This is another Silk Road Teas Oolong called Xue Lie or Snow Pear Oolong. It is also the second batch made with multiple steeps although I’m starting to question this method. It will be nice to get back to the Tie Kwan Yin so that we can compare the brewing methods. These teas we’ve been trying from Silk Road are more floral so it’s hard to compare. We let last weeks batch ferment for 8 days and it turned out to be too long now that our heater is fixed so we’ll let this batch go only seven days in first fermentation.
We harvested this on 12/22. It tastes more floral than we like and tastes a little weak. We flavored one batch (#91-94) with 1 tbsp of ginger and 1/2 tbsp of sugar (didn’t fizz much) and the other batch (#1-4) with just 1/2 tbsp of sugar (it fizzed a little more, probably had the first steep).
I let the ginger go too long, five days. It was incredibly explosive. I can’t let ginger go more than 2 or 3 days!
Well, this is weird. I cut the second fermentation short by a day because I burped a bottle and it basically exploded. So we went from a flat bottling to an explosion in just 6 days. It also turned out vinegary and not sweet. I guess the heater being on all the time is resulting in strong second fermentations. We’re going to need to check things earlier.