Floating Leaves

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Backlog April 30th -
So this note is actually for the 2016 Spring Tea.
6g/100ml gaiwan, 200F – smells buttery
rinse – floral, faint sweetness. I let it sit here a minute for the leaves to start to open.
15s – slightly sweet, soft florals, delicate taste, not sweet like sugar, but honeysuckle or clover
25s – pushed it more timewise and it turned vegetal and buttery
I dropped back to 15s and it returned to floral sweetness but was still pretty faint. I did a couple of more steeps at 15s. It’s a pretty delicate tea and I feel the need to play around with the temperature so more to see if there is a sweet spot. It’s not as nearly strongly flavored as I expected given the tea style versus the other two I’ve had.
It’s got staying power since I’m 5 or 6 steeps in but the flavor’s are delicate.

I tried raising the temperature to boiling just to see what it’d do, but the flavors are not significantly different. I need to play with this some more.

Flavors: Floral, Honeysuckle, Sweet

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71
drank Da Hong Pao by Floating Leaves
533 tasting notes

Sipdown. I don’t remember too much about this tea. I finished it off at work a couple of weeks ago. Minerally, a hint of sweetness/fruit, roasted.
Not a repurchase for me.

Flavors: Mineral, Roasted

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71
drank Da Hong Pao by Floating Leaves
533 tasting notes

Backlog – April 30th
5.5g/100ml gaiwan 200F (most likely)
dry leaf – hint of roast, minerally, pretty big leaves
rinsed – smooth, roast is mild and not overpowering
10s – roasted wet rocks (?) seriously though, smooth, slightly roasted, minerally
20, 25, 30, 45, ?, flavor profile doesn’t change. The roast lingers in my moth. I think that this is a good tea that’s a little more roasted than I prefer. Though it is quite mellow.

Flavors: Mineral, Roasted, Smooth, Wet Rocks

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I’ve been meaning to try Ruby 18 for some time and finally ordered this one from Floating Leaves.

The tea has a strong note of sweet potato which I really like and a thick somewhat malty mouth feel.
The cooling sensation was just the ticket as I burnt my tongue last night on hot soup.

It is an interesting tea, I will look for other samples of Ruby 18 to experience the differences.

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Prep: 100cc gaiwan, 4-8g, boiling water. Have steeped short — like 10s increasing by 10 — or long — starting with 45s and increasing by 30.
Sessions with this tea: 6

Taste: Dates, raisins, sour dark fruit and some mustiness.

Body: Mouth puckering when you let the sour brew out in longer steeps. Pretty thick mouthfeel. Energy sits deep in my chest or upper abdomen and radiates slow waves of soothing.

This is A material. The body is great, the flavor is great. If you haven’t had a rich aged oolong and experienced the dark fruit sensation, then this is a good choice. There is just this tiny unpleasant musty note which transiently wafts into some steeps then disappears again, seeming randomly. If not for this note, would be A+. I’ve sampled this before and decided to buy a larger quantity, and I’m glad I did. This tea is fantastic for winding down a day or opening up a calm morning — the energy is just amazing.

Edit: the sour note is unpleasant if you let the tea cool down. This tempers my opinion somewhat, but needless to say drink this one hot.

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drank 2002 Muzha by Floating Leaves
1113 tasting notes

Last week I went to an interview for a promotion. Didn’t think I’d get it because I was up against people who have been there for 10 years, but.. my skillset and ambition were seen by the three people who interviewed me and I got the promotion!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPknX7AAtYt/

Really excited about getting to a position that I’ll be in with only 10 months at my company. Next step is training and then a presentation for my MBA; which they pay 100% of admission!

Anyways, I pulled out this tea with my bestfriend over. We started it up and it was like a melted old candy bar. Pretty smooth, some nutty and chocolate tones underneath the interesting caramel notes. Not the pleasant type of sugary drink, but that ‘oh this is interesting’ type of drink. Good, but if you don’t know what you’re drinking it can be very confusing as I tried to experience it with my best friend who doesn’t drink aged oolong at all. The end notes came through quite salty which let me know it was dying out.

