Tea from Taiwan

Additional notes: The end of my Tea from Taiwan samples! I would certainly shop at Tea From Taiwan whenever I want to stock up on unflavored oolongs! The three I tried are actually very unique.
teafromtaiwan.com

These jade green with hints of yellow buds smell sugary and vegetal. Normally I hate sugary vegetables (ie: coleslaw. Ick, but I’d love coleslaw without sugar). But if a tea smells like that, I love it.

First steep: Waited a while for the water to cool, steeped for 50 seconds, didn’t think that was long enough, then steeped for 35 more seconds. The taste is mainly sweet, much less vegetal than the leaves smell. It’s more of a mildly floral flavor. Very complex but very good.

Second steep: may have been too hot for two minutes. This one really does have a complex & sweet flavor. It is different from all other oolongs I’ve tried, but I can’t begin to describe how. Not quite peachy, floral or milky… but very sweet.

Third steep: …I kind of forgot about, so I have no idea how long it had been steeping. The flavor seems to be lacking, but that may be due to the oversteeping. I’d say unlike most other oolongs, this one didn’t change flavor as much. I definitely didn’t get anything smokey out of this one, like the description says. It’s very hard to describe, so try it for yourself!

Nice oolong appearance, sour caramel and ginger notes, nitrogen undertones. This tea is strange, it has some chemicals note, but maybe it’s good for my health… :)

Read more here: http://www.teablr.com/2012/12/gaba-oolong-from-teafromtaiwan-shop/

This tea is pretty darn good, it’s one of those that changes with each cup it was floral and grassy and sweet and really good, it smells vegetal sweet when steeping very much like sweet corn :)

What a lovely well mannered tea! So many wonderful notes to savor! From sweet, like sugar cane and vanilla, to buttery, toasty, I mean really if you have a favorite flavor note you are likely to find it in here!
It is complex, and gong fu really IS the way to go with this one.
Sip it when you have enough time to enjoy everything it has to offer!
Full review on http://sororiteasisters.com/ on the 12th.

Smells very milky, taste very creamy and smooth with First steep is very milky with slight buttery notes and has a nice creamy mouthfeel and aftertaste. Second steep is almost the same only with an added slightly sweet vegetal note. The creamy mouthfeel is great this is another tea that just feels good in the mouth :)
Even the Third steep is very good still creamy and milky but slightly roasty and nutty almost , very interesting, lingering flavors.
Fourth steep is pretty much same as the last and by the sixth steep I needed warmer water, steep six was nice more roasty, nutty notes same creamy milkyness, this tea is not going to give up soon I had to stop at six steeps :)
Superb Tea!

This one was really good it was vegetal yet floral and slightly sweet with a sweet grassy aroma, I chose this one for meditation, yes you can meditate while brewing tea and even looking at the tea, long story nyways this is a very good tea for meditation :)

WOW!

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to tell my five Tea From Taiwan samples apart, but this one woke the part of my brain that likes that roasted flavor from fired teas. This tea has a bright, floral aroma alongside a buttery toastiness. When the toasted aroma hit me I immediately (albeit briefly) thought of popcorn maybe its the butteriness! I’m making my second mug now.

Mmm- is the second steeping of oolong always better than the first? So far they have been for me. I spent about a minute just enjoying the aroma. This might be my favorite after Tie Guan Yin!

Additional notes: Sample sipdown! I had to have this one again because I saw my tasting notes for it. This might be one of my favorite oolongs I’ve ever had. I’ve very tempted to order some from Tea From Taiwan especially since they have a nice $10 off $20 coupon just for signing up for their e-mails (maybe one day — I just acquired way too much tea in a short span of time. I’m trying to do a ton of sipdowns anyway, just to get the number lower — luckily, most of my teas are small amounts of the same anyway.)

I just LOVE the evolution that this one goes through:

First cup: sweet buttery vegetal
Second cup: peachy and floral
Third cup: milky!

Which makes this one almost like three oolongs in one. If I steep them just right that is. Obviously it will be different every time I have it. So so good! I will miss this one, but I’ve got plenty of oolongs to make my way through.

I’ve been spoiled with samples lately! I love oolong, so I appreciate these samples. The dry leaves here smell like SPINACH. I don’t mind it.. I eat enough of it! The steep color is a bright yellow. I let the water cool for quite a bit and steeped for 45 seconds. The taste is lovely! The flavor maintains a bit of that spinach flavor, but I’d say the dry leaves smelled more like spinach than the tea itself tastes like spinach. But it’s like spinach that is buttery and slightly sweet and also a tiny-tad-hint of spice, very silky… it really lingers. I’d say this oolong has more of a vegetal flavor that the usual floral.

