Establishing a proper tea collection to serve in your bed & breakfast inn or home, begins with understanding the fundamental differences between the 4 basic teas. Since acquainting ourselves with black and green tea, it’s time to turn our attention to the “champagne of teas,” or oolong (commonly spelled wulong or wu-long.)
Considered the ideal tea for afternoon serving, oolong was originally produced in China and later cultivated in Taiwan. Preferred among tea connoisseurs for its delicate yet complex flavor, oolong tea is brewed to be rich yet exhibiting a faintly sweet finish. The finest oolong teas are handmade and exceedingly labor intensive to produce, requiring both skill and experience to control the cycles of fermentation (oxidation,) rolling and roasting.
While the withering process for oolong tea leaves can be similar to that of black tea, oolong leaves undergo additional, delicate processes to ensure their unique aroma and taste. These processes include bruising the edges of the leaves, tumbling and rubbing the leaves, as well as drying with heat to arrest their oxidation process.
The most important step in manufacturing leaves for oolong tea is the short oxidation cycle which turns the leaves from green, to green centered with a characteristic, red-brown border. Referred to as semi-fermented, oolong tea leaves experience an oxidation cycle somewhere between that of black and green tea. Also worthy of note, is that this unique level of oxidation can vary significantly between the different varieties of oolong tea.
Well-known oolong tea varieties include: Pouchong - the lightest and most floral oolong tea and Dong Ding – a prize winning tea, typically expensive, with exquisite fragrance, both from Taiwan; as well as Tie Guan Yin (or Ti Kuan Yin) from the Fujian province of China and Wuyi Huang Guan Yin from the Wuyi mountain range, Fujian province, also of China.
Oolong teas are often graded by connoisseurs according to aroma, taste and aftertaste, and undergo a roasting process believed to make it more palatable on the stomach. Purported health benefits from drinking oolong tea largely center around oolong tea’s level of polyphenols – believed to enhance the body’s fat metabolism and help control obesity. Other purported health benefits include a decrease of tooth decay and atopic dermatitis due to oolong’s antibacterial properties.
Up next – White tea. Elegant, smooth and slightly sweet, white tea is the lightest of all true teas and should not be overlooked or underestimated.
Stay with us to find out why.
Thank you for visiting Inn Cuisine! Be sure to check out the newly remodeled Recipe Index and subscribe to Inn Cuisine's free RSS feed (also available via email) so you never miss a recipe. Need more ways to stay connected? Follow Inn Cuisine on Facebook & Twitter!
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for the tea tour. You’re giving an excellent survey. As someone who drinks tea, loves it and sells it (in a health food store, a dozen bulk teas as well as bagged), I know that most people are uninformed. Oolong especially — they will tell me they only like tea at Chinese restaurants but don’t know what they’re drinking.
Susan G – Thank you for visiting Inn Cuisine and thanks so much for your kind response. As a tea aficionado yourself (as well as a purveyor of tea,) your positive comment means a lot.
I hope this series introduces many people to the fascinating world of tea and increases tea awareness in general. You might be interested to know – I have a future series planned for pairing different varieties of each tea with specialty food items. (Believe me, there will be more to pair with the oolong varieties than just Chinese food!) Stick around, it will be informative AND fun.