astringency that sometimes pairs with versions (often, for medium quality versions). The feel has some thickness to it but there's not much edge. One part of the fruit reminds me of sweet banana; that's nice! They have different kinds of bananas here but I might just mean the standard version (hard to keep track, since the Thai name is always different, and they wouldn't necessarily get mapping to Western fruit forms right). Maybe the versions here are more flavorful. This covers a different creamy effect, some "round" smooth feel, but also an effect like tasting cream. Both should be really nice after opening up this first round.
MS Sunshine yellow, second infusion: really intriguing! The vegetable greens part is stronger, still connecting with sourness. Probably really tweaking brewing temperature and infusion time would shift how that part comes across, and I'm using water that's a bit too hot out of habit. I've framed it as negative but for a green tea drinker that really could be the main appeal of this tea, and I can't say that I completely dislike it, it's just at the opposite side of the range of what I seek out in tea experience.
The sourness included I would've really disliked before getting accustomed to that in wild versions of teas from here (Thailand). One might think sour food experience could prepare you to like such a thing but expectations about what's coming seem to shape tea experience, or any food experience, and a range you appreciate in a different context very often wouldn't carry over. An IPA drinker or fan of pickles or sauerkraut could easily be put off by any sourness at all in tea. Related to those wild Thai teas, the owner of a company making many versions (Monsoon) has passed on that chefs tend to like the teas (and accept the sourness), while tea enthusiasts don't, again surely related to acclimation and expectation.
On the positive side that creaminess, sweetness, and intensity is nice. Part is a forward-facing floral aspect, with a hint of citrus along with that. What I interpreted as fresh cooked rice is a "layer" that's subtle but one that ties the rest together. It would be easy to interpret that as part of the vegetal range, but I'm seeing it as separate. It's hard to communicate how this is positive for intensity alone. In the opposite sense of the way that white teas are often hard to appreciate for not tasting like much, this really smacks your palate. To a sheng drinker that's a good thing.
MS Belle Oolong: this is settling into a warmer, smoother, more balanced range. Some wood tone picks up, but rich and complex floral also develops. It would be easy for someone accustomed to a narrow range of styles of oolong to be really put off by that wood tone range, but for people who drink a broad range of teas that would be fine. I guess that's the running story of this entire review; depending on expectations and broad or narrow range of preference these teas are either great or not very good, or somewhere in the middle. If someone is seeking a match to an established Chinese type maybe not so good. I can't evaluate this other version against Chinese yellow tea though; I've only tried a version of that broad category from Korea, which surely isn't the same.
Fullness of feel is positive in this tea, just not mapped to a conventional oolong form, or as intense as high mountain Taiwanese oolong level. The level of sweetness isn't really high but it supports the overall experience. Aftertaste experience is a bit limited. The fruit and floral flavor range is catchy; that's a main strength. That hint of banana isn't noticeable this round. Floral range isn't so far off what Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong oolong often covers (presumably honey orchid, the translation for that), which can also extent into peach in a lot of versions.
MS Sunshine yellow, third infusion: on a hunch I went with slightly cooler water for this tea and slightly hotter for the other. That hunch also matched the actual brewing instructions for the yellow tea, to use 175 F water for the yellow and 190 F for the oolong (79 and 88 to the rest of the world), except that I was using slightly hotter water than that to begin with, so going that much further above the recommendation for the oolong. That did drop the vegetal edge back in this; the balance is much nicer. It's still there but the floral range shines through a lot more, the strongest part of the experience.
It's odd how this retains a fresh effect, even though it's a partly fermented tea (not like sheng or shu, but still processed with a different fermentation step). To me the flavors are floral, with citrus fruit, some base that's non-distinct (maybe more like a cereal malt of some sort), then that vegetal range. Sourness drops back in proportion (which seems to tie to the vegetal range), but it's still significant.
MS Belle oolong: this might be slightly better too; at a guess using hotter water and faster infusion times would provide better results for this, as is common across most oolong range. Of course that's not how Western brewing really goes as much; I'm talking about a Gongfu approach. I don't think the effect would be the same for using 95 C water and brewing for 3 minutes instead of 4.
