Floating Leaves Tea

My version of this tea is from 2021. I bought it because the vendor said it was fruity, but I couldn’t dial in the steeping parameters and ended up letting the rest of it sit in a drawer for three years. 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.

The dry aroma is of mango, orchid, lilac, cream, and grass. The first steep has vaguely fruity notes of mango and pear, plus cream, orchid, lilac, and lots of grass. It doesn’t have any high notes, possibly due to its higher oxidation, and is a bit drying. The next steep has a nice mango aroma and flavour, along with some nuttiness, cream, florals, and lots of grass. It also has more astringency than expected for a green oolong. Steeps three and four have a great mango flavour, but are quite astringent and grassy. Subsequent rounds are still fruity, but the mango flavour is less apparent. By steep seven, the tea is grassy, vegetal, and astringent with some floral hints.

I commend Floating Leaves for introducing a green but more oxidized oolong in their gaoshan lineup, and at times, I appreciate the fruitiness of this tea. However, the grassiness and astringency are hard to get past. I’d blame these drawbacks on its age, but it was like this when I tried it several years ago. I think this is the first iteration of this tea and they’ve been offering it for three years now, so maybe they’ve ironed out some of the issues. I’d be interested to hear what newer harvests are like.

I’ve been holding on to this tea both because it is good and because it’s hard to pin down the flavours in a tasting note. I think it’s from 2022. Floating Leaves called this a cross between a Bai Hao and a Lishan oolong, and they’re absolutely right. 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 mango, apple, honey, raisins, florals, brown sugar, and malt. The first steep gives me lovely notes of mango, apple, and raisins, plus rose, cream, vanilla, spices, brown sugar, honey, and mild tannins. It’s like an impossibly decadent cake in tea form. I get nutmeg, rose, honey, and pine in the next steep, plus lush mango and more tannins. Steeps three and four add violets and other florals to the spice/rose/mango/honey base. By steep five, the tea takes on some muscatel and autumn leaf overtones reminiscent of a Bai Hao, while still having lots of mango, rose/orchid/violet, honey, and malt. As the steeps get longer, the tea becomes slightly more malty and tannic, though the spices, muscatel/raisins, honey, and brown sugar persist. It tastes more like a traditional black tea, though a very good one. I didn’t want to say goodbye to this tea, so I did some final, slightly disappointing steeps that had notes of malt, minerals, wood, honey, and the ghost of those beautiful florals.

Whenever I have this tea, I’m absolutely smitten with it and sad about my dwindling supply. It has lovely fruity, floral flavours, basically no bitterness, excellent longevity, and the characteristics of all the tea types I enjoy. It confirms my belief that Lishan black teas are truly special.

Harvested November, 2022 (not sure if the vendor changed source for the October 2023 harvest?).

3-stage filtered L.A. water just off the boil into my white/brown “turned” Jingdezhen gaiwan, then into a Pyrex measuring cup, then a small porcelain cup.

Dry leaf is sweet and distinctly tropical with papaya/guava notes with some hints of chestnut and hay.

Saffron to xanthous gradient. Some tropical notes remain in the liquor’s aroma, though joined with river stones, wheat, and floral scents. Potent and complex over multiple infusions.

More prominent baked flavor balances the fruit and floral notes on the palate, though there is never a hint of char in the roast. Linear, lengthy finish. Rounded, smooth and slightly nutty.

Very good red oolong, strongly aromatic but with delicate flavor.

Surprisingly sweet for a roasted oolong, muted fruit notes like plum or tamarind. Not to much in the way of the charcoal-y smokey notes you can sometimes get from roasted teas, which is welcome.

Update: Changed my gong fu brewing to 95 degrees Celsius and 4g instead of 3g per 100mL – brew was great! Would definitely reccomend.

Sipdown 34 – 2024
This is the 2023 harvest.
It’s really missing something. It’s flat and kind of tastes like sticks or erasers. Comparing this to the GABA I just had from Taiwan Tea Crafts makes this even more sad. That was much tastier (and slightly cheaper).

Sipdown 24 – 2024

This was very kindly given to me as a sample in a recent Floating Leaves order. Sadly I don’t care for it. Another poor tea victim of charcoal roasting, it just overwhelms the tea.

It has been a while since I drank this tea and I saved the wrapper so I wouldn’t forget to review it, because it deserved a genuine and thoughtful review. I am 99% sure this came from derk.

Mine has the word roast circled. I don’t know if that is true of all the ones reviewed here. It also says June 2022.

