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Sweet and somewhat light, reminds me of sweet corn with a silky texture, neither heavy nor thin. Very pleasant after dinner rushing to get out the door for a bachelorette shindig at Mollie Fontaine Lounge. Green tea is so goooood.

This oolong is right up my alley and pretty unlike any other I’ve had so far. You could easily mistake it for a black tea; the leaves are pitch black coils and it brews up very dark (darker than many blacks!) with an aroma so roasty it reminds one of coffee. It has this impressive quality of reminding one of something burning, particularly during steeping, but then not having the bitterness associated with that (in comparison, I’d say Butiki Gui Fei Oolong has both and is then balanced by sweetness; here there simply isn’t that harsh flavor at all). The flavor is fantastic and unique, with the toasted cereal quality of genmaicha but the thickness and woodiness of some of my favorite types of black tea. Behind that immediately satisfying wall of toasty cereal flavor there’s a lot of forest qualities, a sort of mossy bark aroma (I’d say there’s almost a fresh mushroom quality to it too, which might sound bad but is actually tantalizing). All in all, because of the toasted cereal and forest elements it reminds me of nutty wild rice without actually tasting just like it, if that makes sense. And somehow with all of this going on the body maintains an oh-so-smooth feel that’s wonderful. I love it! Subsequent steeps bring out a chocolate aspect, as if the tea wasn’t already great.

You get to thinking you’re learning the ropes with tea and start to feel a little burned out, or you know, like there’s nothing new under the sun that will surprise you quite like everything did in the beginning. At least I can start to feel that way, a little blah. Then I encounter a tea like this and am woken up again. I love that.

Would definitely order this again; it’s absolutely one of the best oolongs I’ve tried. I was planning on sipping down some dragon wells today but now I just want to drink this all night.

This is the first milk oolong I’ve had that actually does have a milk flavor I can discern—I tried a few from a couple different companies early on in my Steepsterin’ and was very weirded out by how I tasted zero resemblance to anything milky and a lot of strange stuff like seaweed, marsh, and sulphur instead. So it’s reassuring to know there’s at least one I can say DOES seem kinda milky to me finally (needless to say I haven’t been chomping at the bit to try more after those early encounters). That said, this isn’t what “milky flavored tea” initially conjures in my mind, not the sweet creaminess of, say, earl grey creams or coconut oolongs, not nearly that dessert treat-y. It’s more like low-fat, clean-tasting, relatively unsweet milk, with a whisper of bitter vegetal or perhaps mineral notes floating around the edges, especially with the first steep.

As it cools, the milk flavor grows stronger and more uncanny—now I’m really impressed. The more I drink, the more it grows on me. I particularly appreciate the way no matter how milky it gets in both texture and flavor (and it does get fuller, creamier after the first steep), it always retains the flavor of tea too. Really great balance.

I confess I’d probably reach for those sweet coconut oolongs far more regularly, but I can finally see milk oolong’s charms, so yay for that.

Still wondering if my first foray into milk oolongs months and months ago was just an anomaly or maybe my palate’s grown some. I’ve been afraid to try those first few again to find out!

I had this a while back late one night and forgot to log it, oops. It’s pretty unusual compared to the oolongs I’ve tried so far—it has a burnt carbon/roasty-to-the-extreme element that I doubt is to everyone’s taste but I find intriguing, and easier to handle given there’s also a fruity fresh tart-sweetness. Some woodiness too. It’s not one I could drink absentmindedly, but its unique, almost challenging flavors would be great on a fall evening when I want something interesting to capture my attention.

Smells like grape soda! My husband loves that stuff. I love Lupicia’s Momo Oolong but am only so-so about this one (I wasn’t wildly surprised; grape’s never been my first choice for flavoring things but I tried this on a whim because I like a lot of Lupicia’s fruitier stuff and this one has high regard here). As a plus, I was cooking pork chops with blackberry sauce tonight and realized late in the day I didn’t have the fruit juice it called for. It already includes “brewed black tea” so I used this along with some Earl Grey Grand Classic as a substitute. Worked out great; dinner was tasty. So there’s that.

placeholder logging!

Thanks to ATR for the generously sized free sample!

Smells great (unsurprising given its predecessor!) but alas, has apple and that hot pink hue beetroot-nut-and-apple blends often have that tells me what I’m in for is likely not going to be my thing. (There’s a Joy’s Teaspoon blend that psyched me out by smelling divine and then being tart, with this exact same color; I believe David’s has one too…Forever Nuts IIRC. It’s funny how certain tea blend components are always found together.) If you don’t mind apple tartness in tea (I almost always do), this is a nicely done version of that aforementioned blend type. It’s not much like Brioche except a bit in the smell (it’s got a nuttier aroma though) so I wouldn’t recommend ordering it expecting anything like that; if on the other hand you’ve had those David’s Forever Nuts type teas before and like them, it could be a winner. Since apple is really not my thing, and this general blend type which I’ve tried 3 or so times from different companies never works for me (usually sent as free samples; I know not to pick it myself usually), I’ll pass. But again, as these things go it’s a well done version.

Delightful, plenty of flavor with little fuss (smooth without being wimpy, has enough lovely taste without calling a lot of distracting attention to itself with loud notes or complicated flavor interplay), ideal for reading on the couch after dinner. It’s so nuts how much I love green tea now when I’m in the right mood for it.

Once again I try a coconut oolong and love the heck out of it—apparently as flavored oolongs go that’s my thing! This is sort of the perfect middle ground between the very creamy American Tea Room one I recently tried and the fresher, more intense, coconut water-ish Golden Moon one. Makese sense—I’ve noticed Zen Tea seems to excel at balanced flavor (their Earl Grey Cream is a good example). I’d happily drink this again; it’s delicious, both indulgently smooth and fresh, refreshingly perky. But the truth is I’d want all 3, ‘cause sometimes you want a mouthful of coconutty cream and sometimes you don’t. Yum!

Drank this late last night waiting for and finally watching the series finale of Breaking Bad (which, ugh don’t get me started). I wanted something dessert-y comforting but also peppy to keep me going.

This was ok. Not amazing not terrible. I think when I want chocolate and mint together, I want it creamy and rich, dessert-like a la grasshopper ice cream, and in that vein for me Persimmon Tree Mint Chocolate Chop Rooibos is more my speed (I had a similar feeling when I tried Zen Tea, which tastes similar to this one…leans more toward refreshing mint, lighter on the creamy chocolate sweetness).