Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: T-Oolong Tea
Tea Description:
This quality Alishan Charcoal Fire Medium Roast Oolong is handpicked, handcrafted and produced from Alishan oolong. Use only the charcoal made of either Taiwan Longan wood or Taiwan Acacia wood to roast the tea (NOT by electric roasters), and follow old traditional method. This tea has a strong charcoal aroma and taste mixing with flavors of Alishan oolong. The aftertaste is enjoyable and long lasting. It tastes very smooth, sweet, rich and complex, and stands up very well to multiple infusions.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
It’s probably no surprise to people out there that I’ve accumulated a vast quantity of tea. I’m pretty much surrounded by tea, and that’s just the way I like it. But even with all this tea around me, I still get really excited when it comes time to try an Alishan Oolong – which is my favorite type of Oolong tea. And when it is an Alishan Oolong from T-Oolong Tea, the excitement multiplies, because I’ve come to appreciate the level of quality that T-Oolong Tea offers. Their teas are always top-notch, and this Alishan Charcoal Fire Medium Roast is no exception! This is outstanding!
It’s the charcoal roasting that makes the difference here, creating an Alishan experience for me that is quite different from others I’ve had. I still taste some of what I recognize as Alishan – the smooth, sweet, floral-y notes, but these notes seem to fill the background while the notes of charcoal and toasty, wood-roasted flavor take the foreground.
The crisp, floral sweetness of the Alishan peeks through the more rugged taste of the charcoal notes, and I notice a bit more of a mineral-y kind of taste and texture, a bit more earthiness, and even notes of sweet, toasted nuts. The charcoal firing has added such a lovely dimension of flavor, creating a taste that is quite different from other Alishan teas that I’ve tasted … not better or worse, really, just different, and I am really enjoying the differences.
Deliciously different!
