16 September 2009

2009 Wen Shan Fo Shou

I had the Fo Shou (Buddha hand) oolong harvested in summer 2009 in Wen Shan area of Taiwan. I got this tea from a local vendor, Longfeng, who delivered me lots of great teas before. This particular oolong is hand harvested and home roasted.

2009 Wen Shan Fo Shou

The leaves are small and even with light fruity smell. I prepared this tea “Czech tea-house style” – it is actually a gong-fu preparation in a yixing teapot, though gaiwan is more often used - mostly because good gaiwan is cheaper than a good yixing teapot. There is one specific though - the water used during preparation is kept hot in a glass pitcher with a tea candle lit under it. Because of this, the water isn’t boiling, so you have to use longer steeping times and more leaves.

This style of tea making has two major benefits – one do not have to care reheating the water and also there is no danger of burning the tea leaves.

2009 Wen Shan Fo Shou

This is a quite good oolong – lasted for 8 good infusions, with clear soup and very fresh and fruity aroma. The roasted taste was nearly undetectable. I liked this one a lot.

1 comment:

Bret said...

In the past I have used basically the same method for brewing Oolongs, with water temperature being somewhere around 195F and longer infusion times the brew seems to have much more depth and full, round flavors. But the drawback is it seems to mask whatever veggie protein flavors the tea might have. For some Oolongs I think this is a prefered method, for others maybe not, it really depends on each individual tea. It,s been a while since I had a really good green Oolong, maybe I should remedy this.