“Eco-Cha was born out of a passion for tea in which life-long friendships, careers, and cross-cultural exchanges have grown and flourished. We now aim to share this deeply rooted connection to Taiwan Tea by offering you a direct window into this complex and colorful world.” Let me introduce you to one of their fabulous oolong teas.
Ingredients: Medium oxidized and medium-heavily roasted Oolong
Steep Time: 3 minutes
First Sip Thought: “Squash.”
Smell: Before I enjoyed the slightly roasty and floral aroma, I admired the leaves for quite some time. They are dark and tightly rolled which of course makes it more fun to watch steep.
Taste: You may remember when I wrote about Eco-Cha and their mission late last year. You can view that post here. This tea was hand picked in small batches September 2014 in Yong Long, Nantou, Taiwan (just above Dong Ding Mountain). Hand picked. When you drink this tea, stop and think about that for a moment. You’ll appreciate your cup a lot more. This dong ding oolong is not as strong as I was hoping but still offers great flavours. To explain my first sip thought, the initial few sips taste just like a plate full of freshly roasted vegetables. Eco-Cha narrows it down to a roasted summer squash as the predominant flavour and I have to agree. I also noticed a dry fruit flavour along with nutty characters. So I guess you can also say another thought that came to my mind during the first sip was “trail mix!” This tea has me very excited to give the rest of the oolongs I have from Eco-Cha a try.
