A Big Mistake!

Tea while tired is not always a good idea. Sure, the caffeine will wake you up, but being tired (especially for mistake-prone people like me) causes accidents before the caffeine. And apparently, the last time I was tired set me up for this time that I was tired! Apparently, when i had originally intended to rant about using the last of the Wuyi Oolong I had left the opened canister out with the spilled leaf crumbs, to take a picture. But I got caught up with other things. This led to opening another container, and getting the lids mixed up. And then that happened yet again. And since I labeled the tops of the lids (I have the tins stood up in the boxes on my kitchen counter), I assumed that I was getting what was labeled.

Tired Ernest pulled out a container with "Wuyi Oolong" written on the top. I thought it sounded like the one I had emptied, but there's no way, if it was in the boxes and it had tea in it! In my groggy state, I measured out the customary 1g/30ml for my gaiwan. When I had 3.6g, I noticed I didn't have that much tea left in the container. So I decided just to use the rest and see what happened. I just didn't care much that the leaves seemed a little different from the last time I had brewed this particular tea.

Needless to say, I was quite surprised with the differences in flavor and color from what i had expected! The aroma was unusually light -- not weak, just under pronounced. And the color was more golden than brown. I carefully noted all of this. As I progressed, though, the color never seemed to turn anywhere close to what should be expected to Oolong. It stayed golden, and gained just a hint of brown and a touch of green late into the infusions.

Afterwards, I noticed something odd. The name on a tin caught my attention. There was a mismatch. In short, the Wuyi's lid was on the White Peony. The White Peony's lid was on something else, and that lid was on the Wuyi Oolong tin.

I ruined perfectly good White Peony! I had been using near-boiling water for 12 infusions. The greater amount of leaf in the gaiwan made for less water in each infusion.

At least it gave me an experience. Now I know what scalded (some would say cooked) leaves do: not much except for a bit of color and bitterness later on.