Hey there Teacups! I’m back today after few day break and today I’m going to be doing a Let’s Talk Tea post. This time around I’m going to be reviewing Tee Aus Nepal’s – Matina Oolong. Tee Aus Nepal very kindly sent me a few of their teas to try back before I did my Teamas series but the craziness of Christmas took over here on the blog so everything else had to take a little bit of a back seat until now, however I wanted to make sure I reviewed this tea as soon as I possibly could and didn’t want to wait until the start of 2021.
Here’s what Tee Aus Nepal have to say abut this tea over on their website: “A fascinating technique is used in the production of this tea. The tea leaves and the buds are gently picked by hand and very slowly oxidized in cool air. Oolong tea falls between black and green tea. It is also known as blue tea. This tea is not only rich in antioxidants but also in polyphenols. Due to its unique production method, the tea has a unique aroma profile and therefore a phenomenal taste.”
”Our tea garden cooperative is located in north eastern Nepal. Today our cooperative consists of around 170 Families. The member of the cooperative are the tea farmers themselves, everyone participates in the area with part of their property. The tea farmers earn their livelihood by cultivating and harvesting the delicious tea in their own small tea gardens. The tea leaves are picked individually by hand, gently dried and processed. We reward our tea farmers appropriately so that sustainable cultivation and traditional processing can continue.”
Tea Tasting Notes
For this tasting session I did six steeps in total, I used 6-6.5g of the leaves, freshly filtered water, my 250ml gaiwan and my water was at 97-99°c throughout the session. After finishing my tasting session steeping these leaves hot in my gaiwan, I then cold steeped them overnight. This is something I’ve started doing after almost all of my gongfu tasting sessions recently to make sure I get the most out of my leaves and I’ve really enjoyed the resulting cups so far.
Steep 1) 20secs | Very light malt, subtle sweetness, chocolate, wood. VERY smooth. Golden orange in colour reminded me a lot of a golden monkey black tea but a little bit lighter.
Steep 2) 25secs | Stronger malty notes, woody, slightly drying. Less natural sweetness, subtler chocolate note. Light tobacco. It didn’t take me more than this steep to learn that I loved this tea! It’s absolutely fantastic and such a great tea to round off 2020 with.
Steep 3) 30secs | Very similar to the second steep. Malty, woody, ever so slight tobacco and subtle chocolate. Smooth but slightly drying.
Steep 4) 35 secs | This steep was much lighter in colour a light golden yellowy orange. Smooth but slightly drying. All of the notes from the previous steel carried forward but were a little subtler. A bit more natural sweetness than steeps 2+3.
Steep 5) 40 secs | A little more sweeter than all of the previous steeps. Subtle chocolate, lightly malty, woody, very subtle tobacco. Ever ever so slightly fruity almost like stone fruits but it was very subtle.
Steep 6) 45 secs | Very similar to steep 5 but a little but lighter in a few aspects. The subtle tobacco note was no longer present and neither was the stone fruit note. But all other notes mentioned in steep 5 were also present in this steep. After this steep was finished I also cold brewed the leaves which resulted in a good few delicious cups of Oolong.
Overall I really enjoyed this oolong but that wasn’t a surprise to me at all! I’ve found throughout 2020 the more heavily oxidised oolongs, roasted teas and things like that with similar profiles really have been my absolute favourites and I’m really excited to explore them more during 2021 and add more of them to my collection. So, If like me you happen to enjoy those particular flavour profiles too please leave your suggestion in the comments so I can give them a try myself.
Overall Teacup Rating: 5/5
If you want to find out more about Tee Aus Nepal and purchase some of this Oolong to try yourself, you can do both here. As always if you have any question at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll answer them all as soon as I can.
Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley
*The tea featured in this post was gifted to me for the purpose of this review. All opinions expressed are my own and have not been paid for*
Kimberley's Kyusu 
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