Zealong Pure, distributed in the USA exclusively by Chicago Tea Garden, is an experience that no tea drinker should miss. Do not let the pale color of this tea deceive you. This tea is far from being watery or flavorless.
Instead it has a subtle, flavor, rich in under notes, and worth drinking again and again.
The review:
The dry leaf: The dry leaf is mostly rolled into black balls, but there are some loose bits. The fragrance is barely detectable.
The steeping: Enough tea to cover the bottom of a small teapot was steeped for 30 seconds in water that had been heated to 190 degrees. Subsequent steepings were 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 45 seconds, and one minute.
The liquor: The liquor is pale, shimmer gold with bright yellow green highlights. The fragrance is classic Formosa oolong with under notes of a flavor similar to cinnamon. The flavor is as the fragrance is, only with the cinnamon-like undertone more pronounced. There was a background flavor, very subtle, that was reminiscent of cinnamon flavored cactus candy or perhaps cinnamon simmer pears.
The flavor of this tea seems to increase as you hold it in your mouth.
The wet leaf: The wet leave unfurls to be whole tealeaves still on the stem the are very dark green, as is characteristic of oolong's partial oxidation during processing.
Conclusion: This is a tea that must be experienced under conditions that allow it to have the drinker's full attention. The subtleties of this tea can only be appreciated if it is held in the mouth a few moments before swallowing.
This tea is available on the Chicago Tea Garden website. A sample was provided by Chicago Tea Garden, but this did not influence the outcome of the review.
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Comments
Great slide show -- next best thing to being there! Thank you! Looks like they've got a classic jade oolong there, but with some unique flavor notes for a green oolong. Very nice. How about the body? Hot, or especially as an iced tea, I find the thick-bodied oolongs are wonderfully thirst-quenching.
Some great photos. I like oolongs, but they are an expensive tea to buy (even wholesale!). As a result, I will serve an oolong for a special occasion.
Sounds delicious.
i would expect any review to state what kind of tea this is (Oolong? what level of fermentation? or green?) where it comes from, etc. Now it just seems like a bit of random promotional blurb by a PR agency.
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