"Baked Organic GABA Oolong Tea, Lot 887" from Taiwan tea crafts

From vendor:

ORGANICALLY GROWN	Organically grown
STYLE OF TEA	GABA Oolong Tea
PICKING DATE	April 2019
OXYDATION LEVEL	Medium, Oxygen Deprived
BAKING LEVEL	Baked
TERROIR	Baguashan
ADMINISTRATIVE REGION	Nantou County
PICKING STYLE	Mechanically Picked
CULTIVAR(S) USED	Jin Xuan, TRES No. 12
GARDEN ELEVATION	350 m

Lot 887 was baked in February 2020 from Spring 2019 tea.

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The Dry leaf is not very aromatic, with some roasted seaweed notes. Stems are present as expected for machine picking but not too prominent, suggesting decent quality.

Brewing:

8 g / 125 mL boiling water in porcelain pot.

Rinse / 45 sec / 50 sec / 1:10 / 1:30 / 2 min / 3 min / 6 min

Wet leaf has a strong scent of roasted seaweed that leads to some funky seaweed and soy sauce aromas along with raisins and baked fruit cake. The vendor claims this scent is comparable to third flush Darjeeling. I tested this by brewing an autumn flush Darjeeling a few days later. I concur that they share a similar fragrance except the Darjeeling lacks the seaweed characteristics.

In general, this leaf has good stamina and lasted for 7 solid steeps.

Tasting profile: Dark toffee, roasted coffee, charcoal and creaminess that increases with steeps. Creaminess is likely because of the Jin Xuan varietal. As temperature drops, sour cherry notes emerge. These sour notes are common for GABA teas. In this case, the sourness is more fruit forward. There is a strong and satisfying menthol cooling aftereffect as regularly experienced from roasted Taiwanese oolong

For me, at the 3rd steep, the balance falls apart. Leaf flavors ( fruit, cream) seemed more spent but roast characteristics (smoke, charcoal) were still strong. After the 3rd steep, the leaf wins out over the roast in a good way. The 4th steep was more sweet and green. 5th was mild but fruit forward. 6th and 7th retained nice fruit juiciness and subtle roast characters. Overall, a very enjoyable tea at a great price point.

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