Adventageddon Day 2
Gongfu!
Though yesterday’s Inoki selection did surprise me in the end, I was still much more excited to see this tea come out of the box today. I was up very early this morning, so I actually managed to fit in two gongfu sessions (this and Tea Thoughts) before leaving for the office, so the day was off to a pretty solid start!
First couple infusions of this were highly buttery and soft, to the point where I’m not entirely unconvinced that this wasn’t potentially flavoured? If it was flavoured I do think it was a pretty restrained amount of flavouring, but definitely more buttery than you would typically see “naturally occur” with a milk oolong/jin xuan. Though I think there’s a lot of flavoured milk oolong passed off as “just tea” to unsuspecting tea shop owners AND customers alike, in general I’m not anti-flavoured milk oolongs. There is something to be said about the consistency that flavouring can bring, especially with tea styles like this that are very weather dependent – something which can be pretty hard to predict and recreate. But if I’d thought there was a possibility there was flavouring in this tea I probably would have picked a different brewing vessel…
Another reason I think it may have been flavoured (or "scented) is that by the third steep all of that buttery flavour was basically gone, and not in a gradual declining of flavours sort of way but more in a ‘you steeped it all out’ sort of vibe. However, I actually LOVED the flavours that remained afterwards. It was very smooth, lush and floral with quite distinctive notes of violets and lilacs that were round feeling on the palate and lingered lightly after the swallow leaving that sort of flower nectar sweetness on the bed of the tongue.
So, in the end, I really enjoyed this tea even if I have some light questions about the authenticity of it or not. To be perfectly clear, I’m NOT accusing Inoki of anything. I don’t know if they know it’s flavoured or not, and there are so many potential circumstances that could be at play here. They never outright said it wasn’t flavoured or scented in the info that comes with the advent, and I’ve also seen soooo many cases where the tea shops either didn’t know their milk oolong was flavoured out of ignorance or were just flat out lied to by the people who wholesaled it to them that they trusted. It’s shockingly quite common.
Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DDF43CoyYo2/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_qS83R9t5c&ab_channel=MICHELLE
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I just checked their website and wow, that advent calendar isn’t cheap! I’m not sure you’d expect flavoured jin xuan at that price, especially as they say all their tea is natural. Their tea baths look nice, though again, you’re paying for the “curated” experience.
I just checked their website and wow, that advent calendar isn’t cheap! I’m not sure you’d expect flavoured jin xuan at that price, especially as they say all their tea is natural. Their tea baths look nice, though again, you’re paying for the “curated” experience.