A decent amount of infusions off of this. I think the quality of the leaf wasn’t that great which is why it was aged and all; one can tell by the shape, size, and tearing of the leaf as it brews out. Would love to find a larger leaf Muzha that was aged because those tight curls over time could retain some stronger notes which I also want to find with an aged dongding or shanlinxi.

Enjoyable session.

mrmopar

Congrats! Confidence is always a good attribute to have. Glad you got it!

Arby

Congratulations!

hawkband1

Wow! Congrats on the promotion!

Roswell Strange

Congrats! Sounds like you earned it! :)

MadHatterTeaDrunk

Congrats, good sir!

Evol Ving Ness

Congratulations! Well done!

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80

Following guidlines on the package, Steeps 25s, 20s, 17s, 20s, 35s

First steeping has a vegetal scent and flavour.
As the leaves open up floral notes arrive.
By the fouth steep this is very refreshing.

Flavors: Floral, Vegetal

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 30 sec 7 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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Prep: 100cc gaiwan, covered the bottom with leaf, had to take some out of my gaiwan when it expanded and overflowed one session. Tried boiling water and 190F water both.
Sessions with this tea: 5

Taste: Onions are the king of vegetables. This is soup made with celery and onion and maybe some sweetness of carrot. The thing is vegetal throughout, and is one of the most “soup” tasting teas I’ve ever had. It’s savory and buttery and I might drink it to compliment a meat dish. There was a tiny slice of lemon or maybe a bay leaf added as an afterthought, which imparts a glimpse of citrus. The aroma has some floral fragrance to it, but the taste had none of that. This is a hearty affair throughout. It maintained the flavor very well too, without too much evolution, and only faded after a long session.

Body: Holy moly, bring a spoon. This is thick and amazing feeling in how it coats your mouth. When steeped with boiling water this was very pleasant. Very light, airy energy from this tea.

Summary: I think this is a tea for people who do not enjoy the floral/fragrance end of the oolong spectrum. It’s not really roasty either, but is vegetal and savory and buttery to me. I probably will not buy this again, but I think there is a subset of the drinking population who would love this tea, as it is probably the boldest tea of that particular corner of the flavor spectrum which I have had.

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Prep: 60 or 100cc gaiwan, 4-8g, boiling water, start at 5, (10, 15, 20, 30, etc)
Sessions with this tea: 10+

Taste: Boom big caramel to start. Yes sweet potato comes into the picture, as well as some anise. The menthol starts really early and is very cooling and very good. After steep 4 or so the caramel drops out and it turns into a kinda incensy woody sweetness with anise, still with some potato note. Only the late steeps lose the potato note and give a hearty, woody, pine/cedar flavor.

Body: Very thick mouthfeel, slurpy good. Mild, calming energy. The cooling/menthol sensation starts early and gets really intense through the middle steepings. This also retains its body and steeps out a lot longer than I expected for a black tea.

Extremely enjoyable. I continue to love floating leaves offerings. I’m glad I bought a larger quantity of this and look forward to continued enjoyment.

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77

Brewed gong fu style, 4g leaf to 100ml water for about 20s.
Color is a lovely light pale green. Wet leaves smell wonderfully vegetal.
Flavour is a good rich green tea flavour – vegetal and a rich brothiness with slight sweetness and some very slight spicy notes and a very slight nuttiness
Mouthfeel is rich and full with no astringency at all.

Spice flavours start appearing more on the second infusion, and mouthfeel is less full.
Astringency is appearing, but isn’t overwhelming.

Flavors: Vegetal

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 0 min, 15 sec 4 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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Prep: usually 100cc gaiwan, enough leaf to cover the bottom, 190F or boiling water. I give it a long rinse steep plus 5 minutes of sitting with the lid on to allow the leaves to open. Then usually something like 10s, 30s, 30s, 40s, 40s, 60s, 60s, then add time as necessary to chase flavor. I have tried flashing/shorter steeps, and I have tried much much longer steeps as well, but I like this method ok.
Sessions with this tea: 6

Taste: Starts out mildly floral sweet, a vegetal note comes into later steeps. Has a very “open” feel to it. Longer steeps brought out more sweetness, shorter/hotter brought out more veg.

