Thai Gui Hua oolong, osmanthus flower blended tea

Normally I prefer very simple versions of teas:  no flavorings, no blending.  But there are exceptions.  A decent cup of Earl Grey is nice once in awhile, trying out blending with something like chrysanthemum can make sense, and someone bought me a nice floral blended Thai oolong tea not long ago.

Gui Hua is typically produced in Taiwan, named after the osmanthus flowers blended with tea leaves to produce a sweet, fruity, relatively subtle tea.  By chance I just talked to a friend in Beijing about this particular type of tea, which he said was a favorite, mostly due to the more subdued floral taste than in a typical jasmine tea.  I've only tried this one example and it is so; a balanced, lighter floral flavor element that matches the rest of the taste profile well.

Tea review:

In addition to "floral" the taste hints towards fruit flavor tones like peach (producer reference page).  Comparing it to other floral flavors or scents isn't easy without a better memory range of floral scents; maybe like a lighter version of lavender.

The tea itself seems to be of reasonable quality, not so easy to fully make out under the floral tones and sweetness but the smooth, balanced, flavors are just what you'd expect from a decent Jin Xuan.  My friend mentioned in China they blend lower grades of tea to cover flaws (almost goes without saying that would come up) but this seems like decent tea.

I've tried plenty of the tea and kept considering how to describe the taste beyond "floral."  In terms of other flavors a comparison to bubble gum comes to mind (like the kids' soft pink type).  It's funny how lately I keep comparing tea flavors I like to tastes that don't sound pleasant at all, like cardboard, or tar (not to mention stones or wood).  The "bubble gum" taste works, because it doesn't taste just like bubble gum, and because it's at a subtle level that still lets the taste of a "buttery" oolong still blend in (typically just a rich taste element, although some Jin Xuan can naturally taste a bit like butter).

This wouldn't be one of my favorite teas because I really do prefer "plain" tea more, so it's more about being amazed that I like it as much as I do.  Sometimes when drinking teas I have a good bit of (the package included 200 grams) that particular tea can become boring but somehow it works really well as an everyday tea.

It's also incredibly forgiving in terms of preparation timing, which comes up since I've been drinking it at work.  I try not to take 20 minute breaks to make sure I get multiple infusions of tea just so (usually).  If you brew it for only 2 minutes the nice flavors are still there, not really even too weak, and if you completely forget the tea it's still actually good after it brews to cool, just a bit strong.  There's no way to get astringency out of the tea, actually normal for Jin Xuan oolong.

More details

There isn't much more to add.  I've not included a picture of the brewed tea "liquor," or brewed leaves because they are exactly like any other Jin Xuan oolong:  darker gold (which is sometimes a slightly brighter yellow), and a mix of leaf sizes, generally on the larger side.  The maker described it as seen as a "woman's tea," and I could see that, even if there's nothing wrong with a man preferring a subtle and fruity white tea or a woman loving a pu'er that some would describe as tasting like wood, tar, or camphor.

Related to another post I've been working on, and my general impression that you couldn't possibly find decent tea in a grocery store, I just saw this and a few other "decent" teas being sold in a higher end grocery store here (in Bangkok).  I pay a price for living in a city here--time spent in traffic, isolation from nature outside of parks--but being separated from good value mid-range tea options isn't part of that.  Here I'm using "mid-range" as something of a compliment; this isn't the type of rare tea someone is out there hunting down in remote regions in China but it is decent tea.

A nice cake of green tea (compressed tea, maybe pu'er)

Notes on green tea cake

This compressed tea is definitely of the "green," "raw," or "sheng" type, versus compressed tea that has undergone a secondary fermentation process (cooked or shou pu'er).  

It might not actually be pu'er depending on origin; it is from China but maybe not from Yunan province.  It is a hei cha, a compressed tea, but seemingly not very fermented by aging as the type implies.

The package label is only in Chinese and the vendor spoke only Thai so it was only sold as green tea ("cha keo").  With my limited Thai I could've still asked about the year produced but didn't.

Tea review:

The tea tastes a lot like a fresh green tea.

Normal profile of green tea varies with an unusual mustiness, but just a little, and not in a bad sense.  It doesn't taste off, just unusual as fresh tea goes, perhaps not so unusual for compressed tea.  There is relatively little astringency to the tea, and I would have expected some.  The tea brews to a gold color, as the appearance suggests apparently not fermented by aging.

