Silver Mountain Water

Silly silly me. I read and believed the description! If you get this, try not to read the label too much. I found it a fairly nice basic green-ish oolong. Similar to a Ti Kwan Yi style. A slightly creamy mouthfeel, and a basic nice green flavor. Not a bad oolong, but I didn’t find the raisins or warmed figs.

I’ll play with the parameters, maybe I can get it to change.

Backlog:

I received this tea in my Amoda Box back in October. It’s a nice Oolong. Sweet and creamy. Like the others who have previously reviewed this tea, I didn’t get any fig or raisin-y notes. I did taste a slight apple-y note to it though. Delicate vegetative notes. Soft notes of flower.

My first few infusions delivered that soft, creamy taste and texture that you typically would experience with a greener Oolong, with hints of a vegetal background. Notes of flower.

Later infusions is where I noticed the apple-y, fruit notes start to emerge, but, none of the dried fruit sweetness that you might expect from “warmed figs” and “raisins” as suggested in the description of this tea.

Not a bad Oolong though.

Silly me, I did the same thing as the only other person who logged this tea. I read the description and believed it…haha….hahahahaha! Figs? nope. Raisins? not even close. Honeysuckle? maybe, no, not really. This is a green oolong that I found similar to Ti Quan Yin. Floral and slightly buttery with large dark green leaves. It’s good, but don’t believe the description.

Another tasty sample from Octavia Tea – thanks again! This is one of those lovely oolongs from Taiwan. The description says this is also called “Jade Oolong” or “Four Seasons”. One heaping teaspoon of bright emerald unravels into a full infuser basket of leaves. The flavor was a tiny bit astringent so I don’t think I need to use a full teaspoon for a mug. But the flavor otherwise was sweet, fruity, floral, slightly creamy and buttery and overall a high quality Taiwanese oolong. This seems to combine 99% of the flavor notes that most green oolongs usually have: fruity, floral, sweet, creamy, buttery. It’s almost like an oolong of broad flavor categories rather than specific flavor details. Getting rid of that astringency by using less leaves would make it even better. I will admit this is a tough one to describe other than delicious. (But sometimes it’s okay to just note how good a tea is… or isn’t?)
Steep #1 // 1 heaping teaspoon for a full mug // 18 minutes after boiling // 1 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 12 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 2 min