Body: Very thick mouthfeel, slurpy good. Mild, calming energy. Good for early morning I think.

Very enjoyable. I continue to love floating leaves offerings.

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Here’s Hoping TTB

There was just enough for a tasting of this one left. I’m still trying to branch out from typical flavored blacks and this one was interesting to say the least. It’s very savory, with heavy sweet potato notes. I’ll have to hunt down some more samples of Ruby 18 – this one intrigued me.

Flavors: Sweet Potatoes

tea-sipper

The Rubies are worth hunting down. :D Zentealife.com has a nice one.

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This is the most mint cooling Ruby 18 I’ve had so far. The cooling sensation starts early on, going with a mellow, fruity, woodsy and sweet flavor. This tea has an excellent thick body too.

A ruby 18 for someone who wants all the texture and feels!

Full Review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/pacific-northwest-taiwanese-black-tea-comparison/

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 1 g 0 OZ / 12 ML
Daylon R Thomas

All of them sound excellent, it would honestly depend on how particular I was for a black tea. I usually prefer sweet and thick chocolate notes in my black tea, but I need plenty of sweetness with the dryness. But I do love fruitiness and being able to taste a balanced variety of the notes that a tea can offer. Decisions. I still need to review their Earl Grey…

Evol Ving Ness

Speaking of Earl Grey. Have you had a chance to try the ones I sent?

Daylon R Thomas

I tried the David’s but not all of the others yet. It was a bit strong. I thought I wrote a note, but I could be mistaken.

Evol Ving Ness

I am looking forward to hearing what you think about the rest.

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drank House Oolong by Floating Leaves
106 tasting notes

Trying this again this afternoon after a very unfair first tasting yesterday where I had it the day after trying an exquisite 3x charcoal roasted dong ding and immediately after trying out a roasted gui fei mei ren (both also from Floating Leaves and appropriately priced more expensively than this modest $4/oz purchase).

While thinner and without the depth and complexity of either of the previous two teas I just mentioned, this is quite the drinkably affordable tea and pleasant enough on its own merits. The roast does not overpower and adds an extra element and nice aroma to the base, which has a nice returning bit of sugar sweetness on the end of a sip.

The tea is a lovely burnished orange color and has a light character, flavor, and sweetness that I would describe as almost cute under that roast. Doesn’t have much longevity (I stopped at about 4-5 steeps as it begins tasting mainly like roast at that point), but for the price point, that’s not surprising. Decent enough, but given the choice, I would pay the extra and spring for their gui fei (closer to $8/oz) to get that extra depth, warmth, and body.

Flavors: Caramel, Grass, Roasted, Sugarcane

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I know that I’ve written a note on this before. Anyway Backlog.

I pretty much got the same thing that Amanda did in a less vivid form. This was a complex tea that yielded mutliple steeps with a distinct floral profile of gardenia and plumeria, followed by a growingly savory and buttery body. It had very thick vegetals under the butters with a lemon and pineapple aftertaste. The first sip was the sweetest, crispist, and lightest.

I was actually surprised that this one was almost my favorite of the bunch. It is very similar to the Shan Lin Xi, but Shan Lin Xi did not have the same balance of the same notes. Shan Lin Xi had a bit more fruits veggies and light florals, whereas the florals here were thicker. They were equally buttery to me, and the butters of the Shan Lin Xi sometimes overwhelmed me. This had enough florals to balance it out.

Also, sip down, and I can barely taste it. Grrr.

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Sipdown 2016 and it tasted like Green Tea Lemon frosting. This makes me happy.

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Mine is Spring 2016 and it is quite pleasant, but I enjoy a green dong ding no matter what.

I used a generous amount of leaves that someone could guess at 6 grams, and doing it gong fu. Steep one was at 45 sec which was a bit of a over brew, but not too bad. I got a brothy vegetal body with a nutty and somewhat lemon-custard like after taste. I could have mistaken it for a fancier green tea if I did not know what it was…though one could argue that for jade oolongs. Just a slight difference in fermentation and elaborate processing is all.

