Vietnam (Son La) 'Flowery' Oolong Tea

Oh lookie, I found a tea from one of my first loose leaf orders. I guess I hadn’t actually finished the Vietnam sampler pack! This tea was pretty decent, but my tasting notes were kind of funny. The dry leaf smelled floral and green – kind of like a high mountain Taiwanese oolong – that comparison was reinforced after I smelled the wet leaf and it had a kind of buttery aroma going along with the floral.

This tea’s name is well deserved. It was floral…with a floral finish. It was slightly more interesting than that sounds however. The floral note in the front of the sip did not taste exactly the same as the aftertaste. The aftertaste was more creamy and crisp for most of the session, though it did start to pick up a bit of sourness towards then end. I would say the aftertaste was the highlight of this tea – a nice and sweet floral aroma filled my mouth after I swallowed, lasting a good couple minutes. I don’t know different floral flavors well enough to pick out which ones I was tasting, but there were certainly different flowers represented in the flavor/aroma of this tea.

Vietnam Flowery Oolong
Origin: Moc Chau, Son La Province, Vietnam
Elevation: 1000m

Dry Leaves: The leaves looked fairly typical of floral oolongs although there was quite a bit of stems showing which was nice. In my experience the floral oolongs with stems tend to be of a higher quality than the floral oolongs that are just leaves (think Beautiful Taiwan Tea’s DaYuLing). Although the pellets were really small.

Temperature: 194oF
Brewing Time: One Minute (adding one minute each subsequent infusion)
Aroma: Floral
Flavor: Floral, Honey and Raw Sugar Cane
Tasting Notes: This is definitely a filler tea. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it is a very non-offensive tea that I could easily see this blended in with a Taiwanese High Mountain Oolong. I’ve been hearing for years that Taiwanese farmers mix their oolongs with cheaper teas of equal quality from Vietnam and Thailand, and never really believed it until now.

While this is a very good flowery oolong, I am not sure if I would buy it again even though it is easily worth the $9.60 (as of writing this), but it has a lot of tough competition in this price range. I know Alistair has sourced some High Mountain Oolongs recently and I am curious how this compares to them. I can easily say that this is my favorite of these three regardless while I like more complex teas, this was quite nice. I said before that this is filler tea and I was considering trying to be more diplomatic about it, but I decided against doing so. While the leaves may have been rolled way too pass as a Taiwanese Oolong, it is the perfect tea to blend with more expensive teas without changing the taste. In fact I used my leftover leaves and mixed equal parts with Beautiful Taiwan Teas DaYuLing and a nonpareil DaYuLing that I got from Teavivre and I honestly could not tell the What-Cha/BTT Flowery DaYuLing & What-Cha/Teavivre Nonparel-Flowery-DaYuLing from the unblended DaYuLings.

[More at http://rah-tea.blogspot.com/2014/12/what-cha-discover-vietnam-part-1.html]

When I opened the sample it was like spring bouquet with cinnamon and clove or maybe cardamom added. I tend to like green oolongs far more than the roasted ones. This is nicely green. The steeped leaf is even more fragrant. What is interesting to me is the first thing I notice when tasting is this is creamy. With the next sip I start thinking creamed corn. Then I notice the floral notes that usually get described as orchid. The aftertaste is leafy, vegetal, and makes me think geraniums. That is my go to descriptor for that green oolong aftertaste. The aftertaste does not drift into latex as with some overpowered teas. I was not disappointed in the taste. For me if it were more floral it would be too much. For me this is the perfect levels of floral and green.

I expected something more floral. To me it has a little bit of a cinnamon top note, followed by a buttery smooth taste, THEN followed by a hint of floral aftertaste, similar to a gardenia fower.

All in all, not what I was expecting from something called a “Flowery” oolong, but a good tea none the less.

Nice flowery oolong smell. The leaves as they unfurl are quite pretty. It’s got a slightly buttery, flowery taste. Very nice typical oolong.