But oh no! I just looked at the description and this was the tea that was the milk oolong. I had David’s milk oolong a few weeks ago and this definitely doesn’t taste like that one. The David’s was distinctly milky. This one is just buttery and sweet. I never would have even considered it was the milk oolong if I hadn’t looked at the description!

Second steep: Water was still cooled down a lot // steeped for 50 seconds. This cup is MUCH more like a floral oolong but mostly very peachy! Most of the spinach flavor is gone. I love the evolution of oolong.

Third steep: Water was much closer to boiling // steeped for one minute. I would say this steep is closest to the milk oolong flavor, but that may be because both the spinach and floral/peachy flavors are less distinct. It’s still good!

I think the first steep was my favorite because it was different as a buttery spinach oolong! On my oolong flavor rating scale where one has the lightest and most floral flavor and five has the strongest flavor, this one gets a two. But I think I’ll take a couple points off the rating just for not being what I’d call a milk oolong. A very delicious tea! One of the steeps (or all of them) is bound to be something any oolong fan would love.

So this is the second of the three samples I got from Tea from Taiwan, and I am sad because I don’t feel like I did it justice. I am saving the last one for a day when I can really focus on my tea making and not be so distracted by papers.

So 1st steep was just ok, very earthy, not as sweet and light as I like my oolongs to be. Second steep I let sit WAAAAY to long so that’s my fault, and then I only got the chance to have one more that day. The last one was nice, still deeper and smoother than the milk oolong I reviewed from them a few weeks ago. I liked it but I think I would have liked it more if I had of done a better job with my preparing.

This is my second sample from Tea From Taiwan. Thanks again for the generous samples!

Dry: it smells really sweet and refreshing.

1st Steep: (5 min, 98C) It tastes very ‘green’ and vegetal but I’m also some getting some roasted notes as well -much like genmaicha green tea. No, correction. It’s very toasty. These notes subside about mid-sip and give way to a pleasant floral sensation.

2nd Steep: (1 min 98C) I thought I would try a shorter steep this time if it wasn’t too late to try gong fu style. It looks as though the leaves have unraveled as much as my tea ball will allow so I doubt I’m doing it right, but it doesn’t matter too much as this still tastes pretty good. It’s far less toasty -there’s a good balance between that and fruity undertones in each sip. Very nice.

3rd Steep: (1 min 98C ) Still a lot of flavour!

Overall it’s good, and it reminds me that I do like toasted flavors sometimes, but if I had to choose I think I prefer the other Zhong Shu Hu sample.

What happened? I haven’t tasted “bad” tea since I pulled a bag of Lipton from water poured by a coffee carafe on an airline. I’m an oolong fan and have played with them all, but steep after steep, I was treated to a lovely light sensation that promised li shan, then dropped me with the thud of a taste I can only describe as dirty metal. This is not cheap stuff. Did I wind up with a poor crop? I was hoping to visit again and splurge on the Li Shan Wu Ling, but no more. Sadness.

When I first opened the vacuum-sealed packet, I was greeted with a delicious, creamy, sweet vegetal aroma. Not an aroma I’d necessarily typically associate with an oolong, but it was quite appealing! Brewed up, the aroma remained a creamy sort of vegetal, and the flavor reflected that quite closely. This is pretty tasty! Lightly sweet, with that boiled veggie flavor and an overlying creaminess. It’s not what I would label a milk oolong (based on some others I’ve had), but its creamy quality certainly lends itself toward the title. I’d definitely drink this again! Thanks so much to Tea from Taiwan for this generous sample!

Very belated ETA: The re-steep on this one was okay, but I’ve noticed that with many green oolongs, the first infusions are the most delicious and distinct, while subsequent infusions lack uniqueness and just taste generally oolongy to me. That was what happened here.

Sipdown!

Hmm. Brewed this up today with what I thought was a good leaf:water ratio, but it’s very weak. Luckily, I just took a look at my previous tasting note and I wasn’t the biggest fan of this one, so I suspect that’s just the case here (although I wish it had a bit more flavour!) Ah well. Thanks again for the sample, Tea from Taiwan!

The aroma from this packet was vegetal in much the same way as the Tai Xing Jin Xuan, however the sweetness wasn’t as present, making the aroma less appealing to me. Likewise, the aroma from the brewed cup was less creamy, but still vegetal. Drinking a sip of this and comparing it to the Tai Xing Jin Xuan, I much prefer the latter tea as it has a sweetness and creaminess that is absent here. As well, the vegetal note is less rich boiled veggie, and more of a green veggie… if that makes sense. It’s not as pleasing, either way. This is not a bad tea, but it’s much more like a regular green oolong, in my opinion. Thanks again to Tea from Taiwan for sending me a sample of this tea :)

ETA: Re-steep was akin to any green oolong. Tasty but unremarkable.

