Oolong Formosa – Kent & Sussex Tea & Coffee Co.

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 makes it easy to forget that you’re drinking an Oolong, but it has nowhere near the intensity of something like a Darjeeling.

It is a relatively sweet tea and can easily be drunk without sugar (even by me) but if left to brew for too long — they say 2-3 minutes and they mean it — there can be a slight bitterness. This was easily counteracted by a little demerara sugar, but the sweetness of the sugar then draws the palate away from the tea flavours leaving it as a perfectly drinkable but relatively bland cup of tea. I much prefer it without the sugar, so I need to pay attention to brewing it properly.

I am a big fan of Oolong teas, even if for no other reason than they cut my sugar consumption considerably (although this is not the only reason, I can assure you), but this Formosa has already worked its way into my heart and up the Oolong chart and I look forward to drinking many more mugs of it as it’s mild enough and low enough in caffeine to drink at any time of the day, which is definitely a bonus as far as I’m concerned.