Light Roast Yushan High Mountain Oolong Tea Tasting Notes
The chunky nuggets of dried leaf shown above are the winter produce from an isolated organic farm in Dongpu, the northern trailhead for Taiwan's highest peak —Yushan, or Jade Mountain. The leaves were significantly oxidized, making them suitable for the light roasting that was done by an elder Oolong Tea master in Lugu.
The leaves brew an exceptionally substantial, smooth, balanced tea with a very satisfying savory/sweet profile. The brewed leaves put forth fresh, buttery green leafy aromatic notes, like sauteed Swiss Chard. The tea is viscous, with an evenly balanced complexity of warming spices and unrefined sugary notes — cardamom, palm sugar, and butternut squash come to mind.
Both the richly sweet flavor profile of the lightly roasted leaves and the slightly yellow hued appearance of the brewed leaves are signs of the Green Leafhopper. And given that the second half of the winter growing season had no rain, and temperatures remained warm, it's likely the leaves were "bug-bitten" on this organic farm, and the constituents in the leaves remained until harvest.
It's an amazingly balanced composition that can withstand concentrated brews. But we recommend starting a bit light on the leaf:water ratio to capture the more subtle aromatic and flavor notes. You can always brew stronger later, we like to remind ourselves!
This batch of tea is special due to the microclimate high up in a remote mountain gorge, and the fact that it is organically cultivated with no other farming in the vicinity. It was also roasted by our favorite traditional Oolong Tea master — because we wanted this singular batch of organic winter harvest to receive the treatment it deserved!
We look forward to hearing about your experience of this batch of tea being shared in the first month of the Lunar New Year. And be sure to put up your red door paper for prosperity and good luck!
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2 Responses
Yen
Just wondering if there’s any taste difference between the light roasting and the unroasted version?
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Batch 63 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club was harvested in November 2020, processed, and then sorted to remove stem material and any discolored leaves in preparation for the winter 2020 competition and the New Taipei City Farmers's Association.
The distinctive quality of Baozhong Tea is that the leaves are shuffled well to induce uniform oxidation, but they are only minimally rolled. This keeps their physical composition in tact. The leaves are not damaged by pressure rolling. This locks in a fresh, green quality that put Baozhong Tea in a category of its own.
Eco-Cha Teas
February 25, 2020
Hi Yen,
Thanks for your question about the effects of the roasting. The answer is yes, there was a noticeable difference in the taste of the tea as a result of the roast. Roasting gave it a more cured character, with a cleaner, more balanced flavor profile, as well as transforming the fresh vegetal notes into more of a fresh pastry flavor — it brought out some sweetness. What do you taste in this tea?