Loose Leaf Oolong From Seven Cups: Li Li Xiang 2005

Back at the end of college, I developed an ulcer from all of the coffee I was drinking (think 1 gallon+ per day) and was told by the doctor that I needed to ditch the bean if I wanted to avoid that nasty burning sensation in my belly. I went cold turkey (and actually got sick from withdrawal), but managed to get off of it.

However, drinking a hot beverage had become part of my life and, like every cigarette smoker who ends up chewing on pens, I sought out a replacement and started drinking tea. I've been doing so ever since

This week, I discovered a new site that sells tea they import directly from the farms in China and placed a sampler order.

As part of my order from Seven Cups, I bought some of their Li Li Xiang 2005 oolong tea.

A quick tea "primer" for those not familiar. Real tea (not the herbal stuff) is the leaf from the Camellia sinensis plant. If you pick it when the leaves are just young shoots, you get white tea. If you pick the leaves and just dry them, you get green tea. If you dry them and let them ferment a bit, you get oolong. If you let them ferment more, you get black (or red) tea, which is what most Britons and Americans are used to.

Black tea is what I mostly drink (until now), mostly because I'd never had really good oolong aparently. I've tried green on a regular basis, because I want to like it. However, every variety I've ever tried has this "grassy" note to it that I just can't get past. All I can think of is the smell of sileage (chopped alfalfa fed to farm animals) when I drink it.

Oolong intrigues me because it's a middle ground and this particular oolong (and I suspect many of those from Seven Cups) are exactly what I've been looking for. This stuff is really good and it's actually their cheapest oolong. It doesn't have any of that grassy flavor, but isn't bitter or astringent at all. It's marvelously complex and I suspect my 2 quart thermos will be empty before noon today.

So, here are a few photos of what I got and what it looks like.

Bag of oolong

Dry oolong from the bag

After steeping this morning's tea.

You can see that, as opposed to the nearly ground-to-a-powder stuff that sits in tea bags, we're definitely talking about big leaves here.

I don't have a shot of the tea itself because I don't drink from a white mug (which is what you'd have to do to see the brew properly), but might put some in a clear glass tomorrow, just to get a shot of it.

I also found it funny/interesting that the packing material was Chinese newspaper, surely a better sign of good tea than newspaper from Topeka.

That little bag was $8.50. That may seem steep (no pun intended), but lets you drink some of the best tea around for way less than Starbucks. Don't make the mistake of comparing this to your grocery store tea. Compare it to what you pay for a high priced beverage, because you're getting quality that's worth it.