Sipdown, 187. Yes, I stealth-sipdowned a bunch of teas by removing ones I am sending in a swap. This sample comes to me thanks once again to Ellen!
When I first brewed this and smell primarily the wet leaves my first thought was that this was going to be on of those very buttered vegetal jin xuans. Fortunately it’s not too buttered spinach (though I bet it would get that way if you steeped it too long), but light and more balanced with a few florals as well.
I do like the designation of this tea as “Golden Lily” (I believe the actual translation) instead of Milk Oolong for a Jin Xuan, because many aren’t particularly milky and if you call them milk oolong people just get disappointed. And by people I mean me. :P It’s really more about the texture than the flavor… very smooth, almost buttery-creamy texture, but not much milky flavor. Anyway, I think this is a very nice jin xuan. I was honestly expecting to be more bored with it, as I typically am with Taiwanese green oolongs, but I am very much enjoy my cup.
Yeah you’re not going to find anything like ATR’s milk oolong that’s natural =P
Yeah, associating that TGY with milk oolong certainly skewed my reference frame, and now Jin Xuans just aren’t milky like I expect. Not even the “Quangzhou” Milk Oolongs that you see everywhere are really that milky to me.