Second more floral and brothy, but that’s it. Needs a cool down.

To make things simple, or more complicated, I’m going to back log what I already thought about the tea. It was more savory than floral most times, but the florals were strong when they would pop up in gradual fluxes. The thicker green notes occasionally out-buttered the florals and hiding fruity qualities. I would recommend it to people who like Dragon Well or those looking for a good Dong Ding to try. My personal criticism was how easily the taste changed with temperature and brewing, easily changing from nutty to brothy with the softer notes in flux. The only other criticism was the price, but hey, I can be a cheapo sometimes.

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I did something today that I rarely do, I spent several hours doing nothing. Even though I am disabled and really should spend more time relaxing, I can’t, I always have to be busy doing something even if that something is studying, painting, or just keeping my mind busy…I have never been one to just sit and watch TV, I am the type person who watches TV while also doing other stuff. Lately though I have been feeling pretty icky and really didn’t want to deal with another fibro flair, so I just laid in bed and relaxed. I napped off and on, snuggled the cat, and napped some more. It was surprisingly therapeutic, my pain is not diminished, but for the first time in days I don’t feel exhausted.

And so, with it being Friday, that means it is the last day of the Floating Leaves High Mountain Oolong Sampler adventure finishing it off with the 2016 Spring ShanLinXi High Mountain Oolong, ah ShanLinXi, you guessed it, another Oolong I love. What can I say, I drink a LOT of Oolong, my stash of it and Hong Chas are the biggest in my tea collection for a reason. A lot of my experience with this wonderful tea has been the harvest later in the year, so it is good to see the contrast between spring and autumn. From the first sniff I could tell this was a ShanLinXi, it has that to me iconic crisp alpine air, that blends morning fog, cedar leaves, and mineral notes. Alongside this mountainous goodness are notes of sugar cane, blooming tulip trees, and a gentle note of hyacinth and sesame seeds. A delicious combination to make my nose happy.

Gaiwan time! I originally used this gaiwan for red teas, but decided I had enough teaware devoted to that type of tea and decided this gaiwan wanted to be used for oolongs. The aroma of the leaves after the first steep is great, I say it smells alpine but really it reminds me of the air deep in the Smoky Mountains, you can smell the trees and the misty, cloud heavy air…it is kinda fantastic. Speaking of trees there are notes of blooming tulip trees, hyacinth, lilacs, and a distant note of apples. The liquid has notes of sweet snap peas, distant fresh peaches, sugar cane, tulip tree blossoms, and apple flowers. It is sweet and light, very refreshing.

This is one smooth steep, it has a buttery thickness but instead of being oily it is more smooth, like velvet. The taste is sweet and light, notes of sugar cane and sweet snap peas start it out, then it moves to sesame custard and buttery goodness, but the finish, well that is unique! Notes of fresh pears and gentle peaches with a lingering fruity, juicy, sweetness.

On to the second steep, the aroma is mountainous and blooming trees, on the very end of the aroma is a gentle pear and peach note that I am loving. Like the first steep this one is velvety smooth and light while being quite sweet. This tea reminds me more of spring than any of the others from this sampler, with notes of blooming tulip trees (seriously tulip tree nectar is so delicious) apple blossoms, juicy pears and fresh apples. With a gentle note of growing green mountainous air and snap peas, the majority of the taste is very sweet and delicately fruity.

So where the other two steeps were light this one really blooms. By the point the leaves have unfurled and wow, the aroma is intense! Sweet fruit, blooming flowers, and a touch of fresh green vegetation. The mouthfeel is thick and buttery while being buttery smooth, it compliments the juicy fruit notes and blooming flower notes wonderfully. I went in for many steeps MANY, I lost count. It is wonderfully sweet and refreshing and is a strong contender for favorite from the sampler!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/08/floating-leaves-2016-spring-shanlinxi.html

Teatotaler

I have fibro too and can totally relate to fighting a flair and feeling exhausted. Snuggling my kitties, napping and drinking tea are good flair fighters for me as well!
This oolong sounds wonderful – I think I just might have to give this one a try!

