Hey tea owlets! This is my 100th post on Oolong Owl! Thank you, my tea owl readers! I hope you all have just as much fun reading my posts as I do writing them! Also, lots of love to you tea sellers out there who get their teas attacked by stuff owls here at Oolong Owl! Wow, I didn’t know I had this many Owls! Thankfully, I have lots of tea to feed all the them! Continue reading, hoot!
Organic Silver Needle (Bai Hao Yin Zhen) is a white tea from Teavivre, an online chinese tea seller. I received this tea, and a few others for review, from Teavivre. They have a really nice lineup of unflavored teas and blooming teas. I also love Teavivre teaware – great prices! My tea was shipped from China and came a few weeks later, in perfect shape. DRY LEAF: Organic Silver Needle has a peachy dry floral scent. Very nice looking white tea leaves with a mix of silver and green. Organic Silver Needle is also FUZZY! Oh, I’m a sucker for fuzzy tea leaves. Oh man, I just had the… Continue reading, hoot!
Autumn Harvest Laoshan Green is a green tea from Verdant Tea. Autumn Harvest Laoshan Green is from the He family farm in Laoshan Village, Shandong Province, China. I have a giant pile of teas and samples that I haven’t gotten around to trying yet. It is pretty bad. While I was waiting for my rice to cook, I figure I should get the gaiwan going. My little crochet Owl Laoshan came over with my sample of Autumn Harvest Laoshan Green with a disapproving look on his face. We went to the computer and saw this tea is out of stock for the new Verdant Spring Harvest Laoshan… Continue reading, hoot!
Bao Zhong is a twisted pouchong oolong tea from The Persimmon Tree. Mmmm, Bao Zhong, I love this oolong! It is also used often as a base in all my favorite oolong blends that feature creamy or fruity flavors. Oh yeah! I had to give The Persimmon Tree‘s Bao Zhong a try! DRY LEAF: Mmm, delicious smelling dry leaf! It smells sweet, buttery and a little floral. Nice big leaves too! STEEPED: I steeped Bao Zhong as per instructions on the tin – 190F for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes, I had a golden yellow/green cup of tea that smells buttery! TASTE: A very delicate tea! Bao Zhong has… Continue reading, hoot!
Today, I am sampling some 2013 Yiwu Spring Sheng Pu’er from Misty Peak Tea. This tea is produced in pu’er country – Yiwu, Xishuangbanna Yunnan China. Misty Peak Tea was giving away a free sample of this tea and I jumped on it fast. Sheng pu’er? YUM! DRY LEAF: This one is a doozy as I’m pretty sure my sample was smashed up by USPS – it happens. I had one small intact piece of cake, with the rest being pretty loose. I’m not getting much smell off the dry leaves. The tiny green Owl is sitting in my tea cup. I bet… Continue reading, hoot!
Wonders of Kashmir is a unique white and green tea blend featuring sweet corn, pineapple, papaya and jasmine. This tea is from Della Terra Teas, an online tea seller of some really creative blends. I bought this tea purely on crazy unique value. Corn? Fruit? Jasmine? YEAH! DRY LEAF: Wonders of Kashmir features some nice big leafy tea mixed with large corn kernels and cubes of fruit. Giant corn! There’s only one jasmine bud in my entire 1 oz! Kind of odd, I guess they wanted the jasmine to be really slight – I’m going to make sure it makes it way into… Continue reading, hoot!
MY FIRST PU’ER CAKE! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! I mentioned previously that I’ve been shopping for pu’er cakes. I did lots of research and set a budget. After checking ratings, I discovered Mandala Tea has a great lineup, along with their own exclusive cakes. They also have really great customer support! This Mandala “Wild Monk” Raw Pu’er 2012 caught my eye for it’s promise of smokey and creamy notes, without any bitterness. It is also a 100g cake, so it is small enough to be affordable and low risk for a new to pu’er cake tea owl like me to try. I got this cake, and… Continue reading, hoot!
What’s a Cha Hai? It is a serving pitcher used in gongfu style brewing. After you steep your tea in a nice gaiwan or small pot, you pour the tea into the cha hai, and from there, serve the tea. Here’s a video from Verdant Tea for more explanation of chinese tea ceremony gear. (isn’t Verdant’s Videos always so calming?) Anyways, though most of my tea sessions are just for me (and stuff Owls), I use the pitcher as a vessel to strain the tea, have another infusion on stand-by to drink, and when I’m drinking out of small cups. When I get… Continue reading, hoot!
Jasmine Blueberry is a floral and fruity green tea blend from Art of Tea. DRY LEAF: Interestingly, the dry leaf smells mostly like blueberries! Just a smidgen of jasmine scent. The dry leaf consists of tightly spun dark green tea accented with dime sized blueberries, with the odd jasmine bud. STEEPED: I followed the steeping instructions of 185F for 5 minutes. Geeze, I haven’t steeped a tea for this long for awhile. While I wait 5 minutes, I grabbed a jellyfish to share my tea with. In the end, I was left with a brown gold cup of tea, that smells interestingly… Continue reading, hoot!
Yunnan White Jasmine is a jasmine silver needle white tea from Verdant Tea. This tea came as a sample with my last Verdant Tea order. I almost ordered this one! It was in my cart, but I was in one of those annoying “I need to order more to hit free shipping, but I’m already spending too much” problems, so I dropped it and requested it as my free sample. DRY LEAF: When I snipped open my sample package – holy moly! It was a blast of jasmine! Really good jasmine! Can I wear this as perfume? The leaves are a… Continue reading, hoot!
