The Tea Crane Minamisayaka Organic Oolong

Tyas from The Tea Crane sent me some of his teas for review.

While all of them are very interesting, he told me to start with this organic oolong first.

I’m very eager to try it because it would be the first time that I taste the Minamisayaka cultivar, and also my first lightly oxidized oolong from Japan.

It comes from Gokase, Miyazaki prefecture.

Oolong tasting time

The leafs are rolled in a very strange manner, at least for a Japanese tea.

What comes to mind is a Taiwanese oolong that I had bought in Japan a long time ago, but I forgot what its name was.

These leaves are bigger than those from other Japanese oolongs that I’ve tried.

I also found the color to be uncommon, it is a very light green.

But what I like best is the aroma of this tea. It’s fruity and sweet, and I think that there’s some citrus notes.

Quite a remarkable fragrance.

I wouldn’t know how to brew this properly, so I decided to just follow the instructions given by Tyas.

3 grams of tea for 120 ml of water at 90 °C (194 °F). The infusion time is one minute.

After the infusion, the wet leaves had a slightly sweet aroma, it felt mellow but not as fruity as when they were dry.

Once I tasted it a few times, my opinion is that it is pretty mild.

The sweetness is light, without bitterness and only a slight astringency.

I would describe it as a delicate oolong.

I decided to make a second infusion. The liquor kept its yellow color but the intensity increased.

The flavor was also bolder, and still not bitter. I liked this infusion.

The third infusion was very similar to the second one.

At the fourth one, it started to get lighter. But nevertheless enjoyable.

Here’s the link to the product page.

A unique Japanese oolong with a delicious aroma.