2017 Turtle Dove

I haven’t tried many white teas, but I very much enjoyed this one. It has a very floral aroma with a sweetness and thickness which both give it qualities of a black tea to me. The taste lingers for a while after you sip it. Definitely packs a punch and reveals nuances in the taste as you brew it — gongfu style in this case.

I received this as part of the W2T club and liked it so much I ended up buying a brick of it. I also ended up spreading the rest of the coins around to others to enjoy.

Clean, sweet, thick, very floral with a long lasting floral aftertaste. There was a little bit of sharpness/citrus? present at the beginning, but it ended up being a very enjoyable session.

Loved this one! It’s a compressed white tea – I got a small coin as a sample, and split it up so I could gongfu some now and try the rest grandpa-style later on. I’m using 5g in about 120ml gaiwan, boiling water, 15 second steeps.

It took a long time to open up, and after the 6th steeping I manually pulled the tightest bit apart and found that the center was still pretty dry. I think this actually did interesting things for the flavor progression, though.

It started out like a dark zambian honey, then got a bit maltier and oxidized tasting, then after I broke it up and exposed the center it turned into strong orange blossom honey. I started getting that sweet sensation over my front teeth afterwards, and watering in the sides of my mouth. It was honey through the 9th with just enough bitterness to make it interesting. Then the 10th-11th moved towards a gentle black tea taste and a bit more mouth-watering astringency, but still with some honey aroma to bring it all together, and finally a bit of that cool air feeling in my mouth after the 11th.

I tried a few longer steeps to finish it off, 25s and then 90s, but it felt done to me – no off flavors or anything, just getting blander than I’d prefer. Still, a nice long run until it hit that point.

I can’t wait to try this one grandpa-style too, and I ran off and ordered a whole brick immediately.

It is very tightly pressed so it makes more sense to get it as a tuocha. That’s how I got it: White2Tea slipped it in as a free sample. Because it is pressed so tightly it is a bit tricky to determine the steeping time at first. First infusions are very light and floral, later it develops nice apricot notes and a little touch of bitterness (in a good way).

This tea has an absolute great aftertaste: long, lingering and gradually changing. You can get many infusions out of it. Quite robust for a white tea.

I am not a big fan of white teas but this one is quite special and satisfying. This is one of those teas that one has a difficulty to come up with a set opinion about because there is a lot going on and you feel like you need to try it several times to process all and arrive to a set conclusion. I am definitely intrigued by this Turtle Dove and probably will order more.

Very consistent and flavorful! The citric/tangy notes are always there and the smell kind of reminds me of a black tea. The tea kind of gets bitter for a while but you can get like 10+ steeps without an issue.

Steeped Grandpa, but it was one of those days where the memory of what the tea tasted like disappeared as quickly as it was consumed. Couldn’t make the flavour stick no matter how much I tried; was more sustenance and energy than anything else. It’s all for the best, I’m mostly just trying to sip this down/get it out of my cupboard more than anything else.

Turtle Dove is a bargan for a white tea, considring how complex ansd how powerful it was. I got tea drunk off of a mini gong-fu session with it, and even broke out in a sweat! This tea became surprisingly aggressive, and seemed to turn into a highly oxidized black/oolong tea half way through. One thing I liked about Turtle Dove is that it has a wide array of tasting notes that seemed to keep transforming throughout the session. Despite this tea’s aggressiveness, I believe that Turtle Dove was intended to be bought for aging purposes. I say this because this tea has a lot of positive characteristics that shows that this tea will age beautifully, and will probably become tamer over time.

You can read my full review (with photos) here…

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-post/2017/10/15/2017-Turtle-Dove-by-White2Tea

Great to drink now grandpa style or daily drinker, or age for later. This brick is compressed very tightly and you will need to be cautious. White tea bricks are always a disaster.

The notes are hot forest floor, honey, paperback book, light molassess, and malt. Grandpa styles gives you more of a meld of malt, milk, and floral, almost like a dian hong with 6 infusions.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2017-turtle-dove-white-tea-brick-white2tea/