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Our creamy, roasty, chocolatey sibling of milk oolong is here! If you’re looking to make a milk tea, this is the oolong to use. This Winter’s batch is stunning, featuring notes of plum, roasted chestnut, and sourwood honey in a broth that is thick, malty, and incredibly smooth. With a natural sweetness and a hint of acidity, it offers a richer, more robust body than our lighter Spring harvest.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: the name "Black Oolong" is actually a bit of a misnomer, as this tea is technically a black tea. While it follows most of the oolong-making process, it skips the "kill-green" step (the heat-fixation used to stop oxidation). Rather than rapidly halting the flavor development, we allow the leaves to slowly evolve over a four-day fermentation period, followed by several days of roasting and resting. This process consists of three separate four-hour sessions at low temperatures, with 20 hours of rest between each. By bypassing the kill-green step and utilizing this extended cycle, the tea achieves a more nuanced, caramelized flavor.
So why do we call it our Black Oolong? While skipping the kill-green step technically places it in the black tea family, the craftsmanship and specialized oxidation style are so deeply rooted in oolong tradition that we feel "Black Oolong" is the only name that truly reflects the skill required to make this delicious tea.