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Yours truly did one of the most girly things last night, well girly for me anyway…I was up til five in the morning working on my wedding registry and wish-listing wedding related clothing and things. My desire to dress like a princess, have my wedding dress be something I will use more than once, and to not spend a fortune has made this an exciting endeavor. We still haven’t set a date yet, it will at the least be a year away since we are waiting for Ben’s sister to come back from Peace Corps, and I am kinda hoping for a Halloween wedding as to be an excuse as to why my wedding garb looks possibly like a cosplay of two different characters of mine from two separate RPGs Ben and I play, that is a conversation I don’t want to have a million times, but if it is Halloween that is good enough! Oh man, I am such a dork.

You guessed it, today the adventure through the Floating Leaves High Mountain Oolong Sampler continues as I pretend to travel to these beautiful mountains through the taste of teas. Looking at 2016 Spring LiShan High Mountain Oolong today, and this tea mountain has a special place in my heart. If you travel back in time to September of 2013, it was one of the first High Mountain Oolongs I blogged about, I didn’t have my army of gaiwans or clay pots yet, I was doing pseudo gong-fu with quick steeps using a half filled mug and a steeping basket. Oh how times have changed, three years later and it is still a favorite…and I have more gaiwans/teapots/cups than sense now. I got fussed at by Ben while I was sniffing this tea, mainly because I started making a racket and he has a headache, but the aroma is pretty out of this world. It is very sweet, with notes of chestnut, sugar cane, and a bit of starchiness, but the thing that elicited the noise from me was the distinct note of bananas and pineapples, it smells so good!! I had my nose stuffed in the teapot snuffling like a truffle pig for far longer than necessary.

I decided to give my gaiwans a bread and pull out the green Oolong XiShi pot, I say green but really at this point it is only used for Taiwanese High Mountain Oolongs, TGY and Baozhong have their own pots, because I am a hoarder. The aroma of the leaves after the first steep still has that banana note of happiness, but is also has a savory spinach note, sesame seeds, bok choy, hyacinth, and a general aroma of growing things in summertime. The liquid smells like freshly baked slightly buttery banana bread, and I swear if it wasn’t 100° I would bake some. There are also gentle notes of pineapple, starch, and a bit of green vegetation.

Tasting time! While writing this I am watching Roman Holiday, a good backdrop to musing about fancy teas. It starts light and sweet with a wonderfully buttery viscous mouthfeel, it really lights up in the back of the throat, gentle at the front then a light show at the back. The taste of banana and orange blossom at the back if the throat is joined by a beginning of sweet peas and fresh vegetation. Delicious stuff!

Next steep, woo! The aroma is sweet and green, a really good balance of the two. The taste, well, first let me touch on that texture, it is so thick and buttery, but the thickness is accompanied by a rich sweetness that lingers long into the aftertaste, I swear it is so long in the mouth. The taste, once I finally get my thoughts out of the mouthfeel, is floral and sweet, with distant bananas, pineapples, and orange blossoms.

Third steep, the aroma is still going strong with sweet and green, however there is a building hyacinth note that gets quite strong towards the end of the sniffing. The taste is also quite flowery this steep, notes of hyacinths, lilacs, orange blossoms, and a distant bit of plumeria. Towards the end the banana and fresh vegetation notes show up with a lingering buttery sweetness that stay forever. I pulled many steeps out of this tea, when it nears its finish the notes of lilac and hyacinth dominate til they fade away.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/08/floating-leaves-2016-spring-lishan-high.html

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You know what is adorable, Ben snuggling Espeon. She is in one of those super cuddly moods, but alas I am melting from the stupid heat, so Ben to the rescue! Usually I never mind a lap cat, but it is one of those days where it is hot and humid so my skin is all crawly. It is all good though since I get to see cuteness.

