Learning from a flavoured Dong Ding Oolong

This is a rice-aroma flavoured Ding Ding Oolong that my student bought from Holland to the lesson last night, the shop has mistaken the height of mountain to 1200mt, actually the the correct information of Dong Ding Mountain should be 743mt.

I did not say too much when I first smelled a very strong rice-aroma from the dried leaves, I chose to give the tea a chance to speak to me when I tasted it later.

• I woke up the tea with warm water without drinking as I normally do.  The rice-aroma was weakened but still there some notions of it and the note further dropped in the 2nd infusion.  The rice-aroma was vanished in the 3rd infusion and we could then evaluate the true flavour and taste afterwards
• The rice aroma does not match with the natural aroma and flavour from Dong Ding Oolong.
• the first impression about the taste is ‘not bad’ because of the gentle sweet taste, but the taste was pretty flat that we missed the complexity from the after taste

So what do we learn from this tasting last night?

• Today Wikipedia and internet actually offer many information
  

  Natural traditional semi-fermented with roasted Dong Ding Oolong

  that allow us to double check the information.  If the shopper could double check the information about Dong Ding Mountain, then s/he could avoid the mistake on the label about the height of mountain. When we write story for tea, we should at least get some facts correct.

• Dong Ding Oolong is one famous traditional seimi-to-heavy fermented and being roasted Oolong tea from Taiwan, using 1 heart (young bud) with 2 or 3 young leaves hand-picked quality. It first started from ZhangYa, FengHuang and YongLong villages and now is spread species in LuGu area.
• Repeatedly roasted by charcoal made from Long Yen wood gave it a special roasting flavour and taste.  But these days there are light fermented with light roasting with electrical oven, and aged roasted Dong Ding Oolong, so there are many choices under one name.  No matter what it should be made from Qing Xing tea tree cultivar from LuGu, Nantou, Taiwan.
• Dong Ding Oolong has very powerful natural ripped fruits and/or flora notes (Lizhe) with mild caramel flavour and taste.  The complex flavour notes and taste can be intensified if we kept the same infusion as in the first infusion, therefore we normally reduce the infusion time slightly (+/- 45 seconds); afterwards we back to the 1 minute infusion. The flavour and taste are synchronized and continued for several infusions.
• Only weakened strength tea base can be easily reprocessed by additional flavour additives. The basic cost structure of good quality nature tea is much higher than the tea base used for the flavoured tea.
• Traditional Dong Ding has powerful natural flavour and taste with good strength, no additional flavoured additives are needed

Even though flavoured teas do not meet with my personal preference, but I do recognize for people who do not have too much knowledge about tea, not to mention about Oolong tea from Taiwan, can be easily attracted to this rice-aroma flavoured Oolong. I do, however, think shopper/s should be honest to label information for each tea with correct information.

Origin: Nantou, Taiwan / Type: Qing Xin / 100% pure & nature quality / 2.5g:150ml / 95-99°C / multiple infusions >6-8