Review: Tung Ting, Spring 2015 from Red Blossom Tea

Today I'll be reviewing another tea from Red Blossom. I purchased The Discovery Collection which comes with four sample teas, all of which I'll review. I'll be drinking the Tung Ting Formosa Oolong today. This will be my last tea out of the four tea sampler set.

From the Red Blossom website:
"Our Tung Ting was gathered at a little over 700 meters above sea level, in an area outside Lugu, Nantou County. We source exclusively spring harvested leaves for their fragrance and mouth feel. The tea is then lightly oxidized to accentuate its fresh orchid and gardenia notes."

I used the recommend 5 grams of leaves for my gaiwan. The leaves don't have much of a smell. After a rinse they had a sweet vegatal smell .

I did the first brew at 200 degrees F for three minutes. The leaves had a vegatal smell to them and the liquor was a faint light green without aroma. The taste is subtle and sweet that transforms into a green vegital and very slight astringent taste. It had a taste hard for me to describe and I felt myself trying to get every drop from the steep to understand it. The 5 grams of leaf filled the gaiwan to the top.

The second brew was at 200 for three minutes and thirty seconds. The sweetness in the aroma is almost all gone and I can only make out a leafy smell now. The leaves unfolded beautifully. They were mostly full with 2 or three leaves and displayed light and dark greens with a few hints of orange around some of the edges. The liquor was a light yellow with a slight smell I couldn't place. The taste of the front was was vegatal that got slightly bitter in a good way. The taste is subtle and takes me two or three cups to describe it to myself. I feel a slight bit of energy.

The third brew was done at 200 for four minutes. I first notice a lot of debris in the bottom of my cup and pitcher. The liquor was a lot lighter and really had no aroma that I could pick up. It the taste had the same flavors of the first two steeps although slight diminished. It was smooth and straight forward. I wanted to do a fourth brew and would have steeped for about 5 minutes to see if I could keep the tea producing but decided against it as I was headed to work and wanted to test it while I was there as well.

It did just as well brewing in my IngenuiTEA at work. I drank the infusions all day totaling about 3 steeps. I probably used about 7 grams of leaf and you can see that they expanded nicely to fill the entire device! This is a great all day drinker that is sweet and can have a nice bitter and vegital taste if push it on the heat/time/water to leaf ratio. It all depends on your taste for such things. I love a sweet to astringent or astringent to sweet transition and this tea can provide some of that based on the brewing variables.

This is the final tea of the sampler and if I had to rank the teas for my preference it would be:
1. Three Cultivar Red
2. Tung Ting Oolong
3. Premium White Tea
4. Pre-Rain Dragonwell

. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for reading!

Review: White Dragon Pearl Premium from Red Blossom Tea

Today I'll be reviewing another tea from Red Blossom. I purchased The Discovery Collection which comes with four sample teas, all of which I'll review. I'll be drinking the White Dragon Pearl Premium today. This will be my third tea out of the four tea sampler set with just the Oolong left to review.

From the Red Blossom website:
"Dragon Pearl is crafted from spring-harvested Da Bai leaf buds from Fuding County, Fujian. Though it is usually reserved for the base of jasmine teas, we commissioned the farmer to reserve some of this crop for our white tea connoisseurs. The buds are handpicked, then steamed and individually rolled by hand."

I used the recommend 3.5 grams of leaves for my gaiwan. The leaves have a sweet smell that disappear quickly. After a rinse they smelt of a sweet green tea.

I did the first brew at 195 degrees F for one minute. The leaves had a sweet grassy smell to them and the liquor was a faint light green without much aroma. The taste is subtle and sweet; lacking bitterness; is smooth and creamy with a very satisfying slight astringent finish.

The second brew was at 195 for a minute fifteen. It had a floral and sweet aroma that I enjoyed the and leaves looked great in the gaiwan. They were mostly full and displayed light and dark greens. The liquor was a little darker on this steep though still a very light green. The taste of the front was was sweet that stayed consistent and had a long finish.

The third brew was done at 195 for a minute thirty. I first notice that the aroma lost some of its sweetness. The liquor was about the same color and really had no aroma that I could pick up. It lost some flavor that could probably be regained from a longer steep but with that said it was still sweet and had a bit of astringency at the finish that lingers and mixes with the sweet taste from the earlier steepings. It was about this time I felt a little bit the of tea's Qi. I was feeling good and the tea was tasting sweet so I decided on a fourth round!

The forth brew was done at 195 for two minutes. The leaves still had a floral sweet smell but with a more exaggerated grassy note. The liquor still was orderless and had the same faint green color. The taste was about the same as steep three with slightly less flavor. At this point I was feeling good of Qi and decided to stop but probably could have gotten a couple of other steeps from the tea if I pushed it. I might even push it harder on the second and third steeps to see what I get.

This is a great sweet and flavorful white tea that has a bit of energy to it. I wouldn't mind drinking it again and look forward to finishing up my sample of it. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for reading!

Three Cultivar Red from Red Blossom Tea

Today I'll be reviewing another tea from Red Blossom. I purchased The Discovery Collection which comes with four sample teas, all of which I'll review. I'll be drinking the Three Cultivar Red today.

From the Red Blossom website:

"Our Three Cultivar Red is a unique blend of three varieties from Wuyi Shan and Fujian Province. In a world defined by tradition and age-old crafting methods, this tea is a rare innovation. The tea maker who created it is amongst a small group experimenting with new cultivars and crafting styles to create wonderful and delicious teas that buck tradition.

The leaves for this tea were harvested the first week of May 2014. It consists of leaves of two aromatic cultivars typically reserved for Wuyi Oolongs: Huang Guan Yin and Jin Guan Yin. These teas were then blended with a small leaf cultivar typically used to make green tea."

The leaf is a beautiful brown color, thin, stiff, and releases a strong sweet aroma that lingers.

I used the recommended 3.5 grams for a gaiwan and did a 10 second rinse to wake the tea and warm the tools. Then I infused for 2 minutes at 205 degrees F.

The liquor had the color of maple syrup and had a soft sweet smell. The leaf had an Earthy sweet aroma.

The first steep was very good. The front of the taste was black tea but it transformed into an earthy sweetness that lasted for a while on my palate and into the next steeping. I wanted to drink every drop of the steep. I was surprised by the transition from black tea taste to the sweetness. It had no overtones of any other flavors.

The second steep was more of the same with the aftertaste building on itself. It lost a little of the black tea front and gained more of the sweetness. I didn't taste any bitterness or astringency and it was a very gentle finish. I went on to do two more steeps and the tea remained sweet throughout. It lost some flavor but I probably could have went past four steeps and I was pushing the times towards the end to between 4-5 minutes.

I loved this tea so much I tried it the next day at work and went through three large steepings. It had the same great tastes and aromas of the gaiwan session. The sweetness from each steep will stay on your tongue into the next steeping. This is a tea I keep looking forward to drinking again as I love the mix of earthy sweetness with that of a traditional black tea taste. I didn't get much Qi from either session but it did perk me up. I could see this being an everyday drinker for me. I think this is the best of the sample set.