Day two of the Floating Leaves Taiwan High Mountain Oolong Sampler specifically looking at the 2016 Spring Alishan High Mountain Oolong! Alishan is one of my favorite mountains for tea, especially the green Oolong style, I always get excited when I get a chance to enjoy it. Made from the QinXin varietal, which means sweet goodness, seriously I have never had a QinXin that was not wonderfully sweet. The aroma is buttery and sweet, with notes of chestnuts, sweet snap peas, sugar cane, and crisp celery. It balances sweetness and that refreshing bit of green for a light yet nuanced blend of notes.

I brewed this tea a couple of different ways, specifically gongfu and cold-steep, and let me start by saying gongfu was AMAZING, it is a star example of an Alishan with a thick texture, sweet taste, and mellow feeling, if you get this sampler (or just this tea) I suggest trying it out this way at least once. Since it is swelteringly hot though I want to showcase how this tea really impressed me, cold-steeped! The day I cold-steeped this tea I knew the night (after my session of gongfu) that I had errands to run the next day and would want tea, so I tossed the leaves in for a morning treat.

Oh my goodness this tea, in the aroma it has crisp notes of sweet snap peas and sugar cane, buttery thickness, and nutty chestnut. These notes are present, but they are joined with ethereal notes of freesia and lilac. I pretty much downed my entire first steep instantaneously, I didn’t even get out of the house with it! It was so wonderfully light while being nuanced, I love that.

So here I am with a pile of leaves and the need for tea, so I go grandpa style and add warm water, let it steep for a few, and then top it off with some ice to inevitably melt in the heat while also keeping the leaves around. This time around it really showcases the green aspect of the tea, notes of lettuce and celery, herbaceous oregano and a bit of parsley. It is so crisp and refreshing while still being sweet and floral. I am going to go on the record and say this is my favorite cold-steeped Oolong to date, the perfect combo of sweet and crisp while never being overwhelming.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/08/floating-leaves-2016-spring-alishan.html

Daylon R Thomas

This tea was my fav. in the sampler. :)

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I do a decent amount of gluten free baking, basically because I like to bake and I don’t like paying the store prices for mediocre GF sweets. However one particular sweet eludes my skills, blasted traditional style shortbread! I decided I really wanted shortbread the other night, so I made some (with added black sesame to make it extra tasty) and the taste was great, but the texture was so crumbly. No matter what blend of flours I try I just cannot get the texture right, adding various gums, using eggs, even trying a flax seed ‘pseudo gluten’ cannot get the texture to be like shortbread. My greatest challenge, it is funny since when I was not baking GF I was godlike at shortbread!

It is time for another theme week! This time I am looking at all the teas in the Taiwan High Mountain Oolong Sampler from Floating Leaves (there is a handy coupon at the bottom of the blog) starting with HeHuanShan High Mountain Oolong. What really excited me about this Oolong was it is from a mountain I have not sampled, meaning it is time for an adventure! HeHuanShan is part of the Taroko Gorge National Park and sits on the boundry of Nantou and Hualien Counties, and do yourself a favor and google the park and the mountain, both are serious eye-candy for nature lovers. So now I am going to explore those mountains vicariously though these beautiful green leaves. The notes I am picking up are very intriguing, somewhat expected notes of flowers, specifically a touch of honeysuckle and gardenia, a delightful burst of plumeria, and a mellow note of hyacinth. The part that made me giggle a bit maniacally was the distinct sweet note of lemon cheesecake. Seriously, there is even a hint of graham cracker crust, and that cheesecake creaminess with the sweet zingy lemon burst is mouthwatering.

After I finally convinced myself to pull my nose out of the leaves, it is steeping time! The aroma of the slightly unfurled leaves is buttery sweet and floral, notes of sweet cream, plumeria, gardenia, lilac, and teaberry. Ah yes, teaberry, a species of wintergreen that is made into a pink icecream in Pennsylvania that I would eat piles of when I worked at Dairy Queen, I was sad when they discontinued special flavors. It reminds me a bit of the same effect that Red Jade has, where it smells like mint but not minty, somewhat paradoxical but super delicious regardless. The aroma of the first steep’s liquid is light and buttery, floral and sweet, with an underlying green crispness. One thing that really stands out about the liquid is the distinct note of lichen and rocks at a mountain spring or after a rain, it is ghostly and only present as I am pulling the cup away from my nose, but it is there and evocative of the mountains where this tea is grown.

