Nantou Four Seasons

Great aromas here! This tea is bursting with lilac like a great jasmine tea. This tea also mentioned hyacinth but I’m not familiar enough to tell. First steep created a wonderful golden cup and the scent jumps right out of the cup.

From: Steepster Oolong Sampler

I think I like the nice, flowery aroma better than the actual drink. I mean, it isn’t bad! It’s light and slightly sweet, but fairly nondescript beyond that.

This is a tea I had in the Steepster Select box that I really enjoyed and left it on my wishlist. TeaSipper was nice enough to send me a sample pouch of it in our swap. Thank you! I get to enjoy this one more time.

This is another great green oolong that I am really enjoying. With a lot of green oolongs I start to get a bitter after taste. With this one it is just smooth, floral, and buttery. I get none of the after taste that leaves me iffy about a tea. Maybe I need to explore Four Season oolons a bit more? For as much as I like oolongs and as many varieties that are out there I have yet to fully explore this area of tea to its fullest. I have been eyeing some of TeaVivre’s sample packs, and What-cha tea seems to have some great priced sample packs. It may be a project for the spring!

I normally don’t care for non-herbal tea, but this one is good. I reminds me of Adagio’s Rooibos Jasmine tea, except that one tasted like drinking straight perfume, and this one is like what you would expect perfume to taste like if perfume tasted good. lol :P

I wanted an oolong and also realized I’ve only tried one tea from my Steepster freebies. Then I realized that contains TWO oolongs! So I went with this one. thank you Steepster! Instructions say 200 degrees for three minutes.

Steep #1 // 15 min after boiling // 3 min
Whew the dry leaves are super strong smelling – very vegetable! Must mean the packaging is very nice. The flavor seems the same as the fragrance: it’s actually more like a milk oolong than I would have thought. But it’s also like something vegetal – so it’s like creamy vegetables. The floral flavor makes itself known very prominently as well. There is an odd flavor I haven’t tasted in another oolong… not sure what it is but this cup doesn’t taste oversteeped at all. But this is a very unique oolong.

Steep #2 // a few minutes after boiling // 3 min
Another good cup – very similar to the first but with a stronger flavor. There is just something here in the flavor I don’t particularly love, that inches some oolongs along as favorites instead of this one.

This has a good floral, and almost even a vegetal flavor. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t a standout for me.

Got this from my December Select box!
Yeah I’ve had these teas for a while, I just keep forgetting about my Select package because I keep that (and a couple other teas in cute packaging) on my desk, while the rest of my teas are on my bookshelf!
A nice grassy, green, oolong-y smell out of the packaging.
It does have a faint colour as it steeps. Definitely different compared to the roasted oolong in the same Select package.
Dude. I freakin love how like really nice, quality teas open up SO BIG. These unraveled leaves are GORGEOUS.
It does taste really nice though. A nice smooth oolong, but it has a bit of a grassy bite to it.

Backlog:

Another tea from my December Steepster Select box.

A really good Oolong. Sweet, creamy and floral. The creaminess falls somewhere between butter and sweet cream. It’s a very smooth and yummy Oolong!

Subsequent infusions allowed the floral notes to develop. I also began to notice nutty flavors in the subsequent infusions. There were also indistinct fruit notes that I was picking up … they were distant throughout my experience with this tea: close enough for me to taste the fruit and wonder what it was that I was tasting but never so close that it became obvious to me. A mystery … but who doesn’t love a good mystery?

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/01/07/nantou-four-seasons-oolong-tea-pursuit-tea/

Really very yummy. Mild, but interesting. Comforting on a winter day.

This is the fourth tea I’ve decided to try from my December Steepster Select Box (whoo)! I’ve been decently happy with all of them so far, but thought that this tea deserved my first review from the box.

My favorite way to drink higher-grade tea is gaiwan style, just pouring the leaves straight into my cup with water and using my mouth as a filter. I used this technique for my first go-around with this tea, and it produced a relatively light flavor, not overwhelmingly floral or dry like other greener oolongs I’ve tried. All in all, a very pleasant taste.

Today, I decided to give it a shot with a proper gong fu short-steeping series of infusions. I haven’t been able to do such a thing with my teas lately, as my zisha was out of commission for a short time before I reseasoned it. (Just…don’t make chai or mint teas in a clay pot, please, learn from my mistakes! Just buy a cheap second pot. Or, if you insist on doing so, at least don’t let the steeped leaves marinate in the pot overnight.) I gave the pot and leaves a good rinse, and was instantly greeted with a deep, oily scent that reminds me of some well-made Chinese cuisine.

First steeping (15 seconds): I’m in love with how light this tea is. When prepared with short steepings, it’s almost as delicate in flavor as bai mu dan. Mouth feel is only very slightly dry, mostly creamy, with a certain sweetness about the flavor that blends nicely with the overall nutty taste. Floral notes come through at the very end, but only briefly.

Second steeping (30 seconds): Taste is slightly stronger (may be due to water being slightly hotter this time around), but overall hasn’t changed or become more nuanced as I expected. Mouthfeel is slightly drier and less creamy. No complaints here; still enjoying the tea on the 2nd round, even without surprises!

Third steeping (55 seconds): This accidentally went a little longer than I planned, but turned out great regardless! Flavor wasn’t any weaker than the second steeping, but the flavors themselves were a little different; more woodsy and less floral, but it’s still there. Mouthfeel is thinner.

Overall, this is one of the best and most complex oolongs I’ve had, but nothing I would go out of my way to purchase again without a discount (it seems In Pursuit of Tea only sells in 4oz quantities, ugh).