Additional Information
| Style of tea | |
|---|---|
| Oxydation level | |
| Baking Level | |
| Terroir | |
| Administrative Region | |
| Picking Style | |
| Picking Date | |
| Cultivar(s) Used | |
| Baking Date | June 2023, June 2024 |
| Garden Elevation |
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Yuwen’s Gui Fei Oolong Tea
Starting at $ 2.34
Gui Fei oolong is a remarkably distinctive and unique Taiwanese tea in both flavour and stories to tell about! For the stories, read the Background Information found below, for some tasting references we could easily sum it up by honey, honey, and more honey! Wild honey that is, with it’s mineral and pastoral complexity of wild flower sweetness with roasted nuts and woodsy overtones. Honey in the colour, Honey in the texture. Honey in the soothing, sweet comforting taste! We simply can’t make enough and end up producing several Lots in one year. This new Lot 1250 follows in footsteps of all its earlier iterations under the expert tea baking skills of our Award-Winning tea refiner, Yuwen. It was baked during the last weeks of June 2023 and allowed to mellow until the cooler temperatures settled-in in mid-Sept 2023. It follows in the footsteps of our previous lots and has undergone a 3 stage baking process with air-tight mellowing breaks of several weeks in between. This allows the flavours and aromas to stabilize and fully permeate the leaves. For those of you who liked our previous lots, this year’s bakings are one good notch above owing to the particularly generous Spring T-12 Jin Xuan Oolong we’ve secured earlier this year. This is a wonderful tea for chilly afternoons and evenings or summer camp fire rejoicings.
Gui Fei oolong is a remarkably distinctive and unique Taiwanese tea in both flavour and stories to tell about! One of these has to do with how it was first elaborated. It was introduced to the market quite recently, more specifically in the years that followed the disastrous Sept. 21 1999 earthquake that disrupted the lives of not only city dwellers, but tea farmers as well. In the famous Dong Ding area, tea producers neglected their plantations while they were busy rebuilding their homes and workshops. This left the tea gardens as open fields for the green leafhoppers to feast on the fragrant leaves. Their nibbling of the leaves causes the bushes to react to the invasive bug by increasing polyphenolic content in the leaves to mend themselves after the invasion. More polyphenols means also an increase in tannins and, down the road, after processing these leaves into tea: a rich, wild honey aroma and sweetness in the cup!
To further bring out this sweetness, the tea growers will oxidise the leaves to a higher level (around 40%). Our master finishers will then expertly roast the tea to further caramelise it making it one of the most smooth, soothing liquor one can experience in Taiwanese teas.
The other story has to do with the name given to this tea. In homage to Oriental Beauty (Dong Feng Mei Ren), the other “bug bitten” tea grown in the northern part of the island, growers in the Dong Ding area decided to name this tea in honour of a celebrated beauty in Chinese history. Yang Gui Fei was the beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty. Indeed, a very a good name for such a beautiful tea!
5 reviews for Yuwen’s Gui Fei Oolong Tea
Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review.
[email protected] (verified owner) –
7.3 grams in 90s YiXing Zi Ni teapot (100 ml).
Aroma of dry leaves: Toasted, honey.
Fast wash of the leaves with hot water, in order to rehydrate and wake up the leaves.
Aroma of wet leaves: Honey, nuts, ripe fruit.
First brew, 1 second, 95/100 ° C.
Aroma (teapot): Honey, nuts, dried fruit, toasted.
Aroma (aroma cup): Toasted, honey, nuts.
Flavour: Honey, sugar cane, caramel, fresh and refreshing aftertaste.
Second brew, 5 seconds, 95/100 ° C.
Aroma (teapot): Honey, ripe fruit, nuts, toasted.
Aroma (aroma cup): Honey, caramel.
Flavour: Honey, sugar cane, caramel, fresh and refreshing aftertaste.
Third brew, 7/2, 95/100 ° C.
Aroma (teapot): honey, caramel, sugar cane.
Aroma (aroma cup): honey, caramel.
Flavour: Honey, ripe fruit, caramel.
Fourth brew, 10 seconds, 95/100 ° C.
Aroma (teapot): Honey, ripe fruit, nuts, caramel.
Aroma (aroma cup): honey, caramel.
Flavour: Honey, cane sugar, caramel.
Fifth brew, 15/2, 95/100 ° C.
Aroma (teapot): honey, caramel.
Aroma (aroma cup): honey, caramel.
Flavour: Honey, sugar cane.
[…]
Tenth brew, 2 minutes.
Aroma (teapot): Honey.
Aroma (aroma cup): Honey.
Flavour: Honey.
This is surely a tea that is easy to understand, but that requires proper attention in order to offer the best.
The leaves have been masterfully roasted, certainly starting from material of excellent quality.
In 3/5 years, this tea will probably be more mellow and mature, so an aging for a few years is not a bad idea.
William.
Marcello –
Dry leaf aromas:
Citrus zest (50% grapefruit, 30% lemon, 20% orange), citrus manipulated in different ways (powder, alcohol infused, pure juice, candied peels)
3 infusions done at 1:75 ratio for 2 minutes each
aromas: citrus (grapefruit in particular), old wet wood, slight oak, sauna/steam room, pungent… wet fur? animal/leather, slightly medicinal (japanese stomach medicine called seirogan), spicy (southern US wood used for smoking meats), wet red leaf, wet brown paper bags, wet leather, tree branches.
flavors: bitter grapefruit followed up with wood tannins –> pleasantly medicinal –> grapefruit and leather finish, vanilla, old wood, pine sap, steamed bark, slight japanese roasted green tea, tropical fruit.
Perhaps similar to sauvignon blanc from california or a garganega from NE italy with a generous amount of oak influence. Over all a very cool tea, one of the best I have tried from TTC
miheev.andrej (verified owner) –
Splendid and unique!!!!!
Vladimir (verified owner) –
One of the best teas I ever tasted (Lot #543). Excellent leaves and excellent roast. The tea is sweet, fruity, and mellow. Very long aftertaste. The dominating flavours are honey and (cherry and strawberry) caramel. Very warming bouquet, no bitterness, although some astringency if you brew it too long. This lot is even better than the previous one I had (Lot #262). I became really addicted to it, ready to drink it every day.
My way of brewing: a spoonful per cup (250 ml), no prewash, 3.5-4 minutes 95 °C four times. The first two brewings can be shorter, about 3.5 minutes, then 4 and 4.5 minutes. The liquor is very strong and intense in colour and taste in the first two brewings, more mellow in the last two.
jonahknickles (verified owner) –
This is hands down one of the best teas I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting.
It went from oats and nuts-> a nice, nutty caramel -> an almost rum-like flavor. From there, it slowly turned fruity with hints of a black tea. Nothing too sweet. Think plum here. This plum flavor, which reminded me of a good Wuyi oolong stayed for a very long time.
Using 4 grams in a 125 ml gaiwan, and 190 f water, I got like, 15+ steeps out of this. Not counting the rinse, starting at 20 seconds, and adding an additional 15 seconds per steep.