There's not much new to add to a flavor list. Heavy floral range is nice, and woody tone beyond that isn't so negative for me, but not really much in support. In a sense it adds complexity but not in as positive a sense that fruit tone would, or a mineral base, or more creaminess, although the creaminess present does help it. To me it all balances really nicely, but of course that's a statement about match to preference as much as objectively identifying balance, or maybe more so.
MS Sunshine yellow, fourth infusion (still using temperatures described last round, which never were specifically expressed): it's the best that it's been; that vegetal is dropping out, letting the rich floral tones take over. This might well be even better for 3 or 4 more rounds. I'm not taking notes to the bitter end because I get bored writing a 2000 word, 10 infusion round post, but I usually mention late round shifts in a conclusion.
What was present before is just arranged in a different proportion now. That one base flavor I described as fresh rice and then malt is interesting for changing a little and ramping up. It's a little like a high quality version of paper. With a decent amount of base mineral that might resemble a freshly printed resume. Appreciating this tea definitely relates to not overdoing it with water temperature, which is hard to relate to when Gongfu brewing, since in the world of GFC hotter is better, for some people even for green tea.
MS Belle oolong: wood flavor is moderating, falling further below the floral level than the last round. It's nice that both are at their best now, even though they were good last round, and pleasant enough the first two. These teas would probably be ok brewed Western style but it would be a shame to not experience that transition, and to omit the extra messing around. Gongfu brewing should provide significantly better results, although trying brewing the other way would add certainty about that. Now I'm curious what this oolong style is supposed to be like, and how they describe both. I'll add that in a section prior to conclusions.
Great Mississippi Tea Company descriptions:
Yellow tea is the rarest type of tea in the world. It is usually only made and sold in China. As far as we know, we are the only tea producer in America making yellow tea.
Yellow tea is a fermented green tea so it has all the flavors of green tea without the grassiness of green tea. This tea starts as a green tea and then ferments for 5 days before it is rolled and dried.
This tea has flavor notes of honey and citrus with a slight earthiness.
Kind of a snub of Korean yellow tea in that first part, but what they make is not exactly the same thing, and of course they have their own words for their own styles, not tied to that color code. "Honey and citrus with slight earthiness" isn't exactly what I wrote, except the citrus, but that does work. That very mild earthiness is probably what I was struggling to provide a clear description of, relating parts to rice, malt, and mineral, which may have kept transitioning after the rounds I took notes for.
This tea is a lightly oxidized oolong using older leaves to give it a rich mouth feel and a floral aroma. It is similar to a tie guan yin.
Its sister tea, Delta Oolong, won a silver medal in 2018 in Global Tea Championship.
This tea has flavor notes of brown sugar, jasmine, and sugar snap peas.
One part of that floral range could be interpreted as similar to Tie Guan Yin. It can taste like sweet floral range in some versions, like sweet corn in others, or even a bit like new car smell sometimes, like plastic (but in a good sense). Floral range definitely stands out most, so it's down to interpretation of which kind.
Tasting it again just now (in the next round, 5) sugar snap peas does work as a description. It still tastes a little more like wood than that to me. That wood could alternatively be interpreted as tied to the sweet and fragrant scent of fallen leaves, maybe a fresher and wetter version than the warmer and richer bone dry autumn leaf pile form. As to jasmine, sure, I guess, I'm not really great at connecting floral range to flower types. I'm accustomed to jasmine coming in a really overpowering form because in flavored jasmine tea they tend to dial that up, and the wrist leighs they offer to Buddha statues here, or use as bus air fresheners, are way too strong, often sickening in intensity.
All in all really good tea. I think I liked both better than those first two plain versions I had tried, but then who knows, on a different day maybe that would switch around. For trying something novel how you are relating to that new experience form can comes into play. It's probably as well not to try and judge this oolong as a variation of Tie Guan Yin, for example, and accept the degree to which it overlaps and also doesn't match openly.
Both teas were quite positive as novel and pleasant experiences; that's the main thing.
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nice to be back to having stores open here, even if we do just buy scented soap |
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we were at outlets that outing, a familiar theme in the US, but this is just outside Bangkok |
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