Other flavors are slightly vegetal, towards grassy, but generally nonspecific.  There is one subtle underlying taste element like part of a clove flavor, complex, and nice, but not really spicy like clove.

Partial flavor aside:  

Some tea flavors  remind me of parts of other flavors,  like the base tastes of cinamon or nutmeg, but without the spicier components.   This reminds me of how flavor wheels use some of these as simple taste components,  when they're really not (see earlier post on flavor wheels).  Maybe this has something to do with essential oils versus other components, hard to say.

The taste was cleaner after first infusion,  less musty, but otherwise didn't change as far as adding or dropping taste components goes.

Tasting it raised more questions about pu'er standard flavors, aging,  etc.  I've  tried some puers but definitely can't write the beginner's guide on all that.  Tea flavors are said to change and improve over time, but I'm not really clear on how, so I'll have to do more reading and tasting and come back to that.

Summary of this tea:  interesting  

I liked it, even though there was really nothing noteworthy about it; it was just a basic green tea.   It was a smaller and inexpensive cake (100 grams--I think--for around $6), and I won't keep it around to see how it ages, I'll just drink it.   Given it didn't cost that much more than a Starbucks coffee I should buy another cake and stash it.



I saw a discussion post once comparing the appearance of a compressed tea to marijuana, and this did look a little like brick weed (not that I've ever seen that in person).  Then again any leaf-type plant or the like might look similar when pressed into a cake.

Da hong pao oolong tasting; a Wuyi yan cha (rock tea)

New favorite tea shop

I recently visited a tea shop I've been hearing a lot about, and picked up a few nice teas.

The picture of me with the owner doesn't really show how the shop is sort of a large booth in a wide mall walk-way.  But there is space for a small tasting area, a nice glass display cabinet, shelves of tea-ware and tea figures, and of course lots of tea.  I think the name of the store is Tea De Zhang, definitely located in the Seacon Square shopping mall, with the Facebook page here.

They essentially specialize in pu'er, but depending on preference and what else you find that you like there that might not matter.  

I was there to buy two teas:  a well-known pu'er I'll share with a tea friend, and another loose tea recommended by another.  He said the tea was a Wuyi yan cha (rock oolong), related to da hong pao, and per the labeling one of two separate yan cha teas was a da hong pao.  The owner's wife was in China, overseeing old tree leaf sources used for a limited edition of a less commercial pu'er production--a tea for another day.

As routinely occurs in this country language was a bit of a problem, but with some help from a third party I bought the teas, in spite of a review process by my wife who was on the errands with me.

My wife had insisted I finish "all" the tea in the house before buying more--definitely not reasonable, a project I only mostly completed--and this purchase added up to a lot of tea.  

All the same it was a steal at not so much over $100 for over a kilogram of tea (3 pu'er cakes--on sale; see later blog entry).

Tea tasting:

To keep this entry readable I've decided to experiment with using the form of tasting notes, edited to be less messy, but all the same thoughts on the tea as I experienced it.  

I tried tasting by comparing Western style brewing against tea made in a gaiwan, and the results were quite similar, the flavors just changed over subsequent infusions differently.

-appearance:  long twisted dark leaves, tea brewed to brownish amber

-initial flavors include cocoa, wood and earth tones. Maybe teak and slate (I'm not so well trained with such flavors), with a malty undertone.

-smooth taste with relatively higher oxidation, without flavor profile starting towards even a soft black tea; no tannin / astringency.

-cocoa flavor stands out initially (a favorite), hits the palate first


-some natural sweetness, but hard to relate that to a specific fruit element and definitely not a floral tone.  If there were a fruit element it would probably be something like apricot, but the wood and mineral elements really stand out, so I wasn't really "getting" fruit.

brewed leaves

-not so much difference between gaiwan and Western brewing initially, but this could relate to technique, or could change based on variables, ratio or timing.

-the western brewing taste changes by second infusion; "brighter" cocoa fades a little and taste elements shift to different wood tone, balsa or even cardboard.  Not as negative as it sounds, still delicious, but not as good.  The gaiwan brewing seems to preserve the initial taste profile for 3 infusions better; "cleaner" flavors.  Even later infusions are pleasant using both brewing types though; tea tastes nice until it fades, consistent except for that change.

-the taste elements combine well, are very continuous, with a nice rich feel / body to the tea


In summary, the tea was quite nice, with the types of flavors I prefer just now.  It seems like a higher grade version of the same tea might hold the taste better over multiple infusions with a little more complexity, but the tea was very good and an excellent value.