Superfine Taiwan Ali Shan Oolong Tea

Yet another sample from Teavivre! Thanks as always!

The liquid is smooth and delicate, with a taste of vegetal sweetness. Due to the mild nature of the tea, there is plenty of room to mess around with steep time without having to worry too much about over steeping. This would be a good tea for someone who enjoys more mild oolongs than some of the bolder flavors.

The taste I am getting is somewhat vegetal tasting and mildly floral, with notes reminiscent of hot rocks/mineral, and some background notes that remind me of honey. Has a creamy mouthfeel that reminds me of a milk oolong. Excellent tea.

Free sample from Teavivre! Thanks a bunch Angel! This tea is one of my very favorite kinds of oolong.
I opened the package and sniffed. VERY milky aroma, and even a bit caramelly. I used the entire packet – about a tablespoon – and steeped for 35 seconds in my glass steeper. First sip is lightly vegetal. As I continue with the cup the milky flavor emerges and leaves a wonderful sweet aftertaste. I am loving this!
Second steep 40 seconds. The steeper is completely filled with leaves now. The brew smells more floral this time. Taste is mostly floral and a little vegetal. The sweet aftertaste returns midcup. By the end of the cup I can taste a hint of the milkiness, but just a hint. The floral was super strong in this steep.
3rd steep 45 seconds. Once again quite floral.
Thanks again Teavivre for an opportunity to try another of your delicious teas!

Tea provided by Teavivre for review

First steep had a delicate vegetal flavour, with some sweetness.

Second steep onward, a floral flavour gradually builds up and a bit of spice can be felt at the back of my throat.

Finishing off with the eighth steep, I thought about how well the tea flavour stayed consistent. The last cup didn’t seem too weak at all.

Overall I quite liked this Ali Shan. Perhaps not as flavourful as I’d expect, but still enjoyable. But I didn’t find it bland or uninteresting. Sometimes a tea will grab your attention as you drink it, or you’ll pick something that is so flavourful you don’t need to focus on it’s nuances. This isn’t that kind of tea for sure ;)

Steep parameters (as suggested by Teavivre)
85ml water in a gaiwan, sample (7g?), rinse and 8 steeps (25s, 25s, 30s, 40s, 60s, 90s, 120s, 180s)

Light Oolong that is greenish yellow in color. Very pleasant floral aroma. Sweet floral taste that is very creamy and buttery. There is no vegetal flavor that you can get with the light Oolong teas. It is sweet but not overly sweet and is balanced well with the creaminess. I am a big fan of this tea.

i plan to steep this multiple times & add notes as I go

aroma- light floral

Steep Time
1 min- quite bland & lacks taste
2 min- I think my water may have been a bit too hot,this cup was fairly bitter
3 min- A lighter smoother brew with no bitterness. I let the boiled water cool for 3 minutes instead of 2 before re-steeping the tea
4 min- smooth still lightly flavored
5 min- same as the 4th steep no change

Sitting down with the Steepster team and Tea Master Zach.

Smells floral. Smooth. Calming. Buttery.

I wanted to write a note for this tea because I was very impressed by it, and I’m shocked that it has such a low rating (76 at the time of writing). This is an excellent example of a Taiwan High Mountain Oolong.

The leaves are nicely dark and green with minimal oxidation, and they produce a light golden liquid. The leaves smell much like green tea leaves, which makes sense given the very minimal oxidation.

I brewed them gongfu style, 7g leaves with 7 oz of water, starting at 50s and working up. I’d start with 1 min next time or use slightly less water or more leaves. I used temperatures between 185 and 195 F.

Anyway, the flavor was excellent – vegetal notes are very present but not in your face or like you’re drinking asparagus juice. (The slight oxidation smoothes out the vegetality.) They’re complemented by a little bit of florality – there’s not enough oxidation to maximize florality. There’s a nice subtle sweetness. There’s also a buttery-milky flavor and a light-to-moderate mouthfeel. This tea has much of what I like in green tea without any overbearing vegetality, plus the smooth, complex buttery flavors of oolongs.

The second steep was really impressive – more buttery and milky with a wonderfully long finish and some notes of artificial popcorn butter (trust me, they were pleasant!) The third steep was somewhat weaker, but there were still complex herbaceous (kale-like) notes with good sweetness. The final steep was quite weak but still pleasant.

As you can tell, I really enjoyed this sample, and I’ll be ordering some despite it being a bit expensive (but still more than fair relative to other high-quality high mountain oolongs).

I appreciate the mild flavor the tea has while retaining lots of complexity. The mouthfeel is also wonderful and the thickest tea I’ve had other than gyokuro. I am impressed with the complexity, how the tea changes so much as it steeped, and the mouthfeel. As the tea passes infusion 4-5, the flavors switch from floral, creamy, and sweet to primarily vegetal.

Dry leaf: cream, butter.
Wet leaf: floral, vegetal.
Flavor: floral, creamy, sweet, vegetal.

This was another April sipdown of mine. I think I finished this one around the start of the third week of the month. I only had a couple of sample pouches to play around with, so I did not get a chance to spend an extended period of time familiarizing myself with this tea, but in the time I spent with it, I found it to be a decent though not exceptionally interesting Ali Shan oolong.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 7 grams of rolled tea leaves in 5 ounces of 195 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of cream, custard, vanilla, sugarcane, gardenia, and grass. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of butter, spinach, honeysuckle, and orange blossom. The first infusion introduced aromas of apricot and cucumber. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cream, butter, sugarcane, grass, spinach, and cucumber that were chased by pear, green apple, apricot, orange blossom, and vanilla hints. The subsequent infusions brought out aromas of umami, green apple, lettuce, and honeydew. Stronger and more readily noticeable impressions of pear, green apple, and vanilla came out in the mouth alongside belatedly emerging notes of custard and hints of gardenia and honeysuckle. I also picked up on notes of minerals, umami, cantaloupe, honeydew, white peach, white grape, coriander, lettuce, seaweed, and orange zest. As the tea faded, the liquor emphasized notes of minerals, coriander, umami, green apple, pear, grass, butter, and spinach that were backed by hints of seaweed, cucumber, apricot, white grape, orange zest, and lettuce.

This was a fairly standard Ali Shan oolong. I found that it faded quickly, but for the most part, there was nothing terribly wrong with it. Unfortunately, I find Ali Shan to be one of the more overhyped and boring terroirs of Taiwan, and since this tea did not differentiate itself from the majority of the other Ali Shan oolongs I have tried, I very quickly reached a point where I was ready to move on from it. To be clear, this tea was not bad. As a matter of fact, I could see it maybe making a respectable introductory Ali Shan oolong for those who are curious about what Ali Shan teas have to offer. I just found it to be a bit on the bland side.