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GABA Taiwanese Oolong Loose Leaf Oolong Tea

Β£58.00
Β£58.00
Β£1.16 per cup
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Style

A bright amber oolong with high levels of GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) from the monsoon drenched mountains of Pinglin, Taiwan. You might compare this tea to a fine malt whisky that has been quietly resting in sherry casks. A bright aroma over deep flavour.

Also known as Gabaron, Jia Ye Long or Jia Wu Long cha.

Tasting Notes

This unique oolong transports you in the first sip to a tea garden in harvest. There are aromas of freshly plucked spring leaves and honey over deeply concentrated flavours of dried fruits from tropical mango and pineapple to sticky prune and raisin.

Origin

Ching Yuan Tea, Pinglin, Taiwan

Cost Per Cup

Β£1.16 per cup based on 3g of tea per 150ml of water and 3 infusions.
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Recommended Infusion Guide

  • Quantity

    Use 3g of tea per 150ml of water.

  • Temperature

    For the optimum infusion use 100Β°C water.

  • Time

    Infuse for 1-2 minutes, tasting regularly.

  • Infusions

    This tea can be infused at least three times. With each careful infusion, different subtleties of flavour are revealed. In a gaiwan, possibly six.

1 3

More infusion tips

How to infuse your tea is very personal, and these are just our recommendations based on experience. Please experiment with these variables to your heart's delight. These are our recommendations, not hard and fast rules. The most delicious tea is the one you love.

Our guide uses a standard tea cup size (150ml/5.5 oz) as a measure, please adjust the quantity of leaf accordingly for less or more water. Our whole loose leaves are of such a high quality that you can infuse our teas at least twice, and the second infusion is often better than the first, with different flavours revealed as the leaf softens. If you prefer your tea stronger, add more leaf, don’t leave it for longer (this will just make it bitter).

Making oolong with a gaiwan

A gaiwan is the ultimate way to enjoy your oolong tea, using a high leaf-to-water ratio that extracts very quickly. Used in China since the Ming dynasty (over 900 years ago), gaiwans are unassuming but beautifully functional teapots that can be used to explore tea to its fullest – the following method can be used to make up to six infusions.

For small gaiwans (e.g. our Traditional Gaiwan) start with 2-4g of tea, for larger gaiwans (e.g. our Easy Pour Gaiwan) use 4-6g.

If you're using a rolled oolong (Tie Guan Yin, Waikato Oolong, 21st Century Breakfast or Golden Lily Milk Oolong) this next step will greatly improve your infusion. Using boiling water cover the leaf in your gaiwan and immediately strain and discard the liquid. This "wash" softens the surface of the rolled leaves and allows the water to better penetrate.

If you're using a traditional gaiwan and you don't want to burn your fingers, please fill the bowl just to where the sides begin to curve outwards towards the rim. If you're an experienced gaiwan handler you can fill the bowl higher – its just important to note that as the water level reaches close to the rim it gets very hot to handle.

With such a high leaf-to-water ratio the infusion is very quick; infuse you leaf for 5-10 seconds and strain completely into your cup or a jug. There's no need to reheat the water as you go, because the softened leaves will require lower temperatures to release their flavours - but you will need to extend the time to 10-20 seconds for later infusions. We recommend at least six infusions to allow the leaf to completely open out and reveal all its beauty.

For a more comprehensive guide to using a gaiwan (including a video), click here for our full guide.

This sublime oolong also makes an extraordinarily good cold infused tea.

Add 8g of dry leaf per litre (0.3 oz per 34 fl oz) of cold filtered water and leave to infuse overnight in the fridge. You will get a super special, rich, chocolatey, mangoey infusion.

What is GABA?

GABA is gamma-aminobutyric acid, one of the brain’s important neurotransmitters, that regulates stress.

What is GABA tea?

GABA tea is a relatively new emerging tea category. Its development originated in Japan by Dr. Tsushida in the 1980s.

Tea leaves are slowly oxidised in a nitrogen-rich environment. Nitrogen flushes out the oxygen to produce an anaerobic environment for several hours during crafting. During this time natural glutamic acid in the tea leaves is converted into GABA.

This results is not just a much larger amount of GABA molecules present in the finished tea, but what attracted us to this oolong tea were the incredible flavours. Jammy notes of dried fruits appear in this succulent and truly unique tea. The unique terroir is every bit as crucial to the flavour as the crafting.

What are the benefits of GABA tea?

The content of Ξ³-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in every 100g of this tea is around 150mg.

It offers the potential benefit of lowering stress and anxiety and aiding rest.

We are not doctors or scientists and make no health claims. It's unclear how the body absorbs the GABA in tea and more research is required. But what we can say for sure is that this is an organically grown tea; rich in L-theanine and caffeine and the amino acids and antioxidant properties of all good tea. And it tastes amazing.

This tea is grown and harvested by a collection of small organic farmers in the Pinglin region, where the Beisshi River flows into the Xindian and down into the Emerald Reservoir.

This unique terroir is drenched by the northeast monsoons and the water coming from the surrounding mountains flows down through the tea into the rivers and reservoir - an essential water source for 2.5 million people in Taipei City.

For this reason there are very strict environmental and conservation regulations in the region. The tea farmers work organically to protect this precious environment and the water that flows through it and the people reliant on it.

"In our organic tea, we don't over-intervene; we allow everything to operate autonomously within a framework of chaos. Countless insects and animals freely inhabit and hibernate, while nameless wild grasses flourish and wither with the seasons. The intermingling of microorganisms in the soil creates a self-sufficient micro-ecosystem that provides the tea trees with wonderful flavour compounds and nutrients."

The organic farmers work together with Ching Yuan Tea and the Tse-Xing Organic Agriculture Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1997.

The mission's foundation is to promote physical and mental well-being, to restore the vitality of the earth to benefit future generations and to promote compassionate initiatives to build a better society.

Currently, the foundation carries out major initiatives focusing on environmental sustainability: promoting organic agriculture, green conservation, plastic reduction, and tree planting.

Ching Yuan Tea is one of the initiatives under the foundation's organic agriculture promotion program.

Hou You-Sheng is the tea master who crafts our GABA oolong.

  • Inspired to put ecological and organic environmental philosophy into practice, he moved from a pharmaceutical career to learn about tea production, tea garden management, and organic tea promotion.

    Mr. Hou has now been with Ching Yuan for 18 years.

Shipping, delivery & more...

United Kingdom Shipping Information

FREE UK Tracked Delivery when you spend Β£40 or more

FREE UK Express Delivery - Next Day* when you spend Β£50 or more

UK Tracked Delivery - Two Day Tracked Β£3.99

UK Express Delivery - Next Day* Tracked Β£4.49

UK Express Courier Delivery - Next Day* Courier from Β£6.99

*Subject to next day cutoff and postcode location. Availability of rates depends on location and order weight. For a complete overview of our shipping rates please see our delivery page.

Returns

The Rare Tea Lady believes that our teas are some of the greatest in the world, and that our range and service are second to none.

In the isolated case that you are not completely satisfied with any product you purchase from our website, please get in contact with our customer services team to discuss returning your order.*

In most instances, we will give you a full refund of the item's cost, excluding postage. We may ask you to return the item to us.** Customers in the UK & European Union have statutory rights not affected by this guarantee, but any bags of tea must remained sealed for this to be in effect.

*We only accept returns/refunds for tea within 30 days of receipt, because it is impossible for us to know if the tea has been stored correctly.

**We will endeavour to ask for pictures where possible - but if you have changed your mind and are outside of any statutory rights time period, return postage is payable by you.

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