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sweet, buttery, mellow, yellow, delicate, dreamy, creamy, orchid pops up now and again….more so in the aroma than in the flavor. at times more discernible than others. depends on the cup.

butter. buttermilk. conducive to salivation. juicy.

Sweet cinnamon oatmeal raisin cookie dunked in milk.
Creamy butterscotch pudding.
Always amazing.

i know it must seem as though i rate every tea i like with a 100, but really, this is so deserving! milky, buttery and creamy. probably more buttery than anything else. very forgiving of temperature, though i don’t go out of my way to scald the leaves ;)

i’ve had this for 2 weeks maybe? nearly halfway through the tin, but that’s because i like to double up on pouches/sachets/bags. that’s just me.

buttery mouthfeel, buttery flavor….i can’t believe it’s not butter!….maybe it’s ghee! very delicious.

i can’t tell if this is natural or flavored and i don’t care. assuming this is all-natural, the milk oolong is a creature to be revered!!

rich but delicate….i smell the orchid for sure! but this isn’t an in-your-face orchid (i’ve experienced that with some much greener Spring harvest oolongs that taste, quite frankly, of lilac!) this milk oolong has a very delicate orchid note, a delicate but discernable non-astringent tartness, and an abundance of cream. sometimes, i even pick up on the pineapple (or vague approximation thereof), which is mentioned in the description on the tin.

btw- i should note this review is for the tea pouches, not the loose leaf. i had seen the loose leaf in stores a few months ago!! but have had so many subpar experiences with Republic of tea that i was hesitant to purchase something from them to which i’d attached extremely high expectations. oh, how i’m hitting myself over the head now. it’s virtually nowhere to be found, so while i was hesitant to get the pouches, fearing they’d be a disappointment, they were anything but! yielding not 1 but 2 delightful cups! (you can even get 3, if you do short steeps..) the liquor is an awesomely bright yellow. (quite pigmented in contrast to what i’ve come to expect of most oolongs i’ve tried, which tend to be very light.)

has this tea been genetically engineered?

i’m so enthusiastic about this tea (and the whole milk oolong genre in general) since that is the reason i signed up for Steepster! i was perusing the site and i couldn’t ignore the milk oolong by Mandala which kept popping up at me, and it just looked so scrumptious! the dark green buttery leaves practically overflowing from a white porcelain gaiwan. my mouth was watering. since i wanted to add it to my wishlist, i had to sign up! (not that i minded in the least!) and it is the very first tea i added to my wishlist. a very fond recollection. happy to finally to meet the leaf face-to-face ;)

now of course, i’m off to purchase some more of this in loose leaf form from RoT’s website (just for comparison and because i’ll inevitably run out), and also many others from other companies. first stop, Mandala!

ETA— there is a peach note i get in the after sip, that lingers on the back of the soft palate. it’s happened many times now, so maybe it’s safe to assume i’m not imagining things..

yum yum, this was just delicious. honey is the perfect accompaniment. honey is all i can think of.

as always, this has a slightly bitter ‘roasted chestnut’ note, the kind which references those roasted chestnut carts in new york city in wintertime (certainly not that intense tho).. in fact, that was the first thing that came to mind when i first sniffed the bag while i was fixated on finding the chocolate ;)

chocolate is here, for sure! sometimes it strikes me more, sometimes the ‘i can see how it would be hoppy’ dark breadiness dominates, but all things considered this is quite a good mixture of both. adding honey brings out the honey note, but also sweetens up the chocolate (as i’ve said many times before) and it almost seems to turn into sweet milk chocolate!

the tea liquor is always strikingly beautiful. like a crystal clear burnt sienna with a golden orange glow, lit from within. always conjures up the feel of autumn for me.

walnut sweet sugar, i think a squirrel fell into my cup (oh wait, those are acorns…)

so delicate, perhaps a bit too mild & i just wish there were something to hold onto- anything—-the buttery texture or sticky rice pudding flavor of Coconut Pouchong, the buttery mouthfeel and green floral tang of Maple Cheesecake Ti Kwan Yin, or even the ‘honey bunches of oats’ in Maple Pecan Oolong.

but this does smell outrageous & and is certainly a pleasant cup. nothing i’d ever refuse! maybe they could pair the ‘Sugar Caramel’ flavoring with a more roasted oolong, like say, a Laoshan or Formosa! even a TGY that has somewhat of a pucker to it. so that the sweet seemingly banana flavor can cling to something well, tangible.

then again i’m no tea connoisseur or mixologist. perhaps the wonderful taste i attribute to the flavoring could be coming from the oolong itself! i just wish i knew what kind they used.

keep in mind this note comes after the 2nd steep of this tea- maybe something more will reveal itself in the 3rd infusion?

i fear, i fear, the end is near…… well not really, i still have a good ounce or two left but i love it so much that my supply is dwindling down!! i’m very very sad about this….and especially flummoxed that LB (and LB chocolate genmaicha!!) have all but disappeared off the site (out of stock, with no notice whatsoever) in what appears to have been a swift, and most unceremonious clearing of inventory. i shall find the culprit/s! oh who am i kidding, it behooves one to overstock on something of this caliber. if i had the money, i’d buy the entire village!

as for the burning question “would you recommend this tea?” my response is a resounding “No! Never!!!” ;)

after today’s cup, i may just have to place an order for this. this is a light green oolong, but given my initial impression of how delicate the flavors were initially, this had a really developed flavor palette by comparison with previous tastings.

preparation-wise, i treated this like a green tea & took the 180 F temp seriously. but i let steep for 1 minute more than the recommended 3 minutes because the leaves hadn’t quite opened up yet and the water didn’t quite look like tea…

at about 4 min, to 4 min 10s, the tea liquor was finally a lovely crystalline shade of pastel yellow. the taste was really impressive….steamed white rice infused with the lovely toasted coconut which was promised in the dry leaf. i was thrilled—-the coconut really came through in this, albeit delicately. the aroma in the dry leaf smelled so much like actual toasted coconut flakes, the kind you’d sprinkle on top of vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day. as steeped tea, this reminded me of thai sticky rice with coconut instead of mango. well, sort of. the rice flavor in this oolong was not so much a heavy, starchy rice as it was rice paper….but steamed white rice it was, at least to me. i actually recall having gotten a ‘rice’ note in other oolongs i’ve tried, which i absolutely loved.

so, all in all: steamed white rice with the fragrance and flavor of toasted coconut. there may or may not have been a light florality underneath (maybe something of a gardenia which was trying to peek its head out) but this certainly tasted (and felt) like an oolong: which is sometimes hard to describe! this didn’t have the tang i found to be present in Golden Moon’s Sugar Caramel Oolong, but that’s probably because this is a different varietal. regardless, it’s welcome in my cupboard any day!