After years of neglect, Steepster suddenly changing comes as a surprise. I hope that with the new owners, the community will get some love and some of the spam and posting issues will be resolved. However, I have an old computer and use IE11, neither of which are great for a flashy new site, so I thought I’d better post some reviews while I still can.
According to the owner, this oolong is from spring 2019. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of cookies, flowers, and candied orange. The first steep has notes of cookies, honey, orchids, lilacs, spinach, and cream—no orange to be found. The orange makes a slight appearance in steep 2, along with the promised cocoa butter, though I would never have made that leap without the website description. The third steep has notes of orange, honey, spinach, cookies, cocoa butter, and faint flowers. The orange continues in the next three steeps, and is joined by orange blossom, veggies, and grass. The tea fades quickly after that, though the steeps are still enjoyable.
This is an above-average oolong that I wouldn’t immediately peg as a Shan Lin Xi. I loved the complexity of flavours, though as with many high mountain oolongs, I only got five or six really good steeps. Contrary to my usual preferences, I liked the Alishan better, perhaps because it’s newer.
Flavors: Cocoa, Cookie, Cream, Floral, Grass, Honey, Orange, Orange Blossom, Orchid, Spinach, Vegetal
