Thank you to Tea Side for the free samples.
I tried 1 tsp leaf (opened up into 5x its size at least) in 650 mL very hot water + a dash of soy milk. I would not reccommend drinking this with milk because it was weirdly floral and musty which didn’t go with the creaminess.
Steep 2, properly this time. Cooler hot water, a bit less water, no milk. This tastes a lot like a Thai honey black cultivar. I’m guessing this is an oolong that is heavily oxidized, similar to a black tea. But this oolong comes in pretty round balls instead of the typical long twig look of honey blacks.
There is some natural sweetness, it does need a bit of a longer steep to get all of the flavours out (or multiple steeps), some mineral/charcoal notes, some floral notes come out at the beginning but later now that I let my tea get cold it is gone. No bitterness but the charcoal minerals make it slightly astringent in the after taste.
This is a decent tea, and clearly very well prepared
Flavors: Astringent, Char, Floral, Honey, Mineral, Tannin