Curious Tea – Wu Yi Shan Shui Xian Oolong
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恭喜發財 Gung Hai Fat Choi! It’s the first day of the Lunar New Year and I wish each and every one of you peace and prosperity in the Year Of The Tiger.
The tiger is, of course, the best Chinese Zodiac animal. And not just because half the zodiac animals sound like insults to western ears. (Who wants to be a snake, a rat or a pig, really?) Cats – and therefore tigers – are just the best animals there are. Fact.
Also, on an unrelated note, this is my year. I am a tiger.
Lunar New Year begins today and is celebrated for the next 15 days. To honour this, for the next two weeks, I am going to be reviewing teas from Lunar New Year-celebrating countries. A lot of the tea will be from China (they produce a lot of tea in China) but there will also be teas from countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Korea.
(Japan, as a whole, doesn’t celebrate Lunar New Year. But there is one tiny bit of it – Okinawa – that does. So, if anyone has any Okinawa tea recommendations, I am all ears.)
We are kicking off the Lunar New Year tea reviews with Wu Yi Shan Shui Xian Oolong from Curious Tea. This tea originates from Zhuli Village near Wuyi Shan in Fuijan, China. It’s quite a dark oolong – more black tea than green – and its profile is described by Curious Tea as “mineral”.
I wasn’t crazy about this tea and I think the mineral profile might have something to do with it. This tea is also described as having a “stony aftertaste”. I don’t think I like my tea to be reminiscent of rocks. I prefer the ones that have a more honeyish or malty flavour going on.
I do normally rave about Curious Tea‘s products and I think this is the first one I felt a bit ‘meh’ about. There are plenty more teas to come from Curious Tea over the next few days though so expect normal raving-like-an-excited-lunatic service to be resumed shortly.
Today’s featured book is The Art Of War by Sun Tzu (孫子兵法) a treaty of warfare written in the 5th century BC.
