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Had this last night hunkered down pre-ice storm (my husband had just learned today would be a snow day, yay!).

This was a totally unexpected gift from Dexter3657, so generous! Thank you. (: It’d been on my mind to try in that ideal-for-swapping way where I was curious but not obsessed so it’s likely I never would’ve actually gotten around to ordering it myself even though I want to. Perfect!

It fit nicely with the pattern I had going earlier with the Da Yu Ling and Tsui Yu Jade oolongs in that it’s a lightly oxidized, more floral and fresh type of oolong (and unlike me in general who usually prefers darker roastier flavors, I seem to usually prefer lighter type oolongs over the more oxidized Wuyi ones). Maybe this is the wrong time of year for such notes, but I find weirdly I like things topsy turvy, at least in winter, as a respite from the coldness and darkness. A little vacation to spring in a cup.

I got to try this out in my new tasting set from Taiwan Tea Crafts (that sale was pretty great!) which was fun and really shows off the aroma and color of the finished tea. I find it strange that typically I hate floral flavored black teas, or perfume-y flowering teas, but when a tea just naturally has floral elements I tend not to mind, even love it. This is true even for jasmine notes, which I’ve always loathed when added/scented but enjoyed here. Hm. It probably helps that this is such a bright tea, which prevents floral aromas from seeming musty. Further steeps lead to a sort of sparkling fruity note, like a dry but fruity wine kind of. The smell has that mysterious, unnervingly sexy flower-musk thing going on that the spring tieguanyin from Verdant possessed. Very enjoyable.

The very first steep had all the floral aroma and character I describe and mostly expected from a light oolong, but the initial sip was a little intense, almost bitter. I’m seeing now others steeped this at a lower temperature, and given the light end of the spectrum for this oolong I think next time (Dexter3657 kindly gave me enough for multiple next times!!) I will lower the temp.

This was quite nice in the gaiwan too, yay. Oolong-a-thon! It did remind me of the vegetal notes in sencha for sure, as Stephanie mentioned in her log. Upon resteep I get quite a lot of spinach. (I’ve a feeling I’d be noting floral elements like everyone else more if I hadn’t already had such an intensely flowery oolong.) The body is surprisingly full and buttery and the flavors linger a long time on the palate.

I find one of the bonuses of using a gaiwan is that the design makes examining the unfurled leaf seem quite inviting; I nearly always end up picking a few up and looking them over, feeling them straighten between my thumbs. With this one, the result is pretty breathtaking; everything is straight up the platonic idealized “two leaves a bud”, iconic, full, unbroken, beautiful. No ripped edges from machines or whatnot, shockingly unmarred. Amazing.

They did a quick fix so I can add my review to the proper place here, yay! Steepster is pretty great sometimes. (:

So, sorry for the redundancy. This tea is wonderful. I have this weird kitchen set-up where when the dishwasher’s on I can’t use my electric kettle (shorts the electricity) nor use the kitchen sink as a water source (our dishwasher hooks up to the faucet…I knew that’d be a huge pain and begged my husband to bother connecting it directly to the water tank but he wouldn’t, so here we are :b). This gets really annoying this time of year when by the time I have a guaranteed free moment for some real tea time right after dinner it’s hard because the dishwasher needs to be on doing the day’s load. I think I’ve figured out a decent solution for now though—I prewarm my king thermos and then fill it with the right temp water from my electric kettle, seal it nice and tight, get out the gaiwan and a tea meant for resteeping (so oolong or green usually), and then turn on the washer. As it does its thing I have a little private gongfu session. Very nice!

