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Well its been a while since my last indian tea, let alone one that I liked. Which makes this a wonderful occasion!

For me whenever I drink indian teas, they’re very distinctly ‘Indian.’ Something about the terroir gives it a sort of spiciness, but this one doesn’t have very much of that, and personally I’m quite happy about that.

So, what it does have is lots of lemon, thats very prominent. Theres some bitterness behind that and some spices, maybe a bit floral? But it’s really not that complex, but its still quite nice for an everyday afternoon sort of tea

WHOA. This is so complex oh my god this is unique! I.. okay so okay uh

fruit, spices, chocolate, its super sweet and almost floral slightly? but also like peach and apples and uh theres cinnamon and chocolate and vanilla and strawberry, and it’s nutty and it’s dark but it’s very very sweet and that’s just the first steep,

It’s got a really delicious apple pie kind of a profile, oh my god this tea seriously I’m in love

later steeps are more like a berry kind of pie, it’s very pie like. almost jammy as well, think black/blueberry, seriously pick some of this up if you get the chance. Simply wonderful

As the flavour fades, it clears out into a nice cinnamon and floral, dark tea, which is also really really nice

EDIT: I think the last time I brewed this one, I didn’t continue the session long enough, because the flavour seems to last forever, I got over 3 Liters easily in my last session, which is phenomenal, anyways I just wanted to add that after the cinnamon and floral dark tea, there are fruity notes, basically it tastes like a nice grape black tea which is so good and it just stays like that for so long, I didn’t have the session end, because it was at my friend’s place, using her gaiwan, and I had to head home after hours of drinking it. Also the leaves are gorgeous! they’re so long and twisted, with absolutely no breakage in my whole package; some leaves are like 2 inches long easily, and they took most of my session to fully untwist, and even when they did I was still looking at them just in love this tea is such a treat.

The leaves themselves of this one are so beautiful, they’re wonderful fuzzy white buds that look very high grade, aside from a very small portion of small fragments of leaves, every big one is whole and unbroken, which you don’t come to expect when you buy white tea for only $5.50/50g.

This one’s very umm meaty to begin with, but after a few steeps it opens up into a very sweet, vegetal, silky, astringent lovely cup, it’s very thick and comforting. It reminds me of lemonade somehow, it’s definitely a bit reminiscent of lemongrass, it’s definitely worth the price for me, I’m glad I picked some up, it’s a very nice everyday kind of white, as long as you dont mind those meaty notes

a Japanese black :D I’m very excited, I don’t think I’ve ever had one.

Oh wow, this is lovely. the first steep is nice and earthy, with hints of fruits, apricot, apple but also vegetal, with mild astringency, and light cocoa notes.

The second brings a bit of earthy spinach, a small amount of meaty notes, and nice cocoa, with still apricot and apple

Very distinctly spinach now, it’s like the vegetality and the earthiness separated into two different components, everything became really clear in the third steep; theres also a sort of carrotty thing going on, and maybe a sort of radish taste. There’s also sort of orange notes, or tangerine, a bit more astringent now.

Fourth steep is about the same, just a bit creamier and more chocolatey, sweeter, more astringent.

Fifth has more chocolate, and it seems like the clarity developed in the third steep is gone, all the flavours melded together again in a dark chocolatey radishy sweet carrotty .. earthy.. thing

Sixth is developing a bit of vanilla, very chocolatey, very astringent

The seventh tastes almost like bergamot, maybe I’m crazy though cause I had an earl grey for the first time in months yesterday so..

It fades into sweet, fruity, vegetal goodness :) it’s really a lovely black.

Hmm nice I like this, I’m brewing with a 90ml Gaiwan gongfu cha:

It starts out sweet and spiced, with a bit of vegetality, and a hint of meat notes. It has a very thick mouthfeel, but very smooth and silky.

Second steep is thicker, sweeter, less meaty, almost a bit of cucumber, spinach, even hints of citrus.

Third steep is less complex, I definitely choked on this steep, so uh its sort of grassier and getting a slight astringency.

Fourth has less of the spices, a bit of carrotty notes, its very leafy, lettuce and spinach

Fifth is sweeter, peas, carrots, slightly bitter and moderately astringent now. it still has that very silky thick mouthfeel, which is really quite nice.

