Skip to content

FAQs

Water Temp, Ratio & Timing?

We don't give specific recipes for our teas, although we do prefer boiling water for our oolong teas. Including the light High Mountain Oolong and Baozhong.

Please visit our Brewing Advice article to learn more about how to get the best out of our teas.

Does Tea Go Through 'Shipping Shock'?

Tea is a very sensitive plant, and will go into a state of shock when shipped. You can try your new teas right away, we usually do. However, we find that they are the most open after about two weeks in their new environment.

Tea Storage/Freshness

The best storage for our teas is the vacuum sealed bags which they came in. Even once they’ve been opened, one of our foil bags rolled up and clipped with a binder clip is better than most metal, ceramic or glass tea caddies for oolong tea. Keep at room temperature and away from sunlight. We try to finish an open bag of tea in about three months depending on type.

We want these teas to taste as best as possible in your home. That's why we switch harvest of fresh oolongs (High Mountain Oolong and Baozhong) every six months. We recommend you finish these teas within two years of the production date printed on the bag.

Roasted and heavily oxidized teas can generally keep long term, and even improve with age. For example, a five year old Dong Ding is a real treat.

The Best Teaware

We like thin walled white porcelain for both the brewing vessel and the teacup. A white gaiwan is how we try all our teas. If I could afford to, everyone would get a porcelain gaiwan in their order like a kid's meal at fast food joints.

We also like Yixing teapots. They are awesome. They're also expensive, and we would choose porcelain over a cheap yixing pot. Yixing is also more temperamental than porcelain, and will only work with certain teas. Read more about our teaware advice here...

What If I Don't Have The Best Teaware?

A plain white gaiwan is a beautiful thing, and cheap. However...

All you really need to brew tea is boiling water and a mug. That's it.

Place dry leaves in a mug and pour hot water to saturate them. Whole leaf teas will unfurl and sink to the bottom, and you can drink the broth right off the top. When it gets too strong, add more water.

This method is free, easy and tastes damn good.

Where Do I Start?

Oolong is a broad category of teas, with many different flavor profiles. We break oolong down into three general styles, Light, Roasted, and Red. To learn more visit our Oolong Spectrum article.

We have a few of our favorites and most popular teas across the spectrum listed in our Starter Pack collection.

Search

Shopping Cart

Floating Leaves is not responsible for stolen or misdelivered packages. Please leave us a note below if you would like us to add free signature confirmation.