This afternoon I tried a tea from Bird Pick Tea & Herb.

I had bought an Oolong Tea Sampler that had four mini tins of loose leaf tea.

Here are the four mini tins of tea. Each of them is filled with oolong tea.

I decided to first try the Tiekuanyin Oolong. For the post title I have used the spelling on the label, but found that it is usually spelled Tieguanyin.

The translation of the Chinese is Iron Goddess.

I found that there are two types of Tieguanyin.

Anxi Tieguanyin is lightly roasted so has less oxidation. The tea is more of a golden yellow and similar to a green tea.

Muzha Tieguanyin is heavily roasted with a stronger nutty taste. This tea has a reddish-brown color. Typically the Tieguanyin teas from Taiwan use this traditional method.

You can see from this picture that it is the Muzha variety of Tieguanyin.

This tea is a really nice tea. It is very smooth with a wonderful nutty flavor. The tea has a wonderful mouth feel and has no bitter edge. There is also just a little bit of natural sweetness to the tea.

I have enjoyed multiple cups of this tea this afternoon as the tea leaves have staying power through multiple brews. Each brew has subtle changes in taste showing the complexity of the flavor.

I will have to try the other teas from the sampler soon.

Steven