I was just handed a tea by a coworker who’s also an avid tea drinker, so I decided to pen a blind review of it. Unfortunately however, I don’t know a great deal about it since I was only given the tea bag itself and the name is ambiguous. “Imperial Organics” appears on the label but there seem to be several companies it could belong to. Also, before today I really wasn’t familiar with any of them, so I can’t necessarily distinguish which it might belong to. So no company badge today, sorry.
Like many organic teas, Organic Oolong has a decent aroma, but a duller taste. Many may dispute this broad generalization (I’ve been told before i have a bad habit of making broad generalizations and they’re far from useful), but in my experience it often seems to be the case. When a tea plant is raised without herbicides or pesticides, it’s no doubt a great deal better for you to drink on a daily basis. Yet, doing so also lowers the yield as well as increases the cost and SOMETIMES results in a less refined or duller tea. Oftentimes though the customer may not realize that nearly all of the teas released from vendors with strict quality standards like TeaGschwendner are already raised through organic processes, though it may not bare an “organic” label on each and every tea. Usually that’s based in the fact that it often costs a producer around $10K to get a USDA organic stamp of approval on a product. Multiply that by even 10 different kinds of tea, and suddenly your company has $100K overhead. True experts in the field (of which I am not) can grab two handfuls of freshly picked tea from two different unlabeled bins and from the smell alone tell you which has been raised organically and which contains pesticides and/or herbicides. I doubt very much I’ll ever need to develop that skill. Recent studies have also shown that non-organically produced fruits and vegetables (not necessarily tea) aren’t on average less healthy for you. *shrugs* Assuming those studies weren’t funded by lobbists, I guess I don’t really know which story to buy into. Still, it does make a lot of sense that organically produced foods are far better for the environment and have a very good chance of NOT KILLING BEES! So you know, there’s that.
This oolong has a well-rounded aroma and taste with a medium-rough texture that indicates a later harvest. Based on similar tasting Oolongs I’ve had, I would venture to guess it was produced in Taiwan? But don’t hold me to that.
選別 parting.gifts 