Blue Spring Oolong – Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co.

Yes, I know I said I was going to review some teas from another brand, and I will, soon, but today’s tea is Blue Spring Oolong by the Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co. (yes, it's another Oolong).



Ingredients- Chinese Oolong and Mallow Petals

They describe it thus:

“Blue Spring Oolong is a very fine and rare Ti Kuan Yin Special grade tea from the Chinese tea growing province of Fujian. Blue Mallow flowers were added to this tea to represent the freshwater spring that was created by Guan Yin, The Iron Goddess of Mercy to rescue villagers from drought. This semi fermented tea is still traditionally hand crafted in small batches.”




This is a delicate tea but is extremely drinkable. It has a light flavour, slightly floral, with that quintessential Oolong coming through strongly.  Of all the Oolongs I’ve tried, I would say this is the smoothest yet and one that you could easily drink a lot of without feeling that you’ve overdone it.

Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co. suggest that you use only 1 teaspoon per cup, which is generally my default anyway, and it was more than enough to bring out the full flavour of the tea, even with the 2 minute brewing time. Interestingly, although they say that it quickly turns bitter if you go over that time, I didn’t find that to be the case with the second pot I brewed, which I left for about 4 or 5 minutes because of my terrible memory.




This isn’t a tea that lends itself particularly well to rebrewing as it has such a delicate flavour to start with, but when you’re using so little tea each time anyway that’s not really a problem.

Overall, this is an extremely pleasant tea and is probably my favourite of the non-milk Oolongs I’ve tried. I could drink this all day quite happily and it’s perfect for the evening as it’s low in caffeine. This is definitely an excellent tea for those who aren’t keen on or can’t drink for health reasons, the milk Oolongs I so love.

It was also perfect when I had a migraine (which is the reason I’m reviewing this not something else) as it doesn’t have any strong or intense smells or flavours and, therefore, didn’t exacerbate the symptoms, yet is good at helping with hydration without needing to stick to boring water.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honey Bee Beautiful - Bluebird Tea Co.

Image
So, tea that smells like weeds – I honestly can’t stand the stuff. When I was a teenager and still living at home my mum used to ‘enjoy’ and I use the word loosely drinking things like chamomile tea, a beverage which made me feel ill. It was the smell, mainly. I couldn’t even get as far as tasting it because the horrible smell was so off-putting. Fortunately, years have passed and chamomile is no longer quite as popular as it once was and so I’ve managed to keep away from its terrible ditch water smell, until today.  Today, I decided to try the Bluebird Tea Company’s Honey Bee Beautiful as I was having quite a stressful day at work (and that was before I found out about the General Election) and wanted something soothing. Ingredients: Rooibos, honeybush, chamomile, nettle leaves, cornflowers, calendula petals, flavour They describe it thus: ‘Have you ever considered the work it must take to make a queen bee? Their beauty regime is extensive and their mums a
Read more

Favourite Tea League Table (Updated 12 August 2017)

Image
I thought it might be useful if I keep a league table of my top 10 favourite teas, going forward. This list reflects the favourites of those I've drunk recently rather than all-time favourites as I've discovered its very difficult to have an all time list when I'm trying so many different teas and what I like is affected by the weather or the time of year.  For instance, over Christmas and through the winter I drank enough Gingerbread Chai to sink a battleship (is that a thing?) and I would definitely have said it was my all time favourite tea. But at the moment I have no interest in drinking it at all because it seems to me that its the wrong time of year for it and so it's dropped from the top of the charts completely off the list. It will definitely be back by Christmas, though, that I can guarantee. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that my all time favourite tea is definitely China Milk Oolong from Camellia's Tea House. I could, quite
Read more

Oolong Formosa – Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co.

Image
Today’s tea is the truly delightful  Oolong Formosa by the  Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co. Ingredients: Formosa Oolong tea They describe it thus: "Oolong Formosa is a Speciality Tea which originates from the mountains of Taiwan. After plucking the loose leaf teas are fermented to approximately 50% and then wilted in the sun. Frequent turning of the tea in bamboo baskets during the drying process allows the Oolong to develop a mild aroma and large wild curly leaves. This Loose Leaf Tea is a real treasure." This tea is quite unlike any other Oolong I have tried so far.  It is far darker than the Milky, Fleur d’ Orient or Vietnamese Oolongs, being brown rather than yellow in colour and the flavour, whilst extremely pleasant, is far more substantial than the traditional Oolong taste and reminds me more of a Yunnan tea. That quintessential tea flavour which can be found in abundance in black teas is really picked up in this one, which
Read more