Anyway, got this as part of Eco Cha’s recent promotion. The site directions for gongfu brewing are kind of confusingly unusual, so I didn’t follow them exactly but did what I’m used to doing (quick rinse, more leaf and less water, short steeping times, a bit cooler than boiling). Figured if it wasn’t optimal and I should follow their directions I have enough left to do so. But I was pleased with my setup—the first few cups yielded a marvelous true-fresh-flower fragrance, a little like jasmine but also like honeysuckle or summer flowers. Remarkable stuff, not unlike some of Verdant’s best spring offerings (Hand-Picked Early Spring Tieguanyin, White Jasmine). The flavor is sweet and clean and slightly herbal, smelling a bit like clean hay as the flower scent tapers off. Eco Cha mentions this is great cold steeped, and I can definitely see that—it has a lot of the qualities the tastiest cold steeped green teas I had this summer (like Bilochun Green) have. It edges towards grassy as it cools, but the sweetness and true-flower aroma make that pleasant. In the middle of winter this is a fantastic way to transport yourself to a warm sunny field out in the country on a late spring or early summer day. This is a spectacular tea that merits the hype of the company’s copy. The price is quite reasonable considering the quality too—under $4 an ounce or (if I’m calculating right) about $1 a session.

This isn’t random actually, it’s Eco Cha’s Tsui Yu Jade Oolong. But for some reason a couple companies’ entries—Eco Cha, Vintage Tea Works—just won’t let me add to cupboard or write tasting notes; any time I try it just redirects me to my dashboard.

And it’s a shame here, because this tea is wonderful. I have this weird kitchen set-up where when the dishwasher’s on I can’t use my electric kettle (shorts the electricity) nor use the kitchen sink as a water source (our dishwasher hooks up to the faucet…I knew that’d be a huge pain and begged my husband to bother connecting it directly to the water tank but he wouldn’t, so here we are :b). This gets really annoying this time of year when by the time I have a guaranteed free moment for some real tea time right after dinner it’s hard because the dishwasher needs to be on doing the day’s load. I think I’ve figured out a decent solution for now though—I prewarm my king thermos and then fill it with the right temp water from my electric kettle, seal it nice and tight, get out the gaiwan and a tea meant for resteeping (so oolong or green usually), and then turn on the washer. As it does its thing I have a little private gongfu session. Very nice!

Anyway, got this as part of Eco Cha’s recent promotion. The site directions for gongfu brewing are kind of confusingly unusual, so I didn’t follow them exactly but did what I’m used to doing (quick rinse, more leaf and less water, short steeping times, a bit cooler than boiling). Figured if it wasn’t optimal and I should follow their directions I have enough left to do so. But I was pleased with my setup—the first few cups yielded a marvelous true-fresh-flower fragrance, a little like jasmine but also like honeysuckle or summer flowers. Remarkable stuff, not unlike some of Verdant’s best spring offerings (Hand-Picked Early Spring Tieguanyin, White Jasmine). The flavor is sweet and clean and slightly herbal, smelling a bit like clean hay as the flower scent tapers off. Eco Cha mentions this is great cold steeped, and I can definitely see that—it has a lot of the qualities the tastiest cold steeped green teas I had this summer (like Bilochun Green) have. It edges towards grassy as it cools, but the sweetness and true-flower aroma make that pleasant. In the middle of winter this is a fantastic way to transport yourself to a warm sunny field out in the country on a late spring or early summer day. This is a spectacular tea that merits the hype of the company’s copy. The price is quite reasonable considering the quality too—under $4 an ounce or (if I’m calculating right) about $1 a session.

Part of afternoon tea with the husband, had with wedges of chocolate pie. This wasn’t bad and I appreciate the cardamom, but the pear flavor is rather understated. I have a feeling I’d appreciate this more if I hadn’t just had the luxury of trying Fauchon Pear from Dexter3657 with its heady aroma and complex layers. Not bad though, probably better than Della Terra’s but not as tasty to me as Joy’s Teaspoon’s.

This was a sample Garret threw in with one of my orders. So nice!

