Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Pouchong (somewhere between a green and an Oolong)
Company Description:
Other names: Baozhong Tea, Baochong, Bao Zhong Tea
For the second year running, our exclusive Pouchong from Taiwan took a gold award at the Guild of Fine Food Great Taste Awards.
This is one of our favourite teas and completely exclusive to Canton Tea Co. Grown high on the slopes of WenShan, Taipei county, by farmer Xu and his family, this award-winning Pouchong is incredibly light and refreshing with smooth floral notes and a sweet apricot finish. The locals call it a green tea, but it is actually a very lightly oxidised oolong. The big twisted leaves produce a bright yellow/green liquor that is creamy soft and delicious.
Farmer Xu’s comments
“Every year we enter our Pouchong in the big tea competition Every year we win the top prizes!”2009 Great Taste Awards: Two Gold Stars and 2010 Great Taste Awards: One Gold Star
Taster’s Review:
This is an extremely tasty Pouchong variety. It has a light-to-medium body with a creamy texture (or mouthfeel) to it that is similar to the texture of whole milk.
The aroma of the tea is faintly vegetative with hints of floral notes. The notes of vegetable and flower translate to the brewed cup – with stronger floral flavors than the vegetative notes which linger in the background. There is even the slightest hint of a buttery flavor, not strong, but it is complementary to the vegetal note.
Particularly nice is the aftertaste – this tea imparts a delightful fruit-like taste on the tongue… the company description suggests it’s a sweet apricot flavor and I’m inclined to agree, it is quite apricot-y.
Overall the flavor of this cup is delicate, but extraordinary. I recommend brewing it in a gaiwan to extract the most you can out of these leaves, and they’re ready for quite a few infusions – I managed seven infusions from the same measurement of leaves in my gaiwan!
This is a tea that I’d recommend to fans of green tea as well as fans of Oolong tea, because it exhibits characteristics of both of these types of tea. It is a truly remarkable tea and worthy of a try!
