Spring Moonshine Oolong

Between green tea's freshness and black tea's depth there is a narrow path, and this tea walks it. Spring leaf from Giddapahar's select clonal bushes is withered and rolled in the orthodox way, but its oxidation is halted partway — caught while the cup is still pale, the texture still silken.

It is a maker's tea: the timing of that interruption is judged by eye and by nose, batch by batch, at the height of the spring season. Steeped patiently, the same leaves will give three or four infusions, each one a slightly different account of the same hillside.