✦ Studio Journal 004 ✦
To understand what exactly Oolong tea is, we first need to look at the six primary tea families. All true tea, AKA tea with natural caffeine, originates from a single plant: Camellia sinensis.
What separates a delicate white tea from a rich black tea isn't the leaf itself, but how it is processed. Varying degrees of oxidation transform the leaf, creating drastically different colours, aromas, and flavours.
While most tea types can be easily distinguished by the colour of their dry leaves and brewed liquor, Oolong is the great outlier. With oxidation levels spanning anywhere from 15% to 85%, an entire universe of flavour sits waiting inside a single category.
Oo (烏) means dark, and Long (龍) means dragon, but did you know that oolong (烏龍) can also mean “mistake” in Chinese?
There are many stories about how oolong came to be. Our favourite is a Taiwanese folk tale about a tea maker who left freshly harvested leaves to rest a little too long.
What seemed like a mistake turned into something unexpectedly delicious, a new style of tea was born from a beautiful accident, and our Toolong Studio’s namesake was born right along with it.
The world inside oolong
“Oolong is arguably the most complex category in the beverage world. A single variety can shift from intensely floral on the nose to a deep, honeyed, and clean resonance in the throat.”
— Inspired by Saveur Magazine
This range is precisely why oolong is making its way onto the menus of specialty coffee bars. For those who appreciate single-origin coffee, oolong offers that same captivating rabbit hole: origin, cultivar, process, profile, and the simple joy of finding a cup that speaks to you.
And then there’s the caffeine. Coffee can give you that immediate jolt you’re looking for in the morning, but sometimes you don't need another shot to power through the afternoon. Oolong offers a gentler kind of lift, helping you stay focused without reaching for that second (or third) coffee.
"Coffee gets us started. Oolong keeps us going."
— Toolong Studio
There are many ways to brew oolong, but we always recommend trying Gongfu style brewing using a gaiwan, a lidded tea bowl, or a small Chinese teapot. Compared with a Western-style teapot, Gongfu brewing uses more tea and less water, allowing the same leaves to be steeped again and again, up to 7 to 8 times. With each pour, small changes in time and temperature reveal a different layer of the tea.
Read our Teapot 101 or Gaiwan 101 to learn how to brew oolong gongfu style.
We know Gongfu brewing can feel a little intimidating at first, so we wanted to make exploring oolong a little easier. And no worries if you don't know what kind of oolong you like yet. That's exactly why we created the “I Don’t Know What Kind Of Oolong Tea I Like (Yet)” Tasting Pack, for the curious, the undecided, and anyone who simply wants to try a little bit of everything.
The tasting pack brings together five single-origin Taiwanese oolongs, spanning light and milky Jin Xuan, floral Alishan, layered Lishan, roasted Dong Ding, and fruit-sweet Red Oolong. It also includes a paper tea scoop for easy measuring when you don't have a scale, and a step-by-step brewing guide bookmark to get you started.
We believe the best oolong is the one you love.
So start exploring!
We’re planning small Tea 101 sessions around the tea table. If that sounds like your kind of afternoon, tap here to join the waitlist →
