Milk Oolong

Wait a minute….

I haven’t reviewed this tea?

My favoritest comfort tea. My cuddle up in bed tea. My it’s been a dreadful day tea. My it’s been a wonderful day tea. My I need some tea tea.

This over site is glaring and I almost feel embarrassed.

But what can I say about this tea that hasn’t been said. It’s amazingly creamy without tasting artificially flavored. The creaminess lasts many infusions before gently transitioning into light fruityness(stone fruits) with a hint of floral.

This is the first time I was able to use my Zojirushi 4l (Thanks Garret for the steal!) with decent filtered water. I had a very disappointing cup of this tea while I was waiting for my filter to come in the mail. I knew it wouldn’t taste as good but I just couldn’t make myself wait. I wanted instant comfort! Well somethings need time and I need to learn some patients.

I am in heaven now. Simply heaven. A badly needed cup of comfort in a crazy world.

Wow, I can see why this tea gets great reviews! It’s like I added coconut milk to some nice oolong. And it’s an oolong that isn’t too floral or vegetal for me. The creamy coconut smell and taste is mmmm. I’m happy to have finally tried Mandala Tea, definitely worth it.

This tea is from TeaTiff’s ridiculously generous swap package! I’ve been curious about milk oolong teas for a while, and she was nice enough to send me samples of two very highly rated ones. I thought I’d try one while I still had at least some memory of the Simple Loose Leaf variety I tried recently, so I could compare. They look fairly similar – although all green oolongs have looked similar to me so far, with only minor color variation. This tea smells very rich, like buttered popcorn, coconut milk, and sweetened condensed milk mixed together. I looked at tasting notes until I found Tea Sipper’s note with Mandala’s recommendations for western style brewing. Jackpot! :) Brewed for two minutes. The sample was a bit more than a teaspoon, but I used the whole thing.

The aroma has similar butter & cream notes, but mixed with a fairly strong floral scent and a light fruitiness. I find the taste somewhat similar to the other milk oolong I’ve tried. There is a light vegetal taste in the background, with definite cream and butter notes and a lovely peach aftertaste. The whole flavor is extremely light. It was not sweet like I expected it to be, but I started to get buttered popcorn flavor as it cooled.

Next, the resteep. I did 2.5 minutes this time. The aroma this time was butter and cream with a stronger fruit scent. The flavor was even lighter and it was all cream and butter with some fruitiness. That nice peachy aftertaste is still there.

Overall, I think I’m not a fan of green oolongs, their flavor tends to be too light for me. But I recently got a small teapot (free gift with my first Simple Loose Leaf box) so I may try to do a pseudo-gong fu session with my other milk oolong.

I am trying out this tea with a longer steep time and I think I like it better than the suggested short steeping times. I’ve also realized that every time I’ve had this tea that the first steep is the best and that it slowly declines from there. In my experience, this happens for me most often with flavored oolongs.

I do enjoy the sugary, milky first cup and actually think it’s worth buying just for that. I think that this milk oolong is special because it’s soft, milky, sweet and the slightest bit leafy. I hope to bring out more of this flavor in second and third infusions to make this one a bit more affordable!

Creamy, buttery sweet, mouthwatering popcorn. I find it funny that I’m trying to describe tea here.

Sipdown (151/157)!

Thank you Sil for the sample! Of course I have heard very good things about this one (literally I’ve heard it called “The best milk oolong ever”) so I was a little excited to see it in my package of it from you despite personally not believing myself to be a milk oolong fan. I’ve tried a few so far, and none of them have done it for me.

But I’ll try nearly anything once (Nearly, Sil! Nearly!). So here we are…

And you know what, I’ve give this one credit where credit is due. It is the best milk oolong I’ve ever had. It was smooth and creamy with sorta coconut or condensed milk notes to it and I did enjoy it to the last drop. But that said; it’s just not something I want or need around and I’ll be fine if I never have it again. I just don’t think Milk Oolong does it for me!

And honestly, that’s probably good. Milk Oolong certainly isn’t cheap so I’m totally fine with not spending money on it. More than fine, really. But I will recommend this to Gwyn at DT because I know she’s a BIG Milk Oolong fan. I’m sure she’d enjoy this one. Actually, now that I think about it I MAY have included a cup worth in the stuff I parceled out for her boyfriend…

I got this sample from the wonderful TeaTiff. I had planned on having it yesterday, but I knew it would be a full day tea, and after really only being in the office a few hours, I knew it just wasn’t to be.