Ok wow, the first thing that struck me about this steep is that thick mouthfeel, buttery and creamy, my mouth is coated with oolong goodness…I would go as far as to say it is viscous. Thickness aside, the taste is sweet and wonderfully floral at the front, notes of summer lilacs and plumeria with a sweet honeysuckle nectar. In the middle there is a gentle gardenia note alongside orange blossom and gentle creamy note. The finish is gently savory and buttery, more savory like butter than buttery vegetal, but there is a touch of bok choy with an aftertaste of distant flowers and lemons.

On to the second steep, the leaves have unfurled a great bit and the liquid looks like afternoon sunlight. The aroma is thick, heady notes of flowers and buttery green with a sweet lingering lemon cheesecake quality that hangs around in my nose for a while. Wow this is a thick tea! I am loving how mouth coating it is, combine the texture with the slightly sour/sweet lemon cheesecake and teaberry notes and you have me salivating, it is pretty awesome. After this initial burst of sweetness, a thick savory blend of cooked buttery cabbage and bok choy arises, and the finish is sweet lemony which lingers into the aftertaste.

Third steep time! The aroma is flowery and sweet with a gentle crisp green undertone, to me it smells like early summer with the flowers all in bloom. You know, I am torn as to which is more striking about this tea, the mouthfeel or the aftertaste. The aftertaste lingers for so long, I had to sit and wait a bit between the second and third steep because it stuck around that long. The taste is a blend of flowers and crisp lettuce, then boom, lemon cheesecake that lingers well into the aftertaste again. This tea has great longevity too, I got nine steeps out of it before it faded away. Now, coupon time! Use the code teageekery35 for 35% off the High Mountain Sampler before August 31st!

For photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/08/floating-leaves-hehuanshan-high.html

Cwyn

Omg I worked at Dairy Queen too! Yet another thing in common! Dare I say it? “You are bacteria.” Yes we are.

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88

I’ve tried all of the high mountain sampler, and honestly, it was like trying different versions of the same type of tea. Which I know is not. Anyway, I was surprised to find that this was not my favorite. Oolong owl’s review is pretty accurate: the thick balanced creamy body is what distinguishes this tea. It is a little bit more spinachy than I like, but still quite good. The florals, buttery green notes, the light fruity sweetness, and the intense creaminess of the tea are all blended together like watercolors into a opaque creamy hue. The tea itself is actually very transparent-do not confuse my pretentious metaphor!

The intense milk like texture is what surprised me most of all. It pleased me, but a part of me wanted more florals. Oddly enough, the Alishan was actually my favorite of the samples because it had the sweetest creamy florals in my opinion.

Oh, I almost forgot! I did this gong fu, but I played it by smell and ear. I maybe could have used less leaves, but I doubt there would be much impact.

I would not personally get this tea separately for full price because I’ve had Shan Lin Xi’s I prefer for a lower price, but I whole-heartly recommend the sampler for trying different high mountain oolongs. They are all INCREDIBLY similar, but have a few differences to keep them distinct.

This is a great tea, and I do recommend it. The only deterrants might be the spinachy, buttery body. There were times when I wondered if I was drinking a Baozhong, but the fruitiness reminded me otherwise.

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I finished a cup last night. I needed it. I have a leak in the heater core of my 1997 Pontiac Sunfire, and it will be a bitch to fix. Luckily I met an angel of a mechanic that will help me. I am still antsy about transportation to work and volunteering, but God is really blessing me right now as the deity screws around with me. Nevertheless, this tea was a great comfort last night against the onslaught of homework analyzing Critical Race Theory, hosting a report of my hometown’s history, figuring out how to deal with my car and transportation, and the bull crap associated with this year’s ugly election. Flower nectar did its work.

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