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I’ve almost given up on finding good roasted oolongs, but decided to try this one anyway since Ethan said that like me, he doesn’t enjoy prominent roast or charcoal in his tea. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of roasted nuts, butter, caramel, orchids, and other florals. The first steep has notes of grain, honey, roasted nuts, minerals, orchids, and soft florals. Steep two is quite floral, with orchid, honeysuckle, and spring flowers. The tea is rounded out with notes of grain, roasted nuts, butter, grass, and faint roast. The next couple steeps double down on the roasted nuts (walnuts and chestnuts, maybe?) and have more notes of caramel, grain, butter, and roast along with the florals. It’s worth noting that this tea hasn’t become overly roasty or sour. In subsequent steeps, the tea finally starts getting some sourness from the roast, though it’s nicely balanced with nutty, grassy, buttery, and floral flavours and some minerality. The final steeps are more noticeably roasted, but still hang on to the floral, nutty, and caramel notes that make this tea enjoyable.

This oolong is a pleasant surprise. While it’s definitely a roasted tea, the roast is nicely balanced with the floral qualities of the Alishan oolong in a way that complements it rather than overwhelming it. While I wouldn’t say it’s as magical as the sample of Dong Ding Derk gave me from Song, it’s a lot more affordable. It only goes to show there are good roasted teas out there if you are lucky enough to find them.

According to Ethan’s description, this spring 2024 Si Ji Chun is from a higher elevation than the regular Nantou variety. At $20 for 50 g, it’s a bit more than one would expect to pay for a Four Seasons oolong, but since my curiosity regarding gaoshan is boundless, it made its way into my order. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of cookies, butter, grass, and honeysuckle. The first steep has notes of cookie, butter, cream, walnut, grass, honeysuckle, freesia, and orchid. This tea is quite soft, with none of the high notes I associate with Qing Xin. The next steep is round, buttery, nutty, and floral, with more flowery notes than the first steep. Steeps three and four have a nice lemony quality, along with more intense freesia, honeysuckle, and orchids and a little grass. Subsequent steeps are still nutty and floral, but with more grass and minerals. The final steeps are predictably grassy, vegetal, mineral, and a bit floral.

This tea didn’t wow me like some of Ethan’s other offerings, but the first few steeps were nice. I’m not sure the higher price was fully justified. I guess you can’t win them all!

I’ve had maybe three Dancongs from Camellia Sinensis and have liked only one (the 2010 Mi Lan Xiang). Nonetheless, I had to order 25 g of this both because of the name and because it’s made by the same producer as their Feng Huang Hong Cha, another tea I love. This note is for the 2023 harvest. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of peach, lychee, honey, orchid, grain, and roast. The first steep really delivers on the soft, sweet peach I was hoping for. It also has notes of lychee, apricot, honey, orchid, butter, grain, roast, and tannins, which kind of make the peach feel fuzzy. There’s a peachy aftertaste that reminds me of peach pits. The next steep has a little upfront roast but is mostly peach, orchid, other florals, honey, and lychee. Grain and roast become more prominent in steeps three and four, though the peach is holding strong and the florals are still evident. The aftertaste shifts to grilled peaches and honey. In the next four steeps, I get more charcoal, wood, cream, and florals, although the peach is going strong. The final steeps emphasize charcoal, roast, minerals, wood, tannins, and faint hints of peach.

This may not be the world’s most complex
Dancong, but the sweet, persistent peach makes me happy. It isn’t as heavily roasted as some other Dancongs, although this could be due to age. I’d highly recommend this tea for any peach lovers out there.

Daylon generously sent me an entire vacuum-sealed ounce of this 2023 Long Feng Xia, which has been sitting in a box for just under a year. However, when I drink gaoshan samples, I drink them fast, so this tea was gone in just under a week. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of orchid, lilac, sweet pea, and mild spices. The first steep has notes of orchid, lilac, sweet pea, cream, milk, sweet corn, grass, cookies, and hints of spice. Along with the cream and delicate florals, the second steep is a bit greener, though not bitter. The next couple steeps have headier orchid and honeysuckle notes, with some greenness in the background. With steeps five and six, the tea acquires notes of pine, spinach, and grass, though there’s still some sweetness and florality. The last few steeps are quite sappy and vegetal, with pine, spinach, grass, faint florals, and some sweetness.

Even though I usually don’t go for more vegetal oolongs, this one is highly drinkable and complex. The spicy florality in the first few steeps is lovely, and the sappy, piney note is reminiscent of other Shan Lin Xi oolongs. Thanks, Daylon, for sending me this tea!

Happy 2025! I’ve been enjoying this ounce of tea from Daylon on special occasions, such as finally regaining my sense of smell after spending a week with a cold. I will need to see how much Whispering Pines charges to ship to Canada, as this tea is as lovely as all the notes on Steepster suggest. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

Wow, this tea is fruity and sweet! The dry aroma is of blackberry, strawberry, caramel, and malt. The first steep has notes of blackberry, strawberry, muscatel, honey, caramel, bread, and malt. I get a lot more muscatel and caramel in steep two, as well as some velvety tannins. There’s a fuzzy, fruity, sweet, lingering aftertaste. I continue to get stewed berries and muscatel in steeps three through six, along with lots of caramel sweetness. By steep seven, bread, malt, and wood become more apparent, though there’s still plenty of berries and muscatel. The final steeps have notes of raisin, muscatel, faint berries, honey, bread, wood, malt, and tannins. (Yes, even the last few steeps of this tea are special.)

