Qilan Wuyi Oolong

From the November Classic Club box…

Creamy, floral, dark, vaguely fruity, full bodied, and kind of bitter is how I would describe this tea. Definitely drinkable but I strongly preferred the Dancong. This is not one of my favorite type of oolong, BUT it is nice to drink something different and since BrewTEAlly Sweet and I split the box I don’t have a whole lot to sip through….sadly the same with the Dancong though :P

I wanted to love this tea so bad!!! “Reminiscent of spices eggnog”!!! “Thick like honey” “flaky vanilla pastry” “rice milk horchata flavor”?!!! I want!!! I love love love horchata and flaky pastry and this time of year… EGG NOG!! I only got 2 steeps out of this today. I will save for tomorrow and take it a little further in search of all those notes!! I’m on a mission! The two steeps I did get around to I did get a juicy floral green, a little astringent, tart too. Oh please tea gods bring me that richness this tea is destined for!
I do have exciting news!!!!
I used my brand new DAVIDsTEA Steeper from the oh so generous MissB. I am in love! I love his little guy! It has changed my tea life!!! Thank you thank you thank you!

http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=11213536923

http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=11213423256

This tea was a gorgeous blue almost purple hue! I loved it! So I had to take a picture!

http://m.flickr.com/lightbox?id=11213543433

I was hoping the after math would be that beautiful hue as well but not the case:(

Until tomorrow my tea friend! I can’t wait!

I drank this over the afternoon, & although I enjoyed it, I don’t really have anything to share. It was tasty, building up to a sweet kind of creamy vanilla mouth, & some fruitiness. I don’t know what else to say, but luckily I have enough to drink it again, so hopefully next time I’ll have more to comment on.

This came as a sample in my recent Verdant order! Actually on the bag it says “Wuyi Qilan Oolong”, but when I searched the website I could only find reference to this name so I shall put my tasting note here.

I actually weighed out my tea for this one to 3.6 oz. in my 15 oz. mug. I did this first steep for 1 minute, and I’ll try to update with subsequent steeps.

This tea is quite rich. I’m finding it almost filling.

Second steep 2 minutes. Still plenty of flavour.

First Gongfu brewing in a few months (!). I have been busy, what can I say.
This is also a sip down of a sample from Verdant.
I wish that I chosen a different tea to drink now. It was somehow unsatisfying for the mood I was in – I should have picked something more roasted. I don’t much like Wuyi oolongs, and this teas floral notes in the first and second steepings, and its somewhat flat flavor made me not want to keep on steeping to a third.
No eggnog, no pastry, no vanilla, cacao, and although this tea is sweet, it has none of the depth of honey.
I think I have some more stashed somewhere, so I may give it a try again in the future. But this is not a tea that I’m going to run out and buy. If you like “green”, floral oolongs, try this tea (even though it looks and is roasted, it doesn’t taste like a roasted oolong).
Off to dinner with a friend.

I just wrote a tasting note for this tea, but something happened with my internet and I lost it. I really don’t want to write it again… so to summarize, I had two cups of this and didn’t find either of them all that eventful. The scent of the tea was rather nice: floral and sweet. I could mostly taste the flowers with a hint of astringency, but no fruit or vanilla. The second cup was more like perfume than the first, but the astringency balanced out the flowers so I didn’t get a headache (sometimes super floral teas are too much and make me feel sick). I wouldn’t turn down this tea, but there are so many oolongs that are much more delicious.

Pleasant, but nothing that stands out in particular. Floral (but not overwhelmingly so), juicy, and sweet-ish with a hint of tartness. I think I prefer the second steep overall.

Qilan Wuyi Oolong （奇兰武夷山乌龙茶）- Li Family, Wuyishan, Fujian, China
Spring 2020/春季 2020 (including the details on the bag here since I can’t find this tea on the Verdant website and from the tasting notes from 7 years ago, I’m not sure if I’m drinking the same thing as others are)

Got this as part of the 5 for $5 offer from Verdant Teas.

5g tea (whole packet), Brita filtered water, gaiwan 140 mL (not certain on full volume, but I use a standard gaiwan, and this sounds about right), water temp a bit off the boil
Dry leaves smell: chocolate, roasted oolong smell
7 s: first steep: smell of leaves: grassy, stones, green
Taste: very vegetal— Something like spinach, with some light note of bitterness. Unexpected. Good mouthfeel.
10s second steep: smell of leaves: something grassy and charred
Smell of tea: sweeter than previous
Taste: more bitter, still vegetal, slightly unpleasantly reminiscent of medicine
15s 3rd steep: same leave smell
Taste: still some bitterness, but more lingering sweetness, lingering taste somewhat reminiscent of mint or cilantro
30s: same smell, tasting a slight note of raw celery
47s: not picking up anything else noteworthy so going to throw the remaining leaves into a thermos and grandpa brew

I usually enjoy Oolongs more, but this tea, while not unpleasant, was not particularly outstanding in any way. Usually I might go for more gaiwan steepings to explore the remaining notes, but I wasn’t blown away by it, and I didn’t care enough to pursure it further. It’s been a while since I’ve done a gaiwan session since I’ve been really busy lately (so I’ve stuck to grandpa style brews with the jasmine tea I’ve amassed), so it was nice to take some time to myself today to do this. One thing I might adjust if I had more tea was brewing temp to see if that would’ve affected bitterness more, but I’ve always done water off the boil with oolongs, and controlled for time as my variable.

3/5 stars. Personally will not purchase more, but not a bad tea, all in all. I wouldn’t recommend against it, but I’m not going to recommend for it either. There’s better oolongs to try out there.

edit: this did not hold up to grandpa brewing very well. If anything, grandpa brewing only highlighted the bitter notes and left nothing else.

Sample 13/19! Just want to make note that I tried this tea. It was good but not life-changing. Very roasty/rich/smokey flavors and aroma without being bitter. Again, glad I got to try it but will continue to try different kinds :)