As my dear readers know, I am not a fan of teas that have flavoring in them. Certainly would never touch anything with artificial flavoring, but really even a good quality tea tossed post-production with Jasmine flowers is not really my preference. I like the complexities of my steeps to be about discerning the different flavors of just the tea itself, no additional distractions required or desired. But now I have to change my stance on that because I just fell madly in love with a Gardenia oolong sample from The Santa Barbara Tea Club and it is rocking my tastebuds big time. I have a call out to James, the owner of this new tea club and am awaiting information on this tea. Not much to look at visually, a brown tightly rolled oolong but the heavenly, light scent, both dry in the bag, dry in the heated gaiwan and the gaiwan's steamed lid, cup and the tea leaves themselves EVERY STEEP are just delightful.
Gongfu style I brewed five grams in a 100 ml gaiwan. First rinse at 210f, second rinse was a flash-brew, which I did not waste on the tea-pet's head but drank with a great deal of pleasure. Third, fourth and fifth steeps I did a high pour from my goose-neck kettle, hitting the leaves with water at least ten degrees cooler than the initial steeps. What can I say? It's all good. Taking a break and will see what's left in those leaves for a second round, turning the heat back up to 210f. As the man says, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is'
