Floating Leaves Tea Home ---Shiuwen's Blog!

Monday, December 30, 2013

2013 Winter Baozhong

Our Winter Baozhong has arrived! The tea has already opened up, so I was able to compare it to our Spring Baozhong, which is also from Farmer Chen.


The Gaiwan on the bottom is Winter 2013 Farmer's Choice Baozhong


Before the tea arrived, I had heard that this winter has been warmer than usual during the tea harvest. I was a bit worried. After I tasted the winter crop of tea, my impression is that both seasons' tea is equally good, which makes me very happy. 

I tasted both seasons' Baozhong Farmer's Choice side by side. Both teas have very solid tea broths. I think the spring Baozhong was just a bit heavier, but it's really hard to notice the difference. Our spring Baozhong has an orange-like aftertaste and the winter one has a brighter, citrus aftertaste. 


Left is the brewed leaves from Winter season. Right is from Spring Season. 



Left is tea broth from Winter Baozhong, right is tea broth from Spring season.

I am satisfied with this winter Baozhong crop. It's solid and smooth with a clean citrus aftertaste. Try it and I think you will be happy with this tea, too. 

In my next post, I will write about the differences of our High Mountain Oolongs between the Spring and Winter seasons. 

Meanwhile, enjoy a good cup of tea and have a great year in 2014!

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Oolong Refresh/Roast Part II


Here are the rest of the tea roasting results from our Oolong Roast classes.

I had a bag of Alishan that had been open for too long. The tea base was good, but a little bit stale. I thought it would be fun to touch it up and see if I could get some of its original flavor to return. I found this to be the most challenging refresh roast. I refreshed this tea at 40C for one hour and the result was just exactly what I wanted! I tried it one more time using exactly the same method, but the tea didn't change much. Then I tried to refresh this Alishan with 40C for 30 minutes and then increased the heat to 50C for another 30 minutes. The tea tasted good, but a little roasted. Super sensitive tea!

Next, we tasted a Muzha Tieguanyin Maocha. I got this Maocha from Farmer Zhang last year. The tea base was very good and I had a great time roasting this one! I wanted to turn this Maocha into a very roasted Tieguanyin. I started with 40C for an hour. I increased the heat by 10 degrees every hour. I finished the roasting at 80C. The tea became a very roasted tea. How fun!



Some of you have sent your roasting results to me. Thank you!