Virgin Forest - Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong

#adventageddon Day Three – 3/5

Gongfu!

Took a stroll through the ‘Virgin Forest’ this morning; AKA had a tea session with this bizarrely named Shan Lin Xi. I’ve literally never seen a Shan Li Xi named this way; I don’t know if it’s a name Tea Bento came up with on their own of if it’s the “Westernized” version of this tea type’s name (like Golden Lily and Jin Xuan) and I just have never come across it before…

I thought this was a really nice, but atypical, take on this style of oolong tea – the nose of the leaf post rinse was really sweet and citrus heavy w/ hints of “lilac from a distance” and some mild cinnamon and baked “sweet bread” aromas that, altogether, created a kind of vibe that was like those sweet bready buns you get around Easter that sometimes have candied citrus or raisins. It really translated into the taste too; very sweet and fruity with lots of candied orange and Meyer lemon notes, more fragrant lilac with spicy cinnamon/mild clove undertones, and that same sweet bread note. Deeply enjoyable, though!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5oU8lRAUT2/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP8D0d1AuPM

Teabento generously sent me over eight of their teas to review, and this is the first of them. I followed the steeping directions on the package, but since I don’t have a 200 ml vessel, I used a 120 ml teapot with about 4 grams of leaf. I steeped the tea for 50, 40, 60, 90, and 120 seconds. (I usually use more tea and do shorter steeps with high mountain oolongs.)

When first scooped into the teapot, the loosely rolled green nuggets smell sweet and savoury. The initial 50-second steep is buttery, floral and vegetal with no astringency. There’s also a lovely herbaceous/balsam note in the teapot that I wish had made it into the cup. More of this note emerges in the second steep, and while the bok choy-like vegetal quality is still present, the tea also becomes more floral (sweet pea flowers or something equally delicate, perhaps). I’m impressed that such long steeps produce no bitterness.

The next two steeps confirm that this is definitely one of the most vegetal Shan Lin Xi I’ve had, either because I used markedly different brewing parameters than usual or because this is its natural flavour. The balsam note also stays around, along with the sweetness. By the fifth steep, some of the complexity has disappeared, though the distinctive sweetness and vegetal notes remain.

Although I don’t think this is a typical tea for the terroir, it’s a very good one, and depending on the price, I’d gladly purchase it again. I’ll have to try the rest of the sample using my regular brewing parameters.