Royal Courtesan Oolong

Zhi is a great tea house: sophisticated teas, good value, great staff. Bravo.

This has been my favorite Oolong for a long long time, and I have small packets of this tea, and Ali Shan, Frozen Summit and other Taiwan Oolongs going back many years. In this Zhi order I got new pouches of both Frozen Summit and Royal Courtesan from the same year, so that I could compare the two directly, but of course I got sidetracked and have been comparing the Taiwan Oolongs with a very different tea: Da Hong Pao, grown in the Wuyi Mountains of Fujian, because a friend who is currently teaching in China told me I had to try it. The image is from last night's second water in the Royal Courtesan, which developed an utterly perfect flavor - rivalling or exceeding my memory-based expectation - and it remains my favorite of the three teas. For the record, I am steeping longer than my Chinese friend, with a smaller load of leaves, but I am totally loving the second water.

One of the best oolongs I've had.