Webster apparently wasn't a
tea drinker.
Oolong
teas are
divine. They generally have a
subtle taste. Some would even say
sublime. Many oolongs have an almost
flowery taste.
Webster is also
sorta wrong about what oolong actually means. It does have properties of both
black teas and
green teas, but it is not
technically a
black tea. To understand, you need to know a little about how
tea is made.
Tea is a leafy
plant. The
leaves are what most people think of when they think of tea, because they are the part of the plant used to make a
tasty beverage. (Well, unless you're buying
cheap tea that has some stems and garbage like that. Or you're drinking a so-called
herbal tea which uses
roots or
bark. Those aren't really
tea, because they're not of the
Camellia Senensis plant.) Anyway, to make tea, those leaves are
dried, and then
infused into
boiling water.
The difference in the types of tea comes about during the drying process.
Black teas are
black because of the
oxidation that occurs as their (originally
green) leaves dry.
Green teas are dried without allowing the tea leaves to
oxidize, and so they keep their
green color (and a somewhat different
flavor). Oolong teas oxidize more than
green teas, but not as much as
black teas. This way they get the
delicious bouquet of a
green tea while gaining the
strength of a
black tea.
To sum up: oolong
tea is very good. But then, so is
tea in general.