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Red Jade #18 Black Tea Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
The dried leaves above exhibit the premium batch of Red Jade #18 Black Tea being offered as batch 84 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club. This crop was picked in early July, while it was still immature and tender. Summer crops are the best leaf material for optimal results in a full flavored composition for Black Tea specifically. Stronger sunlight and hotter weather produce higher concentrations of catechins in the leaves, resulting in a fuller aromatic and flavor profile. Full oxidation of these compounds is necessary to achieve a balanced composition that is not overly astringent.
Red Jade #18 Black Tea | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 84 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Red Jade #18 Black Tea from the historical Sun Moon Lake tea growing region of Taiwan. This cultivar, given the name Red Jade (紅玉) is registered as hybrid #18 by Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station. You can learn all about its background in our recent blogpost, but this Black Tea hybrid strain is unique to Taiwan, and was "born" in the 20th century. It has become quite popular over the last 20 years since it was first commercially introduced in the early 2000's.
Alishan Small Leaf Type Black Tea Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 83 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is an Alishan Small Leaf Type Black Tea made from summer harvest of the Jin Xuan/ Tai Cha #12 hybrid strain. The new growth was plucked when it was still young and tender, providing premium leaf material for making Small Leaf Type Black Tea. We tried several summer batches of Small Leaf Type Black Tea in our search for a premium representative of this tea type, and this batch of Alishan Jin Xuan from our regular source was our pick of choice.
Alishan Small Leaf Type Black Tea | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 83 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is an Alishan Small Leaf Type Black Tea made by our source of Alishan High Mountain Oolong and Alishan High Mountain Jin Xuan Oolong. They picked some of their Jin Xuan summer crop when it was still immature. These young tender leaves from the second flush (summer crop) are ideal for making Black Tea. Jin Xuan is the name of Taiwan's most popular hybrid small leaf type tea.
Li Shan High Mountain Oolong Tea Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 82 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Li Shan High Mountain Oolong Tea, second flush of 2022. The weather during the spring growing season that produced the first flush remained unusually cool, resulting in a slower growth cycle that produced a character of tea that was a mix of winter and spring qualities. The weather during the second flush growing period was a combination of spring and summer weather at high elevation. This produced leaves that acted like second flush, but also carried aromatic and flavor notes that are similar to a classic spring first flush.
Li Shan High Mountain Oolong Tea | Eco-Cha Tea Club
The Eco-Cha Tea Club is mostly about finding an unusually distinct batch of tea that is not generally available on the market, we also make an effort to maintain variability in the monthly editions — with the goal of continually offering a different character of tea from month to month. Furthermore, we want to offer Taiwan's renowned specialty teas that are the best of their kind — in the world. Batch 82 is one of these representative Taiwan Oolong Teas: Li Shan High Mountain Oolong Tea.
Wuyi Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 81 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a first for us! A very minimal spring yield of organically grown Wuyi cultivar was processed by our source of Tie Guan Yin Oolong in the way that he usually makes tea. He planted his own plot of the Wuyi cultivar about 20 years ago on his family heritage farm in Muzha, Taiwan — but it has not been available to us until this spring. We've procured his Fo Shou Oolong before, but not his Wuyi. So, as we approach the completion of our eighth year of the Tea Club, we are excited to share a batch of tea that we've just sourced for the first time ever!
Wuyi Tie Guan Yin Oolong | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 81 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is an Wuyi Tie Guan Oolong from Muzha, Taiwan. It was made from the spring flush of this small, naturally farmed plot of the Wuyi cultivar, and processed in the traditional Muzha Tie Guan Yin fashion by our ongoing source of Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea. This is the first opportunity we've had to procure his Tie Guan Yin Tea made from the Wuyi cultivar. His spring crop produced less than 20 kg of cured leaf. That's literally the smallest batch of Oolong that we've ever heard of!
Roasted Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong | Eco-Cha Teas
It's the above award that inspired us to have the second half of our winter 2021 stock of Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong roasted by our close friend who cultivated it. He entered his own roasted version from this same crop into the Lugu Farmers" Association Dong Ding Oolong Tea competition and received Top Category Award (within the top 2% of all entries). When we heard the news, we promptly requested his services to roast the remainder of our procured share in the same fashion as this top award winning tea!
Taiwan Tie Guan Yin Oolong Spring 2022 | Eco-Cha Teas
Taiwan's Tie Guan Yin Oolong, as it is made in the Muzha tradition, is the most heavily oxidized and heavily roasted of all Taiwan's renowned Oolong (partially oxidized) tea types. The photo above shows the leaves when they are approaching the desired degree of oxidation, before the tumble heating/kill green step of Oolong Tea making.
Competition Grade Wenshan Baozhong Tea Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
This month's edition of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Competition Grade Wenshan Baozhong Tea made from spring 2022 harvest. This batch won an award in the local competition, although not as prestigious as last spring's entry — which won Top Category Prize (within the top 2 % of all entries). Our friend from whom we source this tea said that the tea judge was a newbie, and it's hard to know how they will rate the teas.
Competition Grade Wenshan Baozhong Tea | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 80 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Competition Grade Wenshan Baozhong Tea from spring 2022 harvest. We sourced this batch at the same time we sourced our in store stock of spring Baozhong. While were tasting the different days of harvest, our friend told us that he will enter this batch into the local competition. We promptly asked if he had enough to share with us, and he did!