Curious Tea – Moc Chau Dragon Breath
The exciting thing about oolong is that you never know what kind of tea you’re going to get. Oolong production goes through both ‘stop-green’ and oxidation stages so you can end up with anything from almost-green to almost-black. Curious Tea’s Moc Chau Dragon Breath oolong – grown in Vietnam – is decidedly at the black end of the gradient. According to Curious Tea’s website: “After the final rolling the tea undergoes a heavy roasting or baking process over 7 to 10 day period.”
I said you don’t know what you’re going to get with oolong, but obviously you do know if you read the information on the tea packet. It’s like Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates. It’s okay, Forrest! Chocolate Box manufacturers generally include a key in the lid of the box.
Moc Chau Dragon Breath is a marvellously rich, full-flavoured brew. Like all oolongs (and many fancy teas in general) the leaves benefit from multiple steepings. This tea is delicious from the off, but – due to some scientific wonderment or old tea magic – it becomes progressively sweeter with each infusion. By the third pot, there was a pronounced honey flavour.
There were a lot of different flavours going on here. It’s roasty, slightly fruity and mostly difficult to put into words that adequately do it justice. I felt like I could taste the tea’s entire history: its soil, its growth and its careful handling in every stage after it was plucked.
The word that comes to mind when describing this tea is ‘mellow’. This is a smooth, warm wrapped-up-in-a-cosy-blanket sort of tea.
Curious Tea have three other teas from Vietnam made from the same cultivar on the same tea estate as Dragon Breath. And they all have equally marvellous names. There’s Moc Chau’s Green Heart, an oolong at the green end of oolongity. Then Three Moons and Red Buffalo which are progressively darker. Up to this here Dragon Breath which is the darkest one of the lot.
I was all set to embark on a side-by-side taste test with these blends but sadly Green Heart is currently out of stock so it will have to wait.
Contrary to what I said at the beginning, when I made a pot of Moc Chau Dragon Breath oolong I did know I was going to get – a dark, roasted, almost-black Oolong. What I didn’t know was quite how exciting and satisfying that experience was going to be.
Today’s featured book is The Mountains Sing by Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai.
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Sounds amazing! Great review!
Sounds amazing! Didn’t know that oolong can vary from almost green to almost black, TIL.
Love the beautiful mug.