Tastings from the Cellar: Aged Thai Oolong No. 17 Doi Tung King's Grade (2009?)

This oolong comes from the Finnish tea merchant théhuone. If I recall correctly, it was the year 2009 when I bought the tea, but I cannot know for certain if it was actually harvest in the same year.

I remember how I was not that impressed by the tea when I first tasted it, which is why it was left to age in my cellar to begin with. However, the time has come to give Doi Tung another chance.

There is a very slight musky warmth of aged oolong in the dry leaves, but one can also detect greener oolong notes behind the age. Luckily there is at least no signs of the staleness or sourness so often found in cheap tea bought from the supermarket.

After rinsing the leaves with hot water, the greener vegetable notes gain more strength. There are also underlying notes of milkiness and fruits behind the greenness.

In the aroma of the first infusion, there is certainly the kind of warmth and structure the tea was lacking younger. The floral, fruity, milky, and vegetable notes are well balanced, and there are no signs of those thin and sharp vegetable and marine scents that Doi Tung portrayed years ago. In the second brew, floral notes dominate and remind me of Taiwanese Dong Ding oolong.

The taste of Doi Tung is intensive and spreads immediately to cover the whole mouth. There is a very slight bitterness in the taste that could probably be driven away by reroasting the tea, but I see no reason to actually do this. In the flavour fruity notes are most apparent, and there is again no sign of that vegetable and marine character that made the tea unappealing before. In the second infusion the bitterness has somewhat faded, but is still suitably present to bring some edge to the otherwise round taste.

Unlike those aged teas that taste so smooth in the first infusions as to give an impression of tastelessness, in Doi Tung the taste is clear and easy to approach right from the beginning. The aftertaste is long lasting with a fruity, creamy, and warm character. I remember the mouthfeel was very slick when the tea was younger, but now it has gained impressive body and depth.

To be honest, of all my aged oolongs I have tasted so far, the transformation of Doi Tung has amazed me the most. The tea has simply changed so much, that I would not recognize it as the boring Thai oolong that I did not want to waste my precious time drinking. And this is speaking of a really affordable mid class oolong!

Doi Tung could maybe be even better in a couple of years, but because I only have a couple of sessions worth of the tea left, I am just going to drink it away and enjoy the tea as long as it lasts.

Tastings from the Cellar: Aged Gan Kou Oolong Roasted 2012 (Tea Masters)

Today I tasted the roasted version of the Taiwanese Gan Kou oolong bought from Stephane Erler from the Tea Masters -blog.

This particular tea is an exceptional Taiwanese oolong, because it has been cultivated at a relatively low height in Southern Taiwan. When I bought this tea, I chose to buy the lightly roasted version over the greener and more modern version, because I had been reading that the traditional more roasted and more oxidized oolongs were better suited for aging.

There is a quite strong roasted scent in the dry leaves, that does not leave any room for the musty aroma of aged oolong. Once the leaves have been rinsed with hot water, they release an intense smell of sour plums, which soon transforms into an even stronger notes of dried berries.

The aroma of the brew itself is surprisingly mildly roasted. One can distinguish notes of old wood, pine forest, and dark fruits behind the roast. During the time it takes to drink the cup, the aroma of berries and caramel becomes more apparent. In the second infusion, one can also notice a more traditional soft and misty floweriness of Taiwanese oolongs.

There is pretty much no signs of the roast in the taste of Gan Kou. At first one can detect faded signs of the roast, which manifests as a kind of twisted aroma of coal and ashes, but this scent is quickly replaced by notes of flowers and an incredibly complex aroma of dark fruits and caramel. The mouthfeel of the tea is silky smooth and gives an impression of tastelessness before the flavour develops.

All in all I am extremely impressed how this tea has developed over the years. I remember how at first I did not much like Gan Kou, because of the dull and monotonous roasted character, which covered up everything else. However now after the roast has faded, what is left is a very complex and classy oolong. As this tea shows no signs of deteriorating quality, I will take it back to the cellar for a couple of years at least.

Tastings from the Cellar: Aged Yancha Lao Cong Shui Xian 2010 (Tea Trail)

I've been taking my personal stash of oolongs everywhere for a couple of years now. They have moved from city to city and now they are resting in a damp and cool cellar under our house. I have really not paid any attention to the teas and just hoped to forget them until 10 or 15 years has passed.

