Don’t choose tea made for the lowest price and processed by industrial machines. But if you are looking for tea that is truly good for your health, my answer is always the same:Ĭhoose pure loose leaf tea, grown sustainably without pesticides or herbicides (have a look here at our approach to organic tea) and crafted by skilled men for flavour. Oolong comes from the Camellia Sinensis plant, rich in antioxidants. Yes, oolong tea has many health benefits. People often ask me – what is oolong tea good for? Is oolong tea good for you? Can oolong tea be used for weight loss? Oolong tea in a teabag, whatever its shape or material, won't taste as good as a loose leaf oolong infused in a teapot. There is no way the flavours can be extracted fully if the leaves are restricted within a teabag. One small teaspoon of dry leaf will rehydrate to become a large handful of wet leaf once you brew it. These beautifully crafted leaves really need space to unfurl as they infuse. I strongly advocate that you only drink loose leaf oolong tea. What looks and tastes like luxury tea is actually very affordable - especially when you compare it to the cost of a glass of wine or a high street coffee. When you look at the price of our loose leaf oolong tea, please remember that it really can be infused six times, so you get pots and pots of flavour out of a few grams. You can, of course, infuse it in a normal teapot too, and it will be every bit as delicious. You can then extract many infusions from those same leaves, putting fresh water into your pot up to seven times. I recommend infusing oolong quickly - with a lot of leaf and a small amount of water, in a Gaiwan teapot. The flavours of dark oolongs are much smoother are rounder than black tea. Unlike black tea, however, these oolongs are low in tannins and bitter compounds. The flavour notes are far more biscuity with rich caramels. If you are looking for an oolong flavour that is deep, rich and malty the more oxidised oolongs are for you: Sunset oolong, Da Hong Pao oolong or Waikato oolongs. These oolong teas are brighter, fruiter and have more green notes. You will enjoy our Iron Goddess Tie Guan Yin oolong or Golden Lily Milk oolong. If you prefer lighter, green tea flavours try the the less oxidised yellow gold oolongs. Another defining factor is the expertise of the artisan crafting the oolong, alongside the terroir, varietal and pick. How much oxidisation significantly changes the flavour profile. Oolong teas lie artfully between green tea and black tea. Each beautifully crafted oolong tea is incredibly complex, changing and developing with every steep. Just as it would be hard to explain what white wine tastes like, there is not one flavour profile for all oolong. The taste of oolong tea really depends on the type of oolong you use. To this day I am still amazed by the extraordinary layers of oolong tea flavour revealed in every pot. I was mesmerized by everything from the beautiful tea ware, to the artistry of the infusing, to the flavour. I have been used to dunking an industrial tea bag once in a mug, then binning it - not incredible oolong loose leaf tea that kept on giving and giving. The waitress returned as we finished each jug and re-infused the leaves, then carefully decanted the tea into the jug for us the enjoy. We drank 6 infusions from the same leaf and every time hot water hit those lovely leaves new subtleties of flavour were revealed. I fell deeply, completely for the Iron Goddess of Mercy (as Tie Guan Yin is also known). She carefully infused the tea from a Gaiwan teapot into a jug for us to pour into tiny cups, not much bigger than thimbles. It was bought for me by a client (in my life before I became the Rare Tea Lady) and made for me by a skilled waitress at our table. It cost $50 and I couldn’t get my head around that.Īnd this was over 20 years ago. I clearly remember a pot of Tie Guan Yin oolong in the lobby of a hotel in Xiamen back in the late 1990s. Oolong tea was one of the first teas to really blow my mind.
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