Christina / BooksandTea Send Message

Man, this tea is weird. It looks like your typical dark roasted oolong — long, spindly twists of black leaf — and it even kind of smells like it too, with a sweet, strong smell of buckwheat and burnt sugar.

The first taste was of something extremely alkaline on my tongue, like I splashed some sort of industrial chemical on it. On the back and sides of my tongue the taste became more floral, like honeysuckle or lilies, with an aftertaste like rose or osmanthus. The colour of the tea was amber like beer.

Over subsequent steeps I felt that the texture and taste on my tongue was like that of fabric: cotton, denim, linen, thickness covering my tongue. The floral honeysuckle/lily flavour was also there — there was none of the juicy, grassy sweetness that the smell of this tea promised.

Then it hit me. Industrial chemicals? Flowers? Fabric?

It tasted like the tea embodiment of a dryer sheet.

You know, those little wisps of perfumed, polymerized fabric you put into the dryer with freshly washed clothes to make them soft and non-static-cling-y.

What the fuck? I’m mystified, but also kind of horribly fascinated.

Full review at: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/08/white2tea-august-2015-subscription-box-clover-patch-oolong-and-2-da-hong-paos/