Tai Xing Jin Xuan

Hello my Steepsterites! I hope everyone is well and having a wonderful holiday. I’m traveling at the moment and finding a lack of good teas. Germany actually has a really good tea culture. coffee reigns here, but tea enjoys a pretty high status as well. Rooibos is plentiful, as are herbal teas of all sorts. But I just don’t have the equipment or place to make a good cup of tea usually. sad. But I did bring some odds and ends of teas and tea bags from my collection. I’m finishing this sample of milk oolong at the moment.

Steeping this in what I think is called the ‘old man’ method. Put leaves in a mug and add hot water. Drink straight out of the mug. My mom does it this way usually. It’s really interesting because instead of getting the different notes and flavors in different steeps, you get them all in layers as you sip. The tea starts out floral and creamy and ends up savory and vegetal at the bottom of the mug. I’m enjoying this a lot more than the first time I had it. It has also been forever since I last had an oolong.

Can’t wait to get home to my tea and my puppies!! And keyboards where I know the locations of the symbols I want…

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.

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.

The Final Sipdown: Day 16
Decupboarding Total: 32

Apparently I needed to catch up on my sleep after this Thanksgiving. I spent most of today napping. Which makes it kind of hard to decupboard teas. Fortunately, I had one more Tea from Taiwan sample, which is good because they can be a single serving pretty easily so I’d still be able to make my quota for today.

The dry leaf of this one smells pretty awesome – fruity and honeyed and kind of sexy, actually. The taste is a little fresher than the smell but it’s still got that rich sweetness about it that makes me roll it around on my tongue. I think this tea is trying to seduce me.

Flavor-wise it really doesn’t strike me as a ‘milk’ oolong (which tend to bring up thoughts of Juicy Fruit gum for me… in a positive way, I promise) but this is still very good. There’s a touch of dryness that sometimes pops up in the middle of my tongue at the end of a sip but it’s just a flash and it’s actually not unpleasant. It gives the tea a bit of a sparkle which it might otherwise lack with the heavier flavors it’s got going on.

It’s heavy, silky, sweet, a little fruity, a little floral, honeyed, creamy but with a dash of fresh crispness that keeps it all from being too heavy. It’s all very attractive and seductive and pretty darn sexy for a tea. I don’t know if a tea can be sexy, but this one seems to manage it.

Honestly, I thought I was going to get through my Tea from Taiwan samplers without finding a ‘must have’ tea. But I think this one just broke that streak.
8g/10oz

Another Tea from Taiwan sample being brewed up in the Gaiwan. It does not seem to have been a real favorite with the Steepsterites but it’s hard to imagine how badly you could mess up a Taiwanese oolong so that I would rate it low… ha ha

Infusion #1 : ooh, this IS very green. I definitely am getting a strong smell of spinach from the wet leaves here. It is more vegetal than buttery at this point. The tea also smells very floral and almost vanilla.

Infusion #2 : curious. Still very green but this is consistent with my experience of ali shans in the past. Reminds me of a bit of the shade grown Japanese green tea I have here. A bit grassy, I wonder if I have oversteeped it here.

Infusion #3: Steeped with less hot water, around 160 F. Butteriness is emerging a bit and this tea has a fantastic smell.

Infusion #4: Still very fragrant but a bit short of flavor. I am losing interest in this a bit so will end my dissertation here. :-P

Prognosis: It’s a good tea but not good enough for me to want to buy it. Definitely seems more ali shan than milk. I’m not a big ali shan fan but if you are you would probably like this.

I’ve been finding this one really, really light. It’s still sweet and fresh and green, but I’m not getting much else in the flavour department. I’ll have to experiment with some longer steepings for this one as I need to free up space for more oolongs!

yum. the leaves were very fresh and green out of the vacuum sealed package. this tea is creamy, clean and fresh. After sipping, it reminds me of biting into a fresh cucumber.

Very light, fresh and slightly buttery. Has a nice chlorophyll-laced buttery scent, too.

Maybe a little but too light for me, but otherwise very refreshing to drink.

Finally got my Milky Oolong samples from Tea from Taiwan after a long wait (they really are shipped straight from Taiwan).

Randomly picked this one out of the 3. I’ve had milky Oolongs from 2 other stores before is this has been by far the best. Sweet but not as “in your face” as others, creamy yet light enough – it was GREAT. The leaves were full and dark green -no doubt, this is good stuff.

4th steeping in, the taste remains intact albeit lighter. This isn’t a scented Oolong as it keep its true character steeping after steeping.

My only deception is that the sample was only good for a one shot try out and now.. I’m out. Fairly expensive (albeit not bad for a Milky Oolong of this caliber) … I’ll have to try the other 2 before I make up my mind on which one to order in large quantity next.

After my first successful sample from Tea from Taiwan, I was a bit nervous to try this one. Like many others have said, it’s a bit light. Sipping, I kept waiting for a punch of butter or a smack of sweet milk. Even with not a drop to spare at the end of the mug, I never did find that milky quality. Despite there being no real milkiness, I did enjoy this light cup of tea. Flavor was a bit subtle, but it was very smooth and drinkable. The scent was quite nice.. A bit more of vegetables and grass than I would have liked, but with hot water, I got something ALMOST buttery. Yes, this was a fine cup of tea. It didn’t excite me, though, and really lacked anything to push it over the edge.