There’s only been a handful of tea bag reviews here at Oolong Owl. Honestly, I’m a loose leaf tea drinker and I do not purchase bagged tea. My tea bag collection is mostly samples and really old teas leftover from my tea bag days. I just realized I should probably throw out those old tea bags – they are probably really old! I tend to drink bagged tea on really lazy and tired mornings. Those days I toss in a tea bag, add water and check my email while my tea bag over steeps.
Anyways, I wouldn’t review a bagged tea unless it was something different or something pretty good. The tea for review today is Buddha Teas’ Oolong Tea, an organic four seasons oolong.
Dry Leaf
Tea in a bag. I wanted to steep this sucker in a bag just like anyone else would, so in the bag the tea stays. Surprisingly, the tea is quite fragrantly roasty without a paper scent. The tea bag is unbleached with no staples, which is nice. I personally prefer this style of tea bag over those silk plastic ones, as they don’t compost well.
Steeping Instructions
The package states to steep the tea bag for 3 to 5 minutes with boiling water, and up to 10 minutes. I found this tea did well with the longer steeping – for this review I went 5 minutes, but I did a previous session with this tea for an extended brewing of “leave in cup and forget about it”.
The tea bag did hold up with the extended steeping. Mmm a wet tea bag. This picture makes me thirsty.
Tasting of Buddha Teas’ Oolong Tea
The tea steeps up a lovely bronze gold cup with a lightly roasted scent.
Buddha Teas’ Oolong sips in roasty and full of flavor. There is also a nice fresh vibe to this tea. It isn’t that green tasting, but more roasty, buttery, and with a finish of sweet toasted flowers. Who toasts their flowers? Anyways, the toasty flavor level I’d put at moderate – like a bit of crispy edges on the floral. The texture is very smooth and quite easy to drink. There’s a slight dryness after I drank more than half my cup.
Comments
First off – Buddha Teas’ Oolong Tea is the best bagged oolong tea I’ve had – the tea was flavorful and true to oolong-ness in taste without weird paper notes or watery flavor. Most common issues I’ve had with bagged oolong teas is that they don’t remotely taste like an oolong, little flavor or very stale, like steeping a chunk of cardboard. Buddha Teas’ Oolong Tea is many many steps ahead of the standard bagged oolong game. I personally enjoyed this tea for the roasty floral notes – I love a roasty oolong so this was a nice treat of a tea.
Buddha Teas’ Oolong Tea would be a great oolong for a tea bag drinker who wants a good oolong, and an oolong drinker who wants the convenience of a tea bag.
(tea provided for review)
