Highlights:
- Mr Chen’s home Taiwan dry storage
- Complex aged oolong taste
- Extremely comfortable and smooth
One of the cleanest old oolongs (both without storage flavours but also without sourness) that I’ve had the honour to drink, the flavours have developed in a very unique way.
The reason of inclusion in a puerh site is how clean and comfortable it is to drink, there are no off-flavours, no caffeine effects, no mouth drying, rather it’s very smooth, pleasant, easy.
Some sources say this tea is from the 1970s, some 1980s. It’s very very hard to tell with aged oolong. Overall, a very solid aged oolong at a very solid price.
Mr Chen’s introduction
There’s actually a lot of old tea in Taiwan at much more reasonable prices than in mainland China, unfortunately most of what is found in Taiwan is too wet stored. Mr Chen, a personal friend of ours, old time collector, bought a few tongs of various teas during the 90s and early 2000s (before prices skyrocketed), and has been storing them in his home (dryly) since.
This kind of tea in China sells for crazy money, it’s very lucky we’ve access to these at all, Mr Chen has sold them to us at a very generous price and we pass the great deal on to you.
150g packets, minimal weight loss
ColinM (verified owner) –
Its been a while since i had any Tie Kwan Yin.
Drinking this brought back some memories, but also added some new qualities.
Mr Chen’s 1980’s version oozes class and has some subtleties that were new to me. I’m on the 9th brew of my first batch and think I’m starting to get hints of malt in the aroma too.
Why only 4 stars above?
Taste & aroma – 5 stars
Value – 4 stars
A tea I regularly drink? Not so much, now I’ve tried some Paolo’s other ones