This is the final post in a series of four where I take a look at the 5 gram free samples that came with my first Moychay order.

Moychay’s notes tell us that this is a Taiwanese “honey” Oolong, from the “daoshi tea farm“.

The dry leaf was giving very little away, but after a few seconds in the warmed up gaiwan I started to pick up hints of cacao nibs.

As I tend to do with ball Oolongs these days, I opted for a series of 10 second infusions until the leaves had opened up.

As my nose approached the cup it was regaled with the aroma of melted butter, and a sweet, vegetal tartness, like fresh baby spinach, or broccoli stems. There was also a certain something lurking in the background that was whispering tobacco.

The second round saw the GABA thing starting to assert itself, and the liquor developing a slightly smoky aftertaste.

By the time the the third steeping rolled around the leaves were fully open, and although the GABA note was hogging the limelight a new taste was pushing back hard, something dark, honey sweet, and spicy that had me thinking off fresh off the charcoal well caramelized BBQ sauce. I was also pleasantly surprised to experience a noticeable Qi jolt, which arrived in the form of a shoulders and up rolling sweat.

The intensity of the liquor started to slip relatively early on in the session, but by bumping the infusion times and performing a leaf flip before the seventh steeping I was able to coax ten good rounds out of the leaves. This is slightly less than Moychay’s target of 12 infusions, but still nevertheless seemed fair enough.

Summing up – even though as I said in an earlier post I’m kind of moving away from Oolongs these days, these three Moychay Oolong samples (not forgetting the fourth sample, a very nice black tea…) really did the business as far as I’m concerned.

More than anything, they’ve really got me looking forward to getting stuck into the 7 Pu-erh’s that made up my order. Chomping at the bit, you might say.

Watch this space, etc…