 | "I loved the bold, slightly malty flavor of this blend... it has single-handedly rekindled my love affair with oolong tea."
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Years and years ago I became momentarily infatuated with a particular blend of oolong tea, and then - silly me - completely forgot the name and brand. I made a half-hearted search for alternative oolongs, including one or two from Adagio.com, but I never found a blend that matched the warm, unique, malty-goodness of that long-lost tea.
That search may now be over.
Dragon Pearl doesn’t offer 1,001 different flavors of tea like some companies do (ahem, Adagio). They stick with one type of tea leaf (Camellia Sinensis, grown in the Fujian Mountains of southeast China) and process it in different ways to offer five distinct blends - green, jasmine green, black, white and oolong. I was sent (courtesy of the marketing department) good-sized tins of the green, white and oolong, as well as some “baby-dragon” samplers and a cute porcelain steeping cup.
The oolong was first on the chopping block, and despite reservations, I decided to brew it with the porcelain cup included in the gift set. I had “reservations” because the holes in the steeping cup were inordinately large, and I was fairly certain that little tea bits would fall through and ruin my cuppa. But, Dragon Pearl advertises its tea as “whole leaf” and their promotional literature said to use “just a little” tea in each brew as each would expand into a full leaf when exposed to hot water. So I gave it a go.
Needless to say, I had little tea bits swimming around in my cuppa at the end of it.
So, if anyone’s thinking of ordering the porcelain steeping cup ($4.50), I’d have to recommend against it. Practically-speaking, its a fairly useless bit of engineering. Cute, but useless.
But, no worries, I poured the cuppa into my trusty IngenuiTEA, filtered out the mess and got down to my first sips of Dragon Pearl oolong.
Man, oh man, now this is oolong!
Right from the first sip, memories of my past love-affair with oolong came flooding back. Here was the bold, slightly-malty concoction I’d been looking for all these years. The flavor was just right - big and boistrous and delicious. I loved it so much I went straight ahead and brewed a second cup, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming the first time around. (And yes, the 2nd cup was just as good… as was the 3rd, and the 4th, and the…)
Their promotional literature is right, by the way… these little suckers expand like crazy once they’re brewed. (My first batch filled nearly a third of the tea cup after the steeping process was done!) So definitely, small portions with this one.
The regular-price of a tin of this oolong is $13.50, which seems a bit steep at first, but considering how you need such a small amount for each brew it probably lasts a bit longer than other tea-tins of a similar size.
In any event, this will definitely be a repeat-purchase for me in the future.
And this time, I’m making darn sure to note down the brand name…
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Stephen Teaviews.com Reviewer » Read more about this reviewer on Stephen's profile page. » Find a list of recent posts by Stephen. |
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