I’m glad I waited. This truly has been an all day tea experience.

I’m doing a pseudo gongfu cha experience. I’m using my 5oz finum hot glass system, but I used the entire sample, and I’m doing multiple short steeps. I started out with a 5s rinse, and then 15s steep…my last steep was 6m.

The early steeps were really creamy and sweet, sort of a light caramel flavor. Delicious. The aroma was amazing. (I wish I wrote down notes on what it was like. I just know it was amazing.)

Middle steeps were creamy butter, a little vegetal. At some point, I decided I wanted a sugar cookie with my tea, that I just happened to have, and it went perfectly.

Then buttery popcorn, you know the kind where it’s dripping butter and it coats the bottom of the bowl. That is all I could think of.

Now as I’m finishing this up, it’s back to that vegetal flavors, not strong but nice. It still has that outstanding feeling in my mouth.

I may try for a couple more steeps of this one before I leave the office for the day. It has been perfect. I’m really glad I took the entire day to enjoy this, as it has been a tea meant to be enjoyed through all of these different stages.

On the plus side, I’m using yesterday’s accident as an excuse to get new graphics for my MINI. I’m very excited with that. I’ve been thinking about changing things up, but I could never decide on anything I wanted to do, and why change what’s not broken, right? But now they have to replace of the the panels with vinyl, so it’s forcing me to think about it. I have to make up my mind my tomorrow, but I think I’ve come up with a way to keep my number but totally change things up, and I found some new stripes I think I like for the bonnet and boot. It’s all good.

(p.s. I’m going to hold off on a numerical rating on this until I try the other two milk oolongs I got from TeaTiff.)

Editing to add that I have done those next two steeps I talked about, 9 and 12m. It still tastes good. I wish I had time for a few more, but I’m tired of being at work. And now I’m also craving popcorn dripping with tons of real butter.

The long awaited Mandala Milk Oolong. I should have tried all of the milk oolongs on separate days and then compared them, but such is life. I will have to write about this tea on its own another day. Comparatively this comes in second to the Gong Fu Tea Milk Oolong. It is creamy it is buttery, but there is more of a vegetal, orchard flavor that takes away a bit from the creamy sweetness of the tea relative to the other. I like it, and I think I will have to spend more time with it, but not my top pick.

This is my first milk oolong. Thanks Stephanie!

I first tried this gong fu style. ½ tsp for 4 oz at 195f. The dry leaf smells creamy and sweet. After a quick rinse and a 20 second steep, the first cup smells the same as the dry leaf. The tightly rolled leaf has started to unfurl. There’s a creamy fruitiness in the smell of the brewed leaf. I can’t place it; pit fruit maybe? The creaminess of the tea hits right up front in the sip, followed by a green flavor…parsley or spinach maybe?… and a creamy finish.

Second steep, 25 seconds. Yup, creamed spinach. Well, cream and spinach. I’ve never had actual creamed spinach, so I can only guess what that tastes like.

Third steep, 45 seconds. This steep is more green, less cream. Parsley? Other than the creaminess, this tastes more like a green than an oolong.

Fourth steep, 1 min. Fifth steep, 1 min 30 seconds. Sixth steep, 2 mins. All taste basically the same – creamy and vegetal.

Seventh steep, 2 mins 30 seconds. A bit of toffee comes out.

Eighth steep, 4 mins 30 seconds. Starting to lose flavor. A touch of creaminess, a hint of toffee, and a lingering green flavor that I’m calling spinach right now. The leaves are gorgeous. Big, brownish-green, with slightly jagged edges.

I also tried this Western style: 1 tsp/8oz, 197f, 5 mins 30 seconds. The taste was about the same as I got from the gong fu brewing. Creamy, slightly sweet, vegetal. I don’t know that I have a preference between the two brewing methods for this tea, except that Western style takes less effort/overall time.

I haven’t decided how I feel about this tea. The creaminess was weird at first but grew on me after a while. I think I need to try a few more milk oolongs before I can meaningfully rate this one.

sipdown

I am normally not a fan of dark oolongs. This tea however, surpasses any oolong tea i have had before. Greener oolongs are very good!

Smelling the dry leaf, I notice it is very coconutty, and also some mango is in there too. Once I start steeping the tea, I keep drinking it until all the flavor is gone! I would definitely recommend for everyone to at least try it once.