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.