Sixth is a bit darker, its getting very astringent now, but still even sweeter and predominantly vegetal.

Seventh is a bit weaker, very astringent and bitter, a bit of rocky and earthy notes,

Eighth is getting overwhelmingly astringent, slightly metallic, vegetal and citrus

Ninth has much citrus, less sweet

This is so interesting, It’s a pu’er rolled like an oolong, and it’s so delicious;

It starts with dark crispy burnt toast notes, but after a few steeps it settles into this lovely malty, caramelly, vanilla, buttery, dark roasty wonderful thing, and this flavour lasts for SO. LONG. I’ve refilled my teapot (I pour from my teapot into my gaiwan, the teapot is about 800ml) 2 times already and it’s still really strong and delicious and sweet.

I’ve never had a tea remotely like this, I’m blown away by it. I want more, and if IDEStea ever gets around to posting these teas on their site (7 samples were in my subscription box and it said they were going to be on the site at the beginning of may) then I’m going to have to buy some, it’s amazing. seriously.

This is so unique and wonderful I’m so happy.

This is definitely a really low quality milk oolong, the milky flavour lasts maybe 2 steeps in gongfu, and for those two it isn’t milky enough in my opinion. It tastes kind of bitter and too leafy, and the leaves unfurl after like 30 seconds of steeping, plus they’re all broken and unevenly picked, the leaf base itself is really low quality; you get what you pay for. It’s too bad because I reaally love milk oolongs, and this is the only one I have atm. I don’t really know why I got this.

Do yourself a favour and get your milky oolong elsewhere

Firstly, the leaves of this one are really beautiful. There’s lots of lighter green leaves mixed with darker green ones, and it’s really a stunning medley.

This is my first yellow tea, it’s definitely a more .. affordable yellow, some of the cheapest I’ve ever seen so I’m definitely not going to base my whole idea of yellow tea on this.

This is a 2016 spring tea, so it’s also probably the first time I’ve drank a fresh new spring tea during the spring it was harvested in.

Anyways, so, onto the tea.

the first steep (20s) reveals a thick, somewhat sweet, very nice, smooth mouthfeel, with the subtlest of astringencies. it’s very comforting, with some melon notes, as well as more citrusy flavour. lime/orange; a hint of vanilla even.

Second steep (25s) brings more of the vanilla, lime, vegetal notes, there’s a lot more astringency this time, with more of the subtle grassy notes. There’s a bit of a metallic tinge to it, which is a bit uncomfortable, but it’s not too bad.

Third steep (35s) is pretty much the same as 2, just a bit more metallic and astringent.

Fourth steep (38s) less sweet, a bit bitter, very astringent now. I may be brewing too long.

For some reason, I’m kind of out of it right now, I guess it’s 1am and I am tired, it’s hard to focus on the flavours.. That rarely happens to me, but um I think I did this reasonbly fairly.

IDEStea Vaccuum seals their teas, which I’ve never seen before elsewhere (even if it’s a small sample!) but like it makes the packages hard to open when I’m too lazy to find scissors, and they dont reseal and that also is kinda annoyning but anyways they have lots of great oolongs so ignore that, it just took me a while to break into this Jin Xuan (I have a very good history with Jin Xuans so this is exciting — I also recently purchased a jin xuan from DragonTeaHouse, look out for that review :D)
The first steep reveals a Sweet, rice, fruity, vegetal, bean-like..
The second steep is where the milky Jin Xuan creaminess comes in. It’s like a sweet, milky pudding, bits of peppery notes, berries, grassy leaves.
The third has less creaminess, which is slightly disappointing as that’s what I love about Jin Xuans, but putting that aside, it’s still nice and vegetal and sweet and a tad fruity, with a moderate astringency; no bitterness
Okay I take it back, the fourth is creamier, I probably didn’t steep the third long enough. It’s really nice; the milkiness is well-balanced with the vegetality and the berry notes.
Fifth: I’m noticing woody notes, they were definitely there all along
I skipped a couple steeps.. 8th: tangerine flavour, creaminess fading, stronger astringency

Arggggg I just wrote so much. I’ve been writing about my session for like an hour now. And my browser stopped working and i got frustrated and closed it and my wonderful review is gone now. I’m just gonna give it a rating and put all the notes in there… hopefully someday I’ll come back and do this properly.