This tea was fantastic. I know it was fantastic because it immediately got added to my wishlist and that is something I am trying to avoid doing because I am trying to sipdown and not add to the cupboard. This oolong is worth it, and deserves attention and gong fu preparation if you have time to do it.

I bought this Bai Hao in my big Black Friday 2022 haul and have been drinking it for the past few months. I believe it’s from the 2022 harvest, though I’m posting my review here because this entry already has some notes. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot using 195F water for 30, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of autumn leaves, dried flowers, honey, muscatel, and lemon. The first steep has notes of buckwheat honey, muscatel, orange, and lemon over a background of wood, tannins, and autumn leaves. The tea is soft, but the aftertaste is tannic. I get candied citrus, florals, and lots of honey in the second steep. The next couple rounds continue the honey/muscatel/citrus theme, though the dryness is more evident. The fruit gets fainter in subsequent steeps, and wood, autumn leaves, minerals, and tannins become more pronounced.

This tea peaked early in the session and though it had all the citrus, honey, and muscatel notes typical of a good Bai Hao, the autumn leaves and tannins detracted from the flavour. I’d say this was due to it having been open a while, but I felt the same way when I first drank it. Their Crimson Lishan has many of the same flavours and is a much more dynamic tea in my opinion.

2021 Version from Leafhopper. I made a few mistakes on this one. I really wanted to try it from floating leaves with the promise of a fruity oolong. Making it, it’s fussy. The realy rinse produced a thin lilac flavor and aroma that didn’t produce much. Heat coaxed the sugars out a little bit. The second steep was supposed to be 30 seconds that turned into 3 minutes that was a little bitter and overbrewed, but had nice floral flavors with some fruity. The overall vibe was closer to cool whip with some vague fruitiness.

The next two were 20 and 30 sec respectively, and had more pronounced profiles that were mostly soft in flavor, but headier in the aroma department. Steep 5 had more fruit by far, drying finish, and then it lost lustre as it cooled into a grassy soup.

I’ve gotten two more cups that didn’t stand out as much. I’m really glad I got to try this tea, though I think it was a little too subtle for my preferences. Then again, I’m reverting back to old tastes for flavored teas lately and rely on oolong for too much “green dessert” experiences.

Sipdown. I saved enough for gong fu, but….it was just so goood western mug style that I did it again for the cold weather. I got so many complex flavors even this time by heavy leafing 6 grams into my strainer mug. First steep was dark cocoa, butter, wood, honey, and earth, second steep had an immensely sweet fruit like plums pulsating from the aroma, and than wood and slight peach in the taste. The rest of the resteeps were buttery, vaguely floral, earthy, with just the right amount of wood and tannin I like in both black teas and oolong.

I’m sad to see this one gone. I’ve got other dark oolongs that aren’t quite as good. This was a treat, Derk, especially since I haven’t had a darker oolong that I’ve enjoyed as deeply as this one in a while.

The second and third rebrews were not as rich as the first, but still comforting. The tea mostly went into woody dark oolong territory that actually resembled some of the darker Dahongpao’s I used to get. The notes were thinner, but it was honey, cedar, buttery texture, wood, and of course, tea. I don’t know if I want to finish this Gong Fu or Western for the sip down. I really enjoyed my cup western.

Thank you derk for this one sooooo much. I have been staving off my roastier oolongs for cooler weather. Michigan had a whiplash of 80 degrees to 50 degrees and 40 in the same week. SEMCO fixed a gas leak, and now, my house isn’t getting heat properly, so any tea that’s on the more savory side is well welcomed.

I plopped this into my strainer mug for 3 minutes, took it out, and it smelled like cookies, butter, and autumn leaf piles and cedar. Tasting it, I thought I was drinking a black tea. It’s got a caramel chocolate thing going on for my palette, more specifically bakers chocolate or older chocolate with fresh caramel. There are times it reminds me of those endangered species chocolate bars with dried fruit plopped in for some flavor.

Anyway, I’ll come back to it. I’m loving mugstyle. I wanted to try this one for a while, and I’m very happy to have a sample. I can already tell I’ll rebrew it a few times yet I’d only use it for special or needed occasions. The tea would be too heavy on it’s own for my palette, but it’s super soothing and tasty so far.

Leafhopper sent me this tea, so thank you! Kind of sipdown, but it wasn’t in my Steepster cupboard and also it’s single session tea.

My first impression after putting the leaves to gaiwan was popcorn. Yep, that. Also some roasty notes and flowers in the background.

