Monday, May 5, 2008

Okayti Darjeeling Autumn Flush Oolong

To be honest when I think of Mighty Leaf, I don't think of quality; its more like...fu-fu tea in pretty teabags. But perhaps I haven't been drinking the right tea from them, because this stuff is good.

My experience with Darjeeling teas have been almost exclusively from Makaibari, with only a few, unknown exceptions.

Darjeeling leaves always make me think of fall, and these are particularly nice, larger, bits of green and silver tips. The dry leaves have a clean, fruit/grain aroma that makes me think of raisin bran.

The tea has a sharp, crisp, clean feel. As it cools the sharpness becomes more of a pronounced astringent finish. Fruity, not quite raisin, not quite grape; I imagine this is the 'muscatel' so often used to describe Darjeeling. I liked it. It was hardy, easy to brew, and delivered I nice solid flavor.

The wet leaves look like a pile of autumn leaves after a rain.

3 comments:

Wes Crosswhite said...

That stuff is damn good.

Anonymous said...

The Okayti Darjeeling Autumn Flush Oolong sound wonderful! Thanks for sharing.

Proinsias said...

I just opened a sample of Okayti Darjeeling Oolong from LochanTea and had similar thoughts to your review aside from a notable lack of astringency that you mention.

Darjeeling tea classifications are rather confusing to me. The Morning Dew white from TChing tasted like green, the black Darjeeling is often closer to what I would usually call oolong. I find a lot of parallels with the Okayti oolong and the white Kashanganj Snow bud I had recently aswell.

Confused, but happily drinking nice tea.