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I deviated from my usual black tea this morning because I felt like something lighter and fruitier.

Another tea from the lovely Lena. I’ve never had a yellow tea before so I was excited to try it – and a bit nervous when I heard how delicate they are.

So let’s start with the steeping instructions: “Use a porcelain guywan, glass teapot or a Ho-hin and fill it half full”

Riiight, because I have any of those things. I had to look up what a Ho-hin is sadly enough. I do have a glass tea pot, but it’s a huge two liter one so filling that half-way would be a bit difficult. I’ve seen guywans in Asian stores in Vancouver and all I can say that me drinking from one of those is an accident waiting to happen. I can just see myself pressing too hard on the upper rim and flipping the whole thing over onto me. DX

So I ended up using about half of the sample Lena gave me (about a tbsp) in a 10 oz coffee mug. The dry leaves were covered in a thick coat of soft fuzz and they looked more silvery than yellow. The first steep for about 2 min yielded a pale-looking, delicate brew that smelled quite fragrant. The flavour is subtle and a bit vegetale, but with honey-sweet notes intertwined throughout. The steeped leaves absorbed water and unfolded a bit and I could see that they were, indeed, a pale yellowish-green shade.

The resteep was a little lighter but it still had that same green-sweet flavour. Some people have compared it to honeysuckle – I’ve never tried honeysuckle so I really can’t say. I could get more steeps out of the leaves, but I’m pretty tired so I think I’ll just head off to bed.

I think I may have brewed this a little bit too hot at 85ºC because I’m picking up a slight bitterness in the tea this go ‘round. It’s still quite tasty and oddly filling and satisfying in a way that teas usually aren’t.

Thank you so much for sending me this from your stash Ricky! *cyberhug *

Yeah, it wasn’t a bomb after all – whew! ;P

Wow, this tea is strong and fierce, just like the tiger on the tin suggests. It’s as dark as the pu-erh I had a few days go and the mouth-feel is almost as stiff. It’s got that smoky-tannin scent that I tasted in Adagio’s Yunana Jig – now that I think about it, what it reminds me of is the scent of green willow twigs being burned.

This tea has a smoother, more pleasent consistancy than its counterpart though. I’m also picking up a bit of spiciness after the intital rush of smokiness, not pepper though – it actually reminds me more of cloves.

Anyway, it’s a very nice tea and it makes me even more of a sad puppy that I missed out on getting a tin.

I thought I was all out of this tea, but I found the sample packet tucked away in the back of my cupboard with a bit left in the bottom. There was a bit more than one cup’s worth – but not enough for two – so the first steeping was rather pungent and strong, but the subsequent ones were really nice.

So this really is the end of this tea, this time. :D

I wasn’t keen on this tea the first time around so I decided to give it another shot before consigning it to the ‘Give Away’ pile.

I picked up a bit of a honey/molasses scent when the tea was steeping, which was interesting. There’s a bit of the same note in the flavour aswell, particularly when the tea is hot. I’m still getting a very faint floral note but oddly enough at the very beginning of each sip I’m getting a touch of something cool and mint-like. But as the tea cools instead of getting sweet like most oolong this one gets an almost darjeeling-like muscatl quality and isn’t really all the pleasent to drink.

So I might keep this one around for a bit and maybe experiment with the steeping time and such.

I added milk and sugar to this tea even though I don’t often like to sweeten my teas. The taste reminds me of when I first started drinking tea as a small child at my grandmother’s house. Happy memories of times long past. :)

Last cup of tea of the night (morning?) I promise. ;)

I decided to experiment a bit with this tea and steeped it for less time. I can taste quite a bit more raspberry flavour this way, although the oolong base seems a touch bland. Still it seems like a 5-5.5 min steep is the way to go.

On an un-related note, I got a mysterious, yellow package in the mail from Ricky today….maybe I should call the Bomb Squad. ;P

I actually did get a bit some something that might be likened to honey this time. It was more of a malted-honey sort of taste though, like molasses maybe. I’m also getting that berry-like note at the end aswell. Unlike most Indian black teas it also gave up a recent, if lighter, resteep.

I’m not sure it’s worth raving over like some people are, but this is a nice tea and probably the favorite of the pure Ceylons that I’ve tried.