Did a quite long rinse, and about 5 minutes of rest under the gaiwan lid. After that the aromas changed rapidly. It is indeed roasted oolong by aroma, some pine there, sweet and bready notes too.

First steep, 25 seconds long (I am following Leafhopper steeping method); was smooth and surprisingly floral with nuts, very thick body, long mouthfeel. Second sip was bready for me.

Second steep, was more bready, but florals were still strong enough to play the major part. Again very smooth and thick mouthfeel. Not that long this time, but also very nice, nevertheless. In the aftertaste there is some pine. Not able to recognize the flowers.

Third steep, 25 seconds and floral notes and roasty notes are fifty-fifty in this steep. The dark notes of roast and nuts are here, but very fast they are tackled by the florals making great round mouthfeel which seems very memorable for this tea. Sadly, flavours not that much.

Fourth steep, 30 seconds is about stronger roasted notes, florals translated a bit into more boring — grassy and vegetal notes. Also there are nutty flavors, closely followed with that popcorn impressions from dry leaf.

Another 30 seconds long steep is actually the same as previous one. Maybe a bit rounder.

Another 30 seconds long steep generally brings same flavour profile.

Afterwards I went to long, uncounted steeps. They were all pleasant.

Song pairing: various instrumental music and a few Finnish songs I don’t understand, but I think they are good;
Besides: writing a several postcards for postcrossing;
Mood: Much better now.

I received this sample as a gift from Derk, thank you!

I kept putting off having this due to my belief tea like this “has to be brewed gong fu,” and I just never have the time for gong fu, so I finally decided to be a heathen and brew it western. 3.25g to 350ml 205F water, steeped for 3 minutes.

The liquor is a lovely pale yellow with just a tinge of a green hue. The brewed tea smells beautiful, like a spring garden full of lilac bushes and fresh greens. There is also a hint of cream on the nose. The smell alone is reminding me how long it has been since I’ve dipped into a Taiwanese oolong, one of my favorite tea types.

The mouthfeel is very silky, with a strong floral note… orchids, lilacs, gardenias. Beneath that is a bright citrusy note mixed with fresh greens… sweet grass, wildflowers, garden peas. Ashmanra mentioned “baby powder” and I totally get that. Has a very relaxing energy, and the bright floral and vegetal flavor fits for a spring day (usually we are well into summer in this area by now, but our winter lasted into April, so now our Spring has been pushed all the way into June… Summer might finally start rearing its head by next week. I’m not looking forward to it!)

Thank you, Derk!

Holy shit, derk. Thank you. This is everything.

Bowled. This tea… this is where I resonate. My tea. I didn’t take a single note and just sat there transfixed (and muttering expletives).

How the hell is this a GABA? As if my mind wasn’t reeling enough. “I don’t like GABAs,” she says.

It doesn’t sound like this is going to be available any more… I don’t know what to do with that. I have enough for one more bowl. Maybe I’ll take better notes next time; maybe I’ll just be.

Ever since the packet from derk arrived, I have been waiting for the right time to have this. We no longer gong fu at night as we have become more sensitive to caffeine. Getting an afternoon when Ashman is home and we don’t have something to do or somewhere to go has been tricky, but today was the day. We got Sam’s weigh in out of the way early and settled in for a session on the living room floor.

Given a choice of chocolate, nuts, or other to accompany the tea, Ashman chose chocolate. Kuhflecken for me, Milka Strawberry for him.

Aroma in pouch – fresh cut grass on a farm, sweet, thick grass, not the usual neighborhood variety. Smells exactly the way the farm where my son lives smelled last Sunday when we visited and the scent of the grass (being mowed about an acre away) was thick and heavy on the air.

Aroma in warmed, steamy pot before steeping and before rinse – mid-summer blazing hot stone or pavement and the aroma of popcorn, plain with no butter, fresh off of a skillet.

The leaves didn’t open up immediately so I made a quick call to do a rinse instead of drinking the first water that hit the leaves.

First steep – 25 seconds and the leaves have really opened. Ashman likened it to the smell of the motor of the little slot cars we played with as kids. He looked at me squinty like he thought he had made a bad comparison until I told him I had thought of hot pavement, hot stone or slate in summer sun too hot to touch.

Second steep – always his favorite with oolongs, this time he said, “Big change!” Slot car and stone are gone, vegetal and floral notes have come. Lightly mineral.

Third steep – creamy, light baby powder, and soft grass but no sour grassy taste. A little floral, light vegetal. One of my favorite steeps because I loved the creaminess.

Remaining steeps were similar to steep three and we are both relaxed and sleepy.

