There are very few teas in my collection that I’ve had the pleasure of trying before buying. One exception is the Lupicia Mountain Grape Oolong. Drinking this tea again, Lupicia’s description is spot on: ‘a quality Taiwan oolong tea with a clear taste, dressed in an elegant fragrance of wild grapes’.
The tea is a looseleaf Taiwanese oolong scented with the flavour of wild mountain grape (yamabudo).
Steeping 3 g of looseleaf water at 85°C water for 4 minutes, the infusion was a clear golden straw colour with a richly fragrant, sweet and tart aroma of red grapes. Served hot, gently sweet floral oolong notes come through briefly before developing into light vegetal oolong notes at the start of the body. With the sweet vegetal notes of the oolong in the background, the grape notes come to prominence in the body with the same rich sweet and tart notes from its aroma before receding to make way for a crisp finish with a mild astringency.
As with many flavoured teas, the smell of the tea was integral to its mountain grape flavour, which avoids associations with grape candy with its delicate balance between the floral fruitiness of the lightly oxidised oolong and the sweet tartness of the grape.
This Lupicia Mountain Grape Oolong contained 50 g. The tea was sourced from Taiwan, packaged in Japan, and purchased in Melbourne, Australia in 2014.