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chinese oolongs with the certain 'burnt' taste - follow-up

Hi everyone!

Recently this was a topic here. Meanwhile I learnt something about those 'burnt' tasting, very dark chinese oolongs... I was told to 'use less tea and let it steep much longer' - i.e. abt. 7 gr. tea per liter (boiling) water and steeping time around 6 minutes, longer for a 2nd steeping (not many of those type of oolong teas will do more than a second steeping without adding a pinch of dry leafs)... my results were _excellent_ the taste and aroma of a chinese Tikuanyin (which I thought was _very_ heavily fermented and whose aroma reminded me of burnt cardboard) went to a much lighter, sweeter direction, maybe someone in possession of such a tea (and disliking it it, brewed the _normal_ way) might want to give it a try.

Enjoy!

Ralf

Reply to
Ralf Schreiner
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I usually steep my oolong or tikuanyin for about 1-2 minutes. Sometime if I steep too long, the taste is too bitter. A good oolong or tikuanyin can have more than 10 infusion or more.

Reply to
Willie Chan

Hi,

I was actually _not_ referring to what I would consider a hi-class oolong, it was meant as sort of a followup to this thread: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com

There my impression was that one (well... the westerners) could not really tell if this 'burnt' taste was an attribute or a flaw. This is surely different in the view of the average 'westerner' as compared to a chinese. The sort of chinese tikuanyin (and other oolongs) I am referring to are the cheaper ones, the ones that can be found i.e. in the teacorner of asian supermarkets in europe. From my (biased) point of view this sort of tea (at dlrs/eur 2-3 per 100 gr) is a less good tea than a king of tikuanyin at maybe dlrs/eur 15-20 per 100 gr .

I would _never_ treat a rare and costly oolong tea like that, otoh I have never experienced any bitterness in a hi-class oolong tea, no matter how long the steeping time.

Well... most of us bignoses do not fancy a nice meal of jellyfish... bare with us ;o)

Regards, Ralf

Reply to
Ralf Schreiner

I think "how many infusion times" is a minor factor of the quality of a tea. It could mean the tea has more flavor chemicals to be extracted or it could mean that it is harder to extract the flavor chemicals out of the tealeaves.

Reply to
Oolong

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