This is my first real Oolong! I decided to brew it for 5 min each time at 98C because I thought I would mess it up if I tried gong fu style brewing.

Dry: The tea is rolled into little balls, and the smell reminds me of green tea. It almost smells a bit like seaweed? But not in a bad way…

Steeped: It brews into a nice yellow liquor and it smells good! It’s a really smooth tea that I just want to sip away at all day. How do you describe this though? Each sip tastes a little different and I was wrong about the seaweed – I can’t taste that at all! It is sweet and mild and very refreshing.

2nd Steep: I re-steeped the leaves for another 5 minutes. I realise this may make me a barbarian but it still tastes really good. I am getting more vegetal notes this time around, but it makes me think of a really good green tea.

3rd Steep: Is this oolong abuse? I’m now on my 3rd 8oz cup. It’s getting really mild now but the grassy/vegetal flavours are still strong enough. I sipped away at it, but didn’t feel it warranted a 4th attempt at steeping.

And wow. I just realised how expensive this tea is. 75g (2.65 oz) costs $22. Yowza. Maybe I’ll try to brew it properly next time, but… it’s just such a time commitment that it’s hard to do.

I am looking forward to trying more oolong teas though!
And here’s a picture of the tea during the 3rd steep: http://instagram.com/p/SjvfMVtWvp/

A review of Shi Zuo Tea by Tea from Taiwan

Company: Tea from Taiwan
Tea Name: Shi Zuo Tea
Tea Type/Varietal: oolong
Region: Taiwan China
Steeping Vessel/Amt. Leaf: cup/ 1 teaspoon
Plucking Season:
Liquor Color: bright yellow / golden
Leaf Characteristics: the leaves are small pellets like and explode when immerse with hot water to fuller leaves. One can see the two full leaves plucked with stem and all. Leaves color is green.

1st Steeping:
Water temperature: 200 Fahrenheit
Time: 3 minutes

I decided to try this tea as mid-morning drinking tea. The tea pouch that tea is in is lovely as it reflects a cup of the oolong tea with the two leaf floating above saucer. I cup open the tea foiled pack and take in the aroma of the tea leaves; smelling very milky, fresh scented green tea. It is an inviting smell.

I scoop out of the bag one teaspoon of the tea and put this in my cup and pour the boiled water into the cup and covering it, I leave it to steep for several minutes.

When I remove the covering from my cup the tea leaves are fuller and green in color; as I scooped them out I am noticing how the leaves looks just the way they were plucked from the tea bush; two bud/two leaves method. If I am using the right term; anyhow, the leaves are full with two leaves per stems. I put the leaves aside and simply take a sip of the tea while noticing its color which is a bright yellow/golden orb of amber with yellow base. Tea is smooth when I taste it; it is cleanly with no astringent. It is more floral like and sweetly-smooth.

Shi Zuo oolong tea is lightly roasted for a unique flavour. It has a very pleasing aroma and taste which produces a pleasant sensation on the palate.

Tea from Taiwan, thank you for sending this sample for me to experience and review. This is a most enjoyable oolong tea.

Smokey. Just like liquid smoke. I did a 10 second ore steep followed by a one minute steep. Whew! Not my kin of tea! I might try brewing it again, on a day where I Can do multiple steeps and have the patience to see if this gets better. Has a slight nutty coffee smell.
Might give this sample away to a friend.

Thank you @Tea from Taiwan for this sample! I definitely enjoyed it.

The tea had a beautiful delicate yellow colour, and smooth milk oolong flavor. I found the more I steeped it the more the sweetness came out. I was able to do it 6 times, and could have probably kept going but then my leaves would have been a few days old. I am looking forward to trying the other samples you gave me.

Overall – This is my second sample from Tea From Taiwan and I must say that so far I am impressed with the quality. I did prefer the first sample I tried but this was still very nice and I am glad I had the opportunity to try it. In a nut shell this Oolong is green and tastes like flowers but with a sweet and grassy edge that get stronger during it’s peak steeps.

For pictures and more information please check my blog.
http://kittylovestea.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/oolong-before-london/

This is a lovely oolong that delicately balances floral and buttery notes. I sometimes find oolongs that are more flowery to be a dangerous gamble and they often can come across as too overpowering or with slight smell of rotting. This oolong however is incredibly fresh and tastes like a freshly plucked meadow, very nice.

So I really am at a loss for how to describe this tea. I really enjoyed it and it’s not a bad Oolong at all. I might update this later once I have a little more time to think about it.

WOW!

Dry Smell: Dry Roasted peanuts

Wet: Earthy nutty

So that was not what I expected. The smell is very misleading, at least for me it was. This tastes just like a very subtle jasmin tea. There is a sweetness too it and the jasmin taste isn’t very over powering like it can be with some teas. I love this one and would drink again and again.