Lupicia sent me quite a few samples to review, so I decided to follow up my tasting of their yuzu green tea (which I wrote about last week) with another one of their blends: ripe mango oolong.
First off, there was the lovely tin. Inside was a sealed plastic bag and a small paper with brewing instructions. The instructions said to steep 2.5 to 3 grams of tea in 5 ounces of boiling water for 1.5 to 2 minutes. As with the yuzu green tea, I didn’t follow the instructions exactly, upping the amount of water while following all of the other recommendations.
Opening the tea packet was a true joy. As soon as I cut the sealed plastic bag, I was ENGULFED in the aroma of ripe mangoes. This tea smelled so juicy and ripe and tropical and real that I couldn’t believe it. Interestingly, although I knew that the base was an oolong, I couldn’t tell what kind because the mango smell was just that strong. So, uh, does this tea deserve to be called a ripe mango oolong? Fuck. Yes.
The leaves were a deep sage green with the occasional tiny curl of mango sprinkled throughout. That little piece of fruit doesn’t truly do justice to the intense aroma, though.
I steeped this baby twice: once at 1.5 minutes, and again for 2 minutes. Both times, the resulting brew was a pale yellowish colour shading into orange.
The real surprise was the first sip, because although the dry leaf smelled powerfully of mango, it was much less apparent brewed up. I could taste some mango, but the base really came to the fore – the floral, creamy smell of Tie Guan Yin oolong.
I’m not surprised that that’s the base, because it’s a good complement to the fruit flavour. But I was really hoping for something more mango-like in flavour; I wanted my ripe mango oolong to taste like ripe mangoes, and not just smell like it.
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