Heirloom Tea Company

Sipdown! (49)

This was from an old Sips by box and has just been lingering for a little bit. Maybe because I always feel a bit pressured to steep straight oolongs gongfu style. Well too bad, oolong, it’s Western style for you! XD

This makes for a very pleasant evening tea. I’ve enjoyed dong ding in the past because I found it a bit more vegetal and less floral than high mountain varieties. This tea has a nice silky smooth texture and very light leafy vegetal flavor. I do taste some of the peach and light floral notes that I find in Li Shan and Ali Shan, and a fair bit of creaminess.

Green oolong is never my favorite, as it tends to veer too floral. But that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying this cuppa! It’s just not something I would feel the need to keep in my cupboard.

Delicate floral scent, like a less-sweet jasmine. Slightly vegetal flavor with a taste in the back of the throat almost like marshmallows. Gentle astringency which brings out a slight grass flavor alongside the floral notes. In my opinion, if you’re really into floral teas and want to get into grassier teas, this would be a good transition tea for you.

This is another from Sips By, one I had been putting off. It’s a bad habit of mine — ignoring unflavored whites or oolongs. I know they can be more delicate when it comes to preparation, and that always makes me hesitate.

The leaves are a little glossy and knotted into nuggets. There are also long, thin stems mixed in. They smell sweet and nutty. The package instructions say to give it 90 seconds, so I did, and it came out to a light tan. The leaves had swelled but did not have time to unfurl.

The flavor is a little lighter than I would prefer, so I will probably go with more leaf and maybe 2 minutes instead. Still, it is a smooth and toasty oolong. Much closer to a black tea’s fermentation than a green’s. And it has that creamy note you get with some higher grade oolongs. I do love that. I’ll probably take this as my work tea tomorrow to finish up the sample and get a better taste of it.

Third tea to come in my Sips By April box. This one isn’t in the steepster database yet and I apologize for the lack of picture, I couldn’t figure out how to put one in.

This is apparently an unsmoked lapsang souchong tea, according to the little card I got. It’s an interesting black tea, the dry scent is very minerally and the wet scent and taste is minerally and malty. The tea itself brews up a very light colour and the taste is pretty light as well if you go by their steeping directions of 2 minutes in 195F water, which I did. It steeps at least twice as well, maybe 3 times but I haven’t tried a third steep yet.

A pretty good black tea but not one I’d go out of my way to purchase, I don’t think.

Oh my, this tea is amazing! So smooth and delicious – I love this oolong!