Oolong

//ˈuː.lʊŋ// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A partially fermented tea, often roasted, which combines the characteristics of green tea and black tea. countable, uncountable

    "Flavour and aroma of semi-fermented teas is dictated by the extent of fermentation and, for this reason, oolong has a considerably stronger flavour than pouchong, which undergoes a significantly shorter fermentation."

  2. 2
    Chinese tea leaves that have been partially fermented before being dried wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A locality in the Upper Lachlan council area, south eastern New South Wales, Australia.

Synonyms

All synonyms
oolong tea

Example

More examples

"Oolong tea falls between green and black tea, with varying oxidation levels."

Etymology

1850s. From either Mandarin 烏龍 /乌龙 (wūlóng) due to hypercorrection, or directly from Hokkien 烏龍 /乌龙 (o͘-liông), from 烏 /乌 (o͘, “black”) + 龍 /龙 (liông, “dragon”). See also pouchong from Hokkien 包種茶 /包种茶 (pau-chióng-tê, literally “tea of the wrapped kind”).

Related phrases

oolong teablack teagreen tea

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.