Ten Li Tea Store - Fountain Valley

After noticing 4.5 star rating on Yelp I could not help myself but visit this place. Ten Li Tea is located in the city of Fountain Valley on Magnolia St. here in Southern California. The store is not very big but their collection of teapots and teaware is very impressive. This place is run by a very passionate Taiwanese lady, by passionate I mean very very passionate , passionate enough that she claims that the best Oolong tea comes only from Taiwan.

There is a place in the center of the store where you can sample some of her teas brewed by her in Gong-Fu style and she was very kind to us and brewed some high mountain green oolong Gong-Fu style. While I was there I noticed three cakes of pu'er tea (images below)...

The cost of the above cakes is around $55. Apart from these cakes they also have sheng and shu pu'er but they are in unmarked bamboo cases. It would be nice if someone can identify the above cakes.

The teaware and tea is on the higher side for me because the green oolong that I sampled is aroung $90 per lb.

Anxi Benshan Green Oolong

I procured this sample from EnjoyingTea.com, purveyors of gourmet tea and teaware. The tea sample arrived in a cute little tin (image below) and I was charged only for shipping which is $3.98.



This oolong comes from the Fujian Province,China. It brews into a golden color soup with hints of nuts ending with a smooth almost sweet after taste and there is a notable mouth drying effect.

I started with a 20sec infusion and thereby increased every subsequent brew by 10sec, the first 3 brews were sweet and nutty maintaining the vibrant golden liquor color, around 4th infusion the color started to turn pale therefore I increased the steeping duration to little over a minute well to be exact 70sec though the color was golden the flavor flattened out and weakened.

In my opinion this a very nice oolong to be enjoyed early in the morning.