Since it is commonly held that “oolong” is the English word for the teas called “Wulong” in Chinese, that provides a little justification for using it since all of the surrounding text is generally going to be in English, but this also brands the term part of the legacy of British Imperialism, which leans me further towards avoiding it in favor of the more appropriate Pinyin.

But there’s also a little bit of a problem of consistency when writing about a company’s products because I consider names absolutes. Historically, I’ve used “oolong” throughout if the subject at hand is a particular tea called oolong by its manufacturer because it appears more consistent in the text. The better approach may be to use “wulong” every time outiside of the proper name. I doubt anyone would be confused by that. But, as an example, I would never refer to a tea that a company calls “Formosa Shanlinxi High Mountain Oolong” by “Taiwan Shanlinxi High Mountain Wulong.” And then it makes me a little batty that a different company calls the same tea “Shan Lin Xi Gao Shan Cha, Oolong Tea.”

烏 (wū) is “black”

鳥 (niǎo) is “bird”

And it’s further confused by the fact that the first word, when combined with another character (烏鴉) means “crow” or “raven”–literally “black bird”.

Now I have that darned song stuck in my head too!

I’ve never seen the reply pages misbehave like that on any platform or different browsers, but I’ll investigate. I don’t want the site annoying anyone.

I could spend days and days researching etymology.

In my private records and personal tea database I use 烏龍, wūlóng and wu1 long2 in part because I’m a stickler for accuracy and because I’m trying to learn enough chinese to read the labels on my tea.

In mixed company and non-tea aficionado groups I have no problem using oolong. That way the majority know exactly what I’m referring to since it’s the american colloquial usage.

Language etymology is a facinating subject.