Dong Ding Dong Pian

This is the first time that I have carried a Dong Pian Oolong from Taiwan. Dong Pian Oolong is harvested after the main winter Oolong is harvested.

When I first tasted this tea, I had mixed feelings about it. The rinsed leaves smelled vegetal. I am honestly not a fan of vegetal-tasting Oolongs. After I swallowed the first sip, a bouquet showed up in the tea that was so big that it took me by surprise. The vegetal note remained in the second infusion, but some floral notes and a hint of citrus showed up. The aftertaste was very big and obvious. I have to say that this is for sure not a "boring" tea.

I enjoy drinking this tea. It is different, a welcome change, and provides a unique experience. You may initially feel like this is just an OK tea, and then just a few seconds later, the huge bouquet will hit you with a nice surprise.

Practice your Chinese with me at Floating Leaves!

Chinese Practice Night is back! We will start the Chinese practice class at the shop on February 10th. It will be a weekly practice from 6pm to 7pm every Thursday night. A $5 donation would be greatly appreciated.

Our tea shop is pretty small, so if you are interested in coming, please send me an email, tea@floatingleaves.com, so that I can save you a spot.

I will be focusing on correcting pronunciation, tones, increasing your vocabulary and helping you to communicate with some basic sentences. Therefore, I will only take people who know some basic Chinese language. If you're not sure what your level is, feel free to ask me. We will of course accompany our lessons with some good tea as well.

Looking forward to helping you with your Chinese over some nice pots of tea!

Muzha Tieguanyin

The brief number of sunny winter days have already left Seattle and we are having its usual gray and cold days. I like to have a pot of robust roasted Oolong to start my day when it's cold.
Lately I have been drinking Muzha Tieguanyin. This tea was made in 2005 and has been roasted from time to time. The first time that I had this tea, I made it in a Gaiwan. The tea is wonderfully roasted and the dried fruit notes are very apparent. In later brews, the tea turns sweet and the signature "metallic" taste from Tieguanyin will show up.

I just tried this Muzha Tieguanyin in a Yixing tea pot and noticed the tea tasted much softer. It lost some of the dried fruit notes, however, a Chinese herbal taste showed up. I found it very interesting. I like having this tea in either of the brewing styles. If you have this tea, please try it out using various brewing methods and see what you notice and like better.

New ShanLinXi and Lishan

Christmas has been busy. Thank you all for supporting my business, either ordering from the website or coming in for the new teas. I hope you have all had a chance to try out the new winter teas and enjoy them.

It had been so busy for me that I actually haven't had much time to enjoy these new teas myself. Yesterday, I finally had some quiet moments at the shop and the sun was out! I felt so happy to sit at the tea table and enjoy the new teas with the warm sun on my face.

I started with the new winter ShanLinXi. A customer showed up to taste the tea with me. We had five great infusions of this tea. It has a wonderful citrus note blended with a sweet, floral bouquet. There is a tartness in the tea that is balanced by the citrus note and sweetness. On the fifth infusion, the tea still tasted strong. I couldn't stop smelling the wet leaves while I drank the tea, they smelled so good!

Then we moved on to the Lishan. Many customers and I have been very satisfied with this tea. It's a solid high mountain tea with a smooth and strong body. The aftertaste of this tea lingers for quite a while. We made six good infusions out of this tea and decided to take a break. I sat there and enjoy the wonderful bouquet lingering in my mouth with a very nice Hui Gan (a sweetness that attaches in the throat area after one swallows the tea).

In the afternoon, two tea friends showed up, and I was very excited to tell them that I had a great tea session today with the ShanLinXi (I have had great tea sessions with Lishan). One of them is a big ShanLinXi fan and he told me he noticed when the weather is drier, ShanLinXi tastes better. Well, it was the first day of sunshine after who knows how many days of rain. Or, is it that my feelings of ease and peace helped me to better enjoy the tea?

Anyway, I will share more of my tasting notes for the new winter Oolongs in the next couple of posts. Thank you again for all of your support this year. I look forward to sharing more tasty teas with you in the coming year. Enjoy your teas and have a great 2011!

New Winter Oolong Just Arrived!

It's always very exciting to see boxes of new tea get delivered to the tea shop! Our Pinglin Baozhongs, Lishan, Alishan, DaYuLing, and ShanLinXi have arrived!

I have had fun tasting teas these past couple of days, but have noticed that some of the teas haven't opened up all the way yet. Throughout the years of importing tea from Taiwan, I have noticed some tea takes a couple of weeks to open up and some tea will go through changes of flavor for about a month before they settle.

These past two days feel like so long for me because I am so impatient with some of the teas! I want them to open up right away! I know some of you have been waiting for the new season's tea to show up and I simply can't wait to share them with you. The good news is that our tea buyer had very good things to say about the high mountain teas, which makes me want to experience these teas at their best even more.

Some customers came by the shop and had the chance to taste some of the new teas with me. They all said that the tea tasted very good. One customer who has been very into high mountain oolongs for years told me that this is possibly the best season over the past several seasons.
I have updated new teas on the website. If you can make it to the shop, please come taste some of the teas with me.