Steeped this one in my gaiwan complete with rinse and more leaf and all that—I’ve decided for straight oolongs that’s my method of choice (have had some truly mind blowing experiences that way). It is toasty, like toasty cereal, plus creamy/buttery in that vaguely savory/salty way many oolongs seem to me. It’s a nice specimen, but I’ve noticed I just don’t seem super into the classic high altitude “shan” oolongs. They’re never bad, just kind of unremarkable to me—I think their particular flavor and texture qualities just happen not to interest me much. But again, this is a good specimen of the type if you like them. I agree too this shares qualities—the creaminess mainly, which builds along with a clean almost fresh milky taste upon multiple resteeps—with Mandala’s popular Milk Oolong. I enjoyed the third and fourth steepings best, when that “fresh clean creamy milk” flavor came out.

Another great surprise pick from Dexter3657! Thank you.

Man, this is why swapping is the best. I didn’t know anything about this tea or the company so this was quite a sit-up-and-take-notice surprise in every sense. It doesn’t taste like any other tea I’ve had. It has a smell sort of similar to Grandpa’s Anytime Tea, vaguely like Grape Nuts (that might sound weird but in the morning it’s good!), and then the taste is eyes-wide-open refreshing. There’s a malty smell, and a texture and lightnesss similar to darjeeling, brisk and astringent but so floaty it’s not overpowering, plus a fruitiness. Then there’s this…brightness, that refreshing quality I’m having a hard time mapping because I haven’t experienced it with the other qualities of a black tea before. I really like this, and it’s unlike anything I’ve had before! A solid hit. Thanks so much Dexter3657!

This is from the super exciting swap box Dexter3657 sent my way! Yay! Thank you for letting me try so many Fauchon teas—couldn’t come at a better time (just discovered them last month and am in love).

I’ve only tried a couple other pear teas (Joy’s Teaspoon and Della Terra, I think?), and this one’s interesting because there’s a transformation in the type of pear from scent to taste. The smell is very sweet, like candy pear or pear syrup, but as for taste, after the upfront mysteriously smoky black tea flavor the pear comes in very juicy and fresh, with that clean “raspiness” fresh pear has. As it cools it tastes A LOT like fresh pear juice, and there’s a subtle woody tannin element from the tea that works like gangbusters with the fresh pear flavor.

That same general wonderful interplay between delicate but not disappointly watery black tea flavor and haunting, sophisticated scent is present the way it’s been in all the Fauchon teas I’ve tried (I’m totally hooked on that quality! Beginning to feel like it could be any flavor/scent whatsoever and I’d dig it if it came from Fauchon because of how it’d do that with the black tea base). Beautiful, and I know I keep using this word but I don’t know how else to put it, distinctly sophisticated. I really don’t know of another company that layers scent with delicate tea flavor the way they do.

Thank you so much! It’s so nice to be a little lovey dovey and starry eyed in the evening.

This one’s adorable; if you like this kind of thing it’s very cute—little snowflake candies, silver balls, sliced nuts, fruit cubes (looks kind of like apricot to me, reminds me of my favorite cookie recipe ever which includes dried apricots reconstituted in warm brandy then chopped up and added to the batter with pistachios and oatmeal), and what looks like (but isn’t) little square caramels (maybe marzipan?). It has the same strong almond extract/marzipan scent as other Georgia Tea samples I’ve tried have had. It grew on me the more I drank it (made a 3 cup pot)—at first the almond aroma is pretty overwhelming, but as that recedes (or maybe my nose gets used to it) the flavor comes out and it does a good job for a rooibos-based blend at having just enough rooibos flavor to mesh well with the other notes. It’s just a gentle-bodied, warm, sweet, nutty, comforting cup.

Had a cup of this this morning before heading to belated Thanksgiving at the husband’s fam’s house. This Caravan is not playing around. It’s definitely smoky, more in line with the sort of lapsang souchongs we used to drink at Crumpets, the kind of thing that just pervades the entire table with straight up smoke scent. If you love that sort of hardcore, somewhat one note kind of Caravan blend this is a good specimen. Occasionally I still want some of that. But usually I now (having discovered more types) prefer more nuanced and subtle smoke blends. Again though, once in a while this sort of over-the-top straightforwardly musty-smoky kind hits a nostalgia pang of mine.