Satemwa Malawi Oolong

Description

Satemwa Malawi Oolong is a smooth fruity tea from Satemwa Tea Estate in the Shire Highlands of Malawi. Made from a blend of cultivars, it undergoes careful processing to achieve a leaf with mixed oxidation. This results in a medium profile with a sweet fruity flavour and lightly tannic aftertaste. We source it directly from Satemwa. The current batch is from the September 2023 harvest.

Malawi is the second largest tea producing region of Africa after Kenya. Most of it, however, does end up destined for the tea bag industry of the UK and South Africa, being grown on large plantations owned by big multinational corporations. The Satemwa Tea Estate by contrast is family owned and operated. It was founded in 1923 and has stayed in the same family since inception. They have very strong social and environmental responsibility programmes that provide a fair wage to their workers and support to the local communities.

While also producing CTC teas for tea bags and similar applications, Satemwa Tea Estate are also pioneering high end orthodox tea production. For this they are utilising and experimenting with various cultivars found in Malawi, fusing the local plants and terroir with production methods and ideas they collated from visiting tea estates and farmers in other countries. Thanks to these innovative methods, their selection now encapsulates a whole range of teas: unique whites, unusual greens processed using Japanese production methods, oolongs, orthodox blacks as well as dark tea! As part of this process, the team from the Estate had to develop new techniques and even new machinery to produce their special teas.

While this Satemwa Malawi Oolong is classified as a ‘green Moolong’ by the producer, this is quite a different proposition to the ‘green’ minimally oxidised modern oolongs teas from Taiwan and China. The twisted leaves have a higher mixed degree of oxidation, making this somewhere between a lighter green and a darker more oxidised roasted oolong. It produces a bright liquor with a lovely fruity aroma. The flavour is easy-going with dominant fruity notes and sweetness throughout the tasting. There are notes of sugared apples and mineral muscovado sugar. The slight notes of hay and dry wood mark a similarity to some white tea flavours. The aftertaste is lasting, with a mineral woody finish and some pleasant tannins coming through. Overall this is a somewhat unusual oolong, especially when compared to the classic oolongs teas of China and Taiwan!

It is best brewed at 80°C for around 2-3 minutes according to your taste, brewing 2+ times.

This Satemwa Malawi Oolong tea was first featured in our July 2024 Curious Tea Subscription Boxes.