Spring Harvest 2024 Reveal

Hi everyone,

Spring harvest has arrived! Keep reading to learn more about our latest teas and get a sneak peek at our forthcoming xxperimental 🫡 I hope you love these teas as much as I do!

-Sam

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🍵 spring tea collection

It’s time to celebrate! We have three (3) oolongs you have all come to know and love PLUS one (1) special throwback. If that’s somehow not exciting enough, I have one (1) XXPERIMENTAL to really get your heart pounding 😍.

🍄‍🟫 unroasted green oolong

This unroasted green oolong has a bold personality and lives up to the hype for those who believe Spring is the most prestigious harvest season. This season's oolong is reminiscent of Spring 2022, with a strong umami flavor. It has a savory deliciousness similar to gyokuro, appealing to our Japanese tea enthusiasts, and it reminds me of artichokes. The broth feels vibrant and thick, coating the mouth and leaving a delightfully sweet, lingering aftertaste. After enjoying winter's calming, subtle green oolong, let this spring harvest stir you back to life!

Tasting notes: Artichoke, lily, brazil nut

🍫 black oolong

Our milk oolong’s roasted sibling is here! With a thick, almost syrupy broth, this oolong is juicy, sweet and smooth. I find the black oolong to be the most comforting in the line-up. It’s so easy to drink. Anyone just starting out in the world of high quality loose-leaf teas will be obsessed in no time. This particular batch of our black oolong would be absolute aces if prepared as a milk tea. 

Tasting notes: Cacao, summer squash, agave

⛽🍻double red oolong

Crafted to our specifications once a year, our double red oolong was our first experimental tea, created in collaboration with our Master Tea Maker in Shanlinxi. Honoring classic charcoal-roasted oolongs, we achieve our desired flavor profile by precision roasting this oolong in an oven over multiple sessions. Similar to the famed tieguanyin, this oolong can be aged for decades with proper care.

Heavily roasted oolongs such as this one are typically left to rest for a few months so the flavors can continue to mature and settle into themselves. We usually say ~ 6 months.However there is no reason to wait—you’re welcome to join me in drinking it now 😀

This year’s double red oolong offers deep, roasted barley notes with a hint of fruitiness. Due to the heavy roast, the flavor extraction comes in phases as the leaves open up in hot water. The aroma is bold, the broth is smooth, and the slightly astringent aftertaste lingers.

To experience the full spectrum of flavor this oolong has in store for you, I recommend multiple steeps using a gaiwan. However, it also makes a fine glass of tea when brewed grandpa style. Anecdotally, I’ve found that many coffee drinkers love this oolong’s bold, expressive flavor.

Tasting notes: Roasted barley, walnut, apple peel

🍯bug bitten oolong

For those who are new to this category of tea, bug bitten oolongs are uncommon coming from high elevation farms, wherecolder temperatures tend to deter the requisite friendly insects. It also takes painstaking effort to harvest only the bug-bitten leaves, but the unique honey-scented aroma is quite the reward. 

We have an incredibly small batch of this one available. We were hoping to see tea jassids in January of 2024, however due to their absence we decided to bring in the last lot from January 2023 for everyone to enjoy. 

Snag this one before it’s gone, you’ll love it ;) 

Tasting notes: Honeysuckle, yali pear, bamboo shoots

🔜XXPERIMENTAL NO.8

I can’t wait to share more when our latest experiment arrives. I’m bursting at the seams with excitement for this one. We tried something we haven’t done before… it's an oolong from Alishan… it has a bit of a roast… I’ll let you wonder what it might be 😏

And with that let’s enjoy some pictures from the farm that I shot on 36mm. I look forward to hearing which of the spring lineup is your favorite!