What is oolong?

Widely defined, oolong is the range of tea between green tea and black tea. This is a broad range of tea. Ranging from 11% oxidization for the greenest oolongs, such as Wen Shan Bao Zhong, and then going all the way to 70% oxidized, for the eastern beauties and some iron goddesses. There is also aged oolong, which is further oxidized after processing, so it is often referred to as “post oxidized tea.”

Oolong is complicated and, for the most part, is not well represented in the U.S. Generally a tea shop will carry one or two oolongs generally not of very high quality. So, as a predominantly oolong focused tea purveyor, one of our constant objectives has been to redefine oolong to the consumer. We do this by getting people to taste high quality oolong.

Sometimes we even go so far as using stall tactics when offering samples. When asked about what kind of tea we are offering as a sample, we wait until the person has tasted the tea. That way they can come to their own conclusion about the tea, rather than judging it based on a name. Then we say... It's an oolong. Surprise! You like oolong! It is true, we are confident that you like oolong tea, you just might not know it yet.

Meaning that if you do not like oolong, it is probably because you have not had a good one, or it was not prepared well. Either way, this is a sad state of affairs. But, it is also why we will continue to toe the party line, dousing the nation with amazing oolong tea. We've got oolong way to go, but we've made it J-TEA's mission to expose everyone to amazing oolong tea.