Steep Stories

Tag: Oolong

  • Rou Gui’s Revenge

    I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Rou Gui was the first Wuyi oolong (or Yancha) that I ever liked. Before a certain Da Hong Pao back-flipped my palate, I never really took a liking to Wuyi rock oolongs. They always tasted like . . . well . . . roasted rocks. In leaf form.…

  • Looking for Hui Gan in High Mountain Oolongs

    “This tea had quite a bit of Hui Gan,” someone said to me once. “Who’s Hui Gan?” I asked, thinking they were referring to a Chinese scholar. Clearly, I’d never heard the term before. Several people had used it in my presence, and I nodded as if I knew what they were talking about. Of…

  • I “Heart” Doke

    I “heart” the Doke tea estate. No, I’m not ashamed to use the word “heart” instead of “love”. Especially today. Okay, I winced a tiny bit at the grammatical incorrectness of it (and the cutesiness of it) . . . but the sentiment still stands. And, given when this blog is going up, the cutesy…

  • The Harendong Estate

    Four years ago, I “discovered” the Harendong estate. I put “discovered” in air-quotes because . . . it’d been there for eight years by the time I ran across it. Perhaps I should say, it was new to me. They had a booth at the 2013 World Tea Expo—under their Banten Tea brand—and the thing…

  • Once Bug-Bitten, Twice Shy

    Well . . . I guess it’s time to put a certain theory to pasture. And it’s all because of these two. Who are they? I’ll get to that. What theory? Oh, I had this hypothesis that tea and dating (or courtship, whatever) didn’t “blend”.

  • Hugs, High-Fives, and Farmer Style Sencha

    A couple of years ago—on a visit to the Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants shop— I tried a Japanese tea (that wasn’t sencha) that just . . . blew me away. It was a black tea blended with yuzu rind. Yes, the Japanese orange. When I described it to people, all I could muster was, “It’s…

  • Dong Ding Near-Death Experiences

    In 2009, Shiuwen Tai—the plucky owner of Floating Leaves Tea in Seattle—made her first trip to Dong Ding Mountain in Taiwan . . . . . . And almost died.

  • A Totem Tea Story

    The definition of the word “totem” is thus: “A natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.” It is derived from the Native American language, Ojibwe; the word, dodaem. The concept, however, is not limited to just Native American cultures and religious practices.…

  • The Great Guan Yin Duel

    Over the years, I’ve had some fun at the expense of Guan Yin—the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Whether portraying her as having an illicit affair with Scottish botanists, or depicting her as a scorned goddess seeking vengeance against the writer of the illicit affair (me), I can’t say I’ve dealt with her fairly. Hilariously, yes .…

  • Dark Tea from Taiwan

    In late 2013, I thought I tried the rarest, weirdest, most unheard-of tea unicorn out there—a heicha (dark tea) from Taiwan. After three years of palatial growth, though, I’m now convinced that it was a Yunnan grown puerh that was merely stored in Taiwan. Still unique, but not quite the unicorn I thought it was.…