This tea is a crowd pleaser for a reason! It’s probably too sweet to be a daily drinker for me, but it’s a wonderfully decadent treat. Those jammy berry notes make me smile.

I saw this tea while I was shopping online at Sobey’s and gleefully added it to my cart, only to discover that it was out of stock. Bah humbug! After I asked around, including here on Steepster, my mom managed to find a box at Bulk Barn of all places, and gave it to me during the holidays. I steeped two teabags in 355 ml of 200F water for 3, 5, and 7 minutes.

This tea smells like an After Eight: strongly minty with hints of chocolate. In descending order of prominence, the flavours in the first steep are mint, cocoa, lavender, and vanilla. I tried to up the lavender quotient by using two bags, and while it kind of worked, there really wasn’t as much lavender as I hoped. Not surprisingly, the aftertaste is quite sweet. I don’t mind the milk chocolate flavouring, though it does come off as a bit artificial. The second steep is much like the first, though the mint is a bit tamer. The lavender peaks out in the final steep, though that’s probably because the other flavours are starting to fade.

This is a nice holiday tea, though not as unique as I anticipated. As chocolate mint teas go, it’s pretty good.

Happy holidays! Every year, I promise myself I’ll get a festive tea, and this time, I got two! I found this tea at a little shop that sells French chocolates, cookies, and other treats, and the other one, Christmas in Paris by Stash, was a gift from my mom. I steeped about 1.5 teaspoons of leaf in 355 ml of 185F water for 3, 5, and 7 minutes.

The dry aroma is of vibrant cherry and almond. The first steep has notes of cherry, almond, amaretto, caramel, ginger, and faint malt. The cherry is a little artificial tasting, but also fresh and distinct. Combined with the cherry, the almond leans toward amaretto, and shorter, cooler steeps bring it out. The next steep has a bit more ginger and malt, though the cherry and almond are still prominent. Not surprisingly, this tea is sweet, though not as sweet as it could be. The final steep is less strongly flavoured and I can taste the black tea base a bit more, but the tea is still pleasant and not bitter.

This meets all my expectations for a French tea! I enjoy almond things (amaretto, marzipan, those hickory smoked almonds), and this very much falls into that category. Though it probably won’t convert me into a flavoured tea drinker, it made my Christmas a little brighter.

I don’t have much experience with tulsi or gotu kola and I was intrigued enough to buy a big bag of this tea for $6 or so. I might have been hoping that the flavour would be a less sweet version of Coca Cola. I steeped about 3 g of tea in 355 ml of 190F water for 4, 6, 8, and 10 minutes.

The dry aroma is of basil, cloves, herbs, and cola. The first steep is heavy on the clove, with basil, herbs, caramel, and what I presume is the gotu kola in the background. The flavour is sweet, earthy, and spicy. The next couple steeps are very similar, though the clove fades into the background and the basil becomes more prominent. By the end of the session, the tea is grassy, herbaceous, earthy, and sweet. I probably should have stopped at three steeps, as the last one is kind of watery.

So, does this taste like Coke? Sort of, though it’s too clove heavy to be convincing and is missing a citrus element. This tea is pleasant enough to enjoy on a snowy evening. At least it doesn’t have licorice, hibiscus, or chamomile, which are ubiquitous in most herbal teas.

I bought a bunch of black teas from Wang in 2020, and I think I’m nearing the end of them. Red Rhyme is harder to find than many other Taiwanese hongcha, and I was curious to see what it was like. I steeped 4 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 40, 40, 50, 50, 60, 60, 75, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of raisins, grapefruit, florals, and malt. The first steep has notes of raisins, muscatel, grapefruit, honey, malt, orchids, and brisk tannins. The next steep offers more grapefruit, rose, orchid, and earth, but the tannins are also quite pronounced. I get some citrus reappearing, or “rhyming,” in the aftertaste. Steeps three and four are very tannic, but still have lots of raisin, muscatel, grapefruit, other citrus, and florals. Subsequent steeps have notes of malt, minerals, raisins, honey, earth, and tannins. Cooling the water to 185F does little to make this tea less astringent.

I enjoyed the fruity, floral profile of this hongcha, but the astringency was not so fun. I might try using 3 g in my 150 ml teapot to decrease the astringency. However, I think the tannins are just part of this tea. Age might explain the raisiny flavour, but if anything, I imagine it would have softened those tannins if there was any hope of softening them. Fortunately, Wang has many other teas I love.

I’m surprised Steepster doesn’t have an entry for this tea, though there are a few entries for lapsang souchong that could be referring to this one. I’ve been buying it from Wuyi Origin for at least two years, and prior to that, I received a sample from Trident Booksellers and Cafe, which resells a few of Wuyi Origin’s products. I even found what I hope was a tea seed in my last 50 g pouch! I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of bread, malt, honey, lemon, orchid, violet, hay, and wood. The first steep has notes of bread, malt, honey, lemon, orange, orchid, violet, other florals, minerals, and tannins. The tea is on the breadier, maltier side and the florals are less pronounced than in previous harvests. Steep two adds rose, molasses, forest floor, and more wafts of citrus. More florals, including violet and jasmine, appear in the next couple steeps, though the tannins and malt also increase. Steeps five to eight are nicely floral and lemony, with the jasmine remaining prominent. Subsequent steeps are still faintly floral, but there’s more malt, hay, wood, and tannins. The last couple steeps are woody, earthy, mineral, and tannic.

This is one of my favourite black teas from Wuyi Origin, coming second only to their Wild Lapsang. It has great longevity, little bitterness, and wonderfully balanced florality. Thank you, Daylon, for introducing me to this tea so many years ago.