2014 Hong Shui Oolong Tea Premium, USDA Organic

This tea tastes just like a Taiwanese black tea. You will not think of Oolong tea if you drink this without seeing the rolled dried leaves.
It gives an aroma of brown sugar sweetness, with no astringency or bitterness whatsoever.
It does have a fruity after-taste in the earlier steeps, more to dried ripen fruits such as dates/prunes and maybe red apples.
I can't detect the after taste of berry fruit tartness mentioned in the description and/or reviews. Could be due to water difference.
What I do get is a whiff of earthy smokiness in the later steeps.
This tea withstands many, and I mean MANY, short steeps. I been drinking out of the same brewed leaves all day today.

This is a real rich highly fermented Oolong from 2014. Extremely fruity notes, currants, raisins, cocoa, tobacco. Don't let the tea get cold! 1st steep was an opener to these multiple tastes, the second was clear and strong. This is one of my favorite Oolongs from TEASIDE!

Yesterday we tasted Hong Shui Oolong, which was stored in our house (in a vacuum) since last fall. Have tried it twice in one day, which in my memory has not happened before. So I decided to write a few words.

The first time we steeped 8-10 grams in a teapot of 150ml, seven full steeps, did not squeeze it further.

Basically, everything is the same that was written about this tea earlier: dense, rich berry-fruit aroma, dense taste with a slight sourness. Differences... or what was not noticed during the tasting: in the second and third steeps, the aroma of the fruit pit was exposed brightly, which in the next two became a little less bright, but in addition, a wine aroma arose that struck us very strongly.

Perhaps it was a fruit wine. I'm not lying, I am not a specialist in wines, but we felt something like this.

We got new impressions and a lot of pleasure from tea, so a couple of hours later it was decided to cook it and, as they say, "feel the difference" ... and we felt it fully.

Now, with a more careful approach of my beloved, the dancong notes were found in the aroma of a dry leaf, which she modestly kept silent about at the very beginning until the moment of tea stopped whirling on the fire and the aroma of fruits and fermented berries with those same phoenix notes swam around the room.

This aroma was also present from the first steep. While drinking it had an interesting feeling that you were drinking a mixture of FHDC and black tea. In the following, stronger brews, this aroma and taste disappeared without a trace, the fruit pit (either cherry or apricot) again appeared amazingly highlighting the density of the infusion. And one more striking difference from tasting and brewing in a teapot (for us) ... when it was cooked well, it became clear that tea is very strong, in addition to aesthetic pleasure, it has a considerable Сha Qi effect.

Tea is good and, at least, in my opinion, I did not lose anything from storage... if not more.

After a couple of days, a leaf in a clay gave a mixture of funny flavors... when you open the teapot, the first notes are wet apples, then, if to warm it by breathing, a peach appeared briefly, replaced by a soft but persistent mango flavor... and all this against the background of the same berries (now more clearly) that have been fermented.

Tea is good. If it were not oolong shape, then by the smell and even to taste, it would be treated as black tea.
The smell of pronounced notes of black tea and flower honey.
The taste is pleasant, rich, also honey.

Once again some of the best tea I've had. Delicious, high quality, multiple infusions, so many flavours.