Then I suddenly realize six years has gone by. A lot of things can happen in six years. I am not the same person as I was back in 2010, and I am sure my teas are not the same also. So it is time to have a taste of these aged teas and see how they have developed.

The first tea I am tasting is a Lao Cong Shui Xian from the expectional Finnish teashop Tea Trail. These are my tasting notes from the year 2010 when I bought the tea:

The scent is roasty and dark at first, but one can also find notes of berries.

The taste is warm, roasty, and thick with clarity, a nice warming and slick mouthfeel, and just the right amount of astringency. In the second and fourth cup I can also notice a flavour of grains.

In six years the tea has changed quite a bit. Just from the dry leaves I can smell the familiar aroma of musty old wood and medicinal herbs that I know from previous tastings of aged oolongs. This scent always reminds me of a setting sun on a summer evening. Maybe this is because it was a hot and humid summer evening in my crammed student flat when I first tasted aged oolong.

Once the leaves are rinsed with hot water, they release notes of liqueur which quickly transforms into a soft woody and berrylike aroma.

There is very little left of the original roasting in the scent of the infused tea. Behind the weak roast, I can find mineral and dark fruity notes. At first the roasting seems to give the fruits and the mineral a bitter twist, but luckily the roast dissipates quite quickly.

As time passes the fragrance develops into a stunningly complex harmony of mineral, herblike, and sweet dark fruity notes. Once in a while I can still detect those intense notes of berries that I know from younger yanchas. In the second infusion the aroma becomes a little bit softer and a bit grainy, but it is nonetheless extremely complex.

The taste of the tea is soft, but not bland, as there still appears some of that freshness and clarity of taste that I miss from younger yancha. At first the taste is very mild and I can mostly notice the mineral taste the tea leaves on my tongue. Because of the weak taste my attention if focused mostly on the fine and strong aftertaste of old wood and tender fruits.

Then slowly the taste starts to become clearer. In the second infusion the taste is already much clearer and balanced. It harmonizes well with the aftertaste, and I can also detect a small amount of bitterness, which gives the body of the tea some structure.

Lao Cong Shui Xian has definitely developed into a fine tea. I would very much like to drink it all up now and not risk that by aging more the tea will start to lose its appeal. But I want to see how the tea will develop if I push it to its limits. When I start to notice the quality deteriorating, that's when I will finish it.

A Teapot for the Office

For years I have resisted admitting it, but at last I must confess: I am a teapot collector.

I have allowed myself to buy my last three teapots only because I have promised myself that would be the last teapot I ever buy. Personally I respect my teapots so much, that leaving them unused makes me really sad. For this reason I have not wanted to buy teapots that will only gather dust in my cupboard.

But... Once again I relapsed and bought a new teapot, which makes me doubt my intentions about keeping and raising teapots. I do have real use for this piece, however. These days I spend most of my time in an office, and naturally that makes the office the place I drink most of my tea in.

For a long time I used just a metal strainer and a large tea cup to brew my tea in the office. This was easy, but I wanted to get rid of the metal strainer. Next I proceeded to drink tea in a Chinese glass thermos infuser, which was really handy actually. I could infuse the leaves directly in the thermos and drink it while it was infusing.

In the long run I started to regard using glass tea ware as a waste of time. Because I spended most of my time in the office and drank most of my tea in there, why would I not purchase a teapot suitable for office tea, that could gather patina during my work time?

The teapot I ended up buying is Bizen ware from Japan. The clay is heavy, hard, and unglazed. Bizen ware is wood-fired for days, which leads to unique colouring in the clay.

This clay was made by an award winning ceramist Takashi Saito, and it was purchased from Artistic Nippon. In the first three infusions, the pot left an unpleasant clay odour in my tea, but once I left some 2010 Lao Cong Shui Xian from Jadepisara (now Teatrail), the prolem was solved. I am eagerly waiting to see how the teapot will develop during the next months and years when I have properly braked in the pot.

The volume of the teapot is about 160ml. It is my biggest teapot, but for office use I wanted a bigger pot, because you cannot work at the computer and gongfu at the same time!

For the teapot, I bought this beautiful Japanese tea cup made by Ito Shiho. The volume is about 180ml, which is perfect with the teapot.

P.S. I forgot my email and password for my last blog Teekannu (in Finnish), so I started a new one. I will update the most important posts here when I have the time!