We have had summer muggy weather in early spring – mid to high 80’s, but today is cool and cloudy, windows open, windchimes adamant in their song. Time to nap.

I will always remember my last session with this because I drank with intent, outside, standing in our backyard and facing the setting sun as Spring’s clockwork winds and trails of incense whipped around me. I asked for help and sent my love out into the world, tipping my bowl toward the sun as an offering and letting the liquid soak the ground at my bare feet. Cheesy, maybe, but it felt damn good as chills of acknowledgement from nature coursed through me.

A windfall occurred the next day, and my boyfriend and I are moving rural next month to an immaculate old house and property, no further than 15 minutes from Kiki. My younger brother is getting married next weekend in Ohio and I fly out on Thursday. This is a time of joy and I am present for it.

Special tea. Soothing, deep and meditative. I am grateful for the experience.

10 second rinse
30 second steep
45 second steep

brewed in oolong seasoned yixing teapot

the first steep was very mild, but tasty. it was difficult to discern notes that described the experience as a whole. words came to me, but i felt like they were more subtle undertones and not representative of the tea as a whole. i found the broth to be round and full and mellow. the first steep was very easy to drink and i was excited to get more depth in the next one.

the second steep was a rich golden. on the nose i could sense vibrant, ripe fruit notes. this one’s a bit hard to put into words, but i quite enjoyed it

for the second steep,

I made a big Floating Leaves order over the Black Friday weekend, so the least I can do is finish a few of the teas from my last order in 2021 before my haul arrives. This Dong Ding is from either spring 2021 or winter 2020. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The dry aroma is of walnuts, hazelnuts, roast, and flowers. The first steep has notes of nuts, cream, banana bread, honey, minerals, grass, and char. The next steep has more banana and nuts, plus honey and narcissus/orchid florals. The roast is on the lighter side, and the body of the tea is thick. The next couple steeps feature nuts, graham cracker, roast, pine, florals, and grass. Steeps five and six are a little more grassy and vegetal, though they still have a nice, round honey and roasty flavour. Subsequent steeps are a bit more nutty and roasty, with floral and grassy undertones. The final long steeps have notes of graham cracker, roast, nuts, butter, minerals, and wood.

I want to like Dong Dings more than I actually do, as I find most of them too roasty. This one was on the lighter side, however, and I thought it had more character than some others. The florals and banana bread were a nice break from the roast, and it never started tasting like overbrewed coffee, as some other roasted teas can. I’m glad I tried this tea, but don’t regret leaving it out of my 2022 order.

The tea last night western and to-night gong fu was extremely bready and buttery.

Western: 5 grams in Kyusu, 2 min, 3 min, and oversteeping, but still very good. Gong fu, still brewing as I write, 10, 25.

More sourdough in profile, butter, peony, honeysuckle, a little bit of qin xin pineapple, but immense florals and herbaceous qualities. I know I’ve used rosemary before, but it has the kind of aftertaste rosemary gets when it’s infused into bread or butter. The smell is incredible and vegetal. Makes me think of the butter dishes you get from Red Lobster.

The best session so far was the first because it had all the qualities I listed above and was significantly fruitier. Now, it’s more vegetal and bready, having a little bit of umami.

Third steep of maybe 25-ish seconds, and more heavy in florals. Kind of almond milkish, leaning into some lilac and white floral profiles. A little bit flower bitter, not overly so.

So far in later steepings gong fu, I don’t always notice a significant difference. The savory, floral, and green vegetal qualities shift around a bit, usually leaning into more vegetal with an occasional floral fruity surprise like in session one. Right now, it’s leaning more vegetal and floral.

I’m really not sure what to rate it because it’s almost a 90 for me. The tea is forgiving, but requires finesse and careful attention to get particular tastes. Even if I mess up though, I always get heavy mouthfeel. Floating Leaves Teas usually require more refinement and precision anyway.

Clearly, I like it. It’s #3 in ranking so far, though I’d say it’s a summer tea or a seafood matching tea for sure because the higher heat doesn’t detract from the tea at all.

Quick note-
I GOT THE PACKAGE FROM LEAFHOPPER!!!!!!!

It made my night after a tough day. I decided to sample this first, then Bok’s Lishan.

I will write more later, but this tea tasted very strongly like pineapple to me. It was more fruity in the earlier steeps than later ones gong fu shifting more floral. It does get sweeter, but sugarcane/almost gardenia sweet. The dry leaf is super complex in the smell, bordering on nutty and toasty, and the nuts was more prominent in the rinse and third steep.

