Review: Organic High Mountain Oolong Tea review by Amanda Wilson
January 19, 2014
We really like how Amanda Wilson's (My Thoughts Are Like Butterflies) reviews combine detailed tasting notes with the feelings that each tea invokes. Always thorough and interesting to read, here's Amanda's take on Eco-Cha Organic High Mountain Oolong Tea.
"The aroma of this tea is enticing, not overpowering and heady but like a spring breeze bringing distant aromas through an open window, this tea makes me want to go outside and explore."
"This tea is great for sipping Gong Fu style and reminds me of early Springtime, it also is soothing to my angry stomach so that is a huge plus."
"I suggest giving their website a view, they give lots of useful information about their teas which I certainly appreciate."
This batch of Alishan High Mountain Jin Xuan Oolong summer 2020 harvest has a very pronounced buttery character. Starting with the leaves put into the pre-heated tea judging cup, they exuded a pronounced buttered toast/popcorn aroma. But the flavor profile is replete with an uncanny buttered popcorn note, it's almost unbelievable! How can tea leaves do this?! It's not only buttered popcorn either! There are distinct floral and vegetal notes that balance out the incredulous and delicious buttered popcorn flavor. OK, enough repetitive description! Click hereto get your share.
This is what an award winning Wenshan Baozhong Tea looks like, in its dry leaf state, of course. Notice the uniformity in the size and coloration of the leaves. The yellow hues are only in the spine of the leaves, which would naturally protrude into a stem, but the stems have been removed, along with the larger, lighter colored, over-matured leaf stock. This uniformity of leaf material offers a pure flavor profile. It allows for a complexity of aromatic and flavor notes, but it comes from a uniform stock which is essential in producing a purity of character. This is a fundamental aspect of competition grade tea. It's not muddled. It's refined.
Batch #55 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is an award-winning Wenshan Baozhong Tea that was entered in the recent spring tea competition of the local Farmers' Association. Preparation for competition involves removing the bulkier stems from the leaves, and also sorting the leaves by coloration to achieve the most uniform stock of leaf material possible.
