Finally trying this sample this morning, it was a free one from Verdant a while ago, thanks!
So it was quite the battle to brew this tea this morning, maybe it’s still too early, I was also up a lot last night from drinking Laoshan black before bed haha my bad! So yeah, I put the entire sample except 1 tsp to try Western style later in my gaiwan, did one rinse and poured the first cup fine, it steeped about 5 seconds. Now, these leaves expand FAST. I didn’t realize this, and the first cup I poured wasn’t quite full, so I filled the next gaiwan a bit fuller. But the leaves expanded and I burnt my finger really bad because liquid leaked out the top when I tried pouring! So after yelling in pain and running around for a bit, the tea had steeped at least a minute, and I finally poured it out, not in my cup to risk burning again, but down the sink. :( but I preservered lol, and I quickly made another cup and filled it up a lot less and had that one for me (bf got the first cup).
So sigh, now I have a burnt finger, and I wasted quite a bit of the tea’s potential with the long steep, but guess what, it still tastes really good!! This is quite a different tea than any I’ve had before. It actually reminds me of the ginseng oolong I got from DAVIDsTEA a while ago, it has the green tieguanyin taste but with an added sweetness in the aftertaste. This sweetness, though, is not artificial, it is very floral! I’m thinking so far I mostly get lotus and muscovado, maybe the texture is a bit olive oily, like Master Han’s black tea a bit. A very interesting tea! Oh, and the boyfriend said the first cup was really good, he is ready for more of this tea, so another win! Thank you Verdant for this free sample! I will enjoy a few more cups, and hopefully not burn my fingers in the process. I don’t think this is a re-order, as so far I still like dark roasted oolongs the best, but it was nice to try!
ETA – The next couple of steepings were much more roasty tasting, I much prefer this to the sugary aftertaste. It is still there, but not nearly as strong and ginseng-like. Still not my favorite oolong, but the roastier profile makes it taste more like a roasted florally oolong which is nice. No rating for now as this is a very good tea, just not quite to my tastes. And my messed up steeping from burning my fingers might be affecting the flavor a bit as well.