Either way, this checks all my oolong lover boxes so far. I will go into depth when I’ve got more time.

I always buy Baozhong, then let it sit because I’m not sure how to steep it properly. Hopefully these swap boxes will allow me to offload some of this tea and encourage me to experiment with brewing parameters. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of lilac, honeysuckle, cookies, citrus, and pineapple. I must have done something right because the first steep is a pile of flowers, with lilac, honeysuckle, violet, and maybe peony. There’s butter, cookies, and grass as well. The second steep has hints of pineapple and citrus, but is still mainly floral, with stronger lilac and honeysuckle notes. There may be lilies and sweet peas in this flower pile, too. The next couple steeps are sweeter, though they also have more spinach and grass. The tea gradually becomes more vegetal, with lettuce, spinach, green peas, and herbs, though it’s still sweet and a bit floral. The last few steeps are like a floral green tea.

As someone who likes floral teas, I enjoyed this Baozhong greatly, though I wish the fruit had been more prominent and the last few steeps had been a bit less vegetal. This was a lovely spring tea in the middle of winter.

This is my second tea from this spring’s Floating Leaves purchase. It took a great amount of willpower not to cut open all my vacuum-sealed bags at once, but it’s worth it to have fresh tea for the next few months. Alishan typically isn’t a favourite of mine, though I’ve had some really good ones. The Alishan from FLT is generally good but not amazing. If I’d waited until the Taiwan site had posted a few more teas, I might have bought something else (I took a gamble on the free Shan Lin Xi, which I’ve reviewed here). I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain teapot using boiling water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of cookies, orchids, honeysuckle, gardenias, and grass. The session starts off with butter, cream corn, cookies, orchid, honeysuckle, spinach, and gardenia, and the Alishan is floral, woodsy, and quite sweet. The second steep adds sweet pea flowers, broccoli, and an herbaceous note I don’t often find in Alishans. The aftertaste is vegetal. Hints of citrus, orange blossom, and apricot appear in steep three, as the grassy and vegetal notes increase. The fruit persists in steeps four and five, though the florals once again predominate with the vegetal and woodsy notes. The heavier florals are still going strong in the next few steeps, particularly orchid, honeysuckle, and orange blossom. The tea remains floral until the end of the session, though the grassy and vegetal notes are more noticeable.

This Alishan has a nice range of florals and some interesting flavours that evolve throughout the session. I’d say it’s on par with other Alishans I’ve had from Floating Leaves. The aromas and flavours I get from this tea also complement the summery smells of flowers and cut grass coming through my window, making it a beautiful accompaniment to the day.

I was thrilled when Floating Leaves moved their store to Taiwan, as it meant I could afford to have their teas shipped to Canada. I took advantage of their opening sale to get a free 50 g bag of this tea, then bought another 60 g bag because I anticipated the tea would be amazing based on previous SLX I’d had from this company. After some unpleasantness with DHL over import fees, which the vendor generously helped to clear up, I tore into this tea and was slightly disappointed by how vegetal it was.

I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot using boiling water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of coconut, pineapple, honeydew melon, orchids, and bok choy. The first steep has notes of orchid, butter, cookie, coconut, honeydew, and lettuce. I get some slight minerality, though that could be due to the vendor description, and the tea is already somewhat vegetal, especially on the swallow. The next steep highlights coconut, pineapple, passion fruit, and honeydew, with orchids, honeysuckle, and lilacs in the background. The bottom of the cup smells like coconut fruit punch. The honeysuckle and other florals become more prominent in the third steep, as does the passion fruit, pineapple, and especially the coconut. However, this is mainly in the aroma, and the taste is becoming quite spinachy underneath all the fruity florals. Coconut and spinach are the dominant notes in the next steep, backed up by pineapple, honeysuckle, spinach, bok choy, and grass.

The coconut continues into the fifth steep, though the tea is losing some of its complexity. I still get lots of florals plus the vegetal/grassy note. In the next steep, I notice a bit of the sappy character I associate with Shan Lin Xi. By steep seven, the tea is spinach mixed with faint florals, and it becomes even more vegetal by the end of the session.

This is a very enjoyable Shan Lin Xi that still doesn’t quite measure up to the company’s previous offerings, which I believe I rated in the nineties. I love the abundance of coconut and other tropical flavours, but wish that more of them translated from the aroma to the taste and that the tea was a little less vegetal. I also wish it had more longevity, though this is typical for high mountain oolongs. Nonetheless, I’ve almost finished my first 50 g bag and won’t have trouble finishing the rest.