Organic Gardenia Flower Oolong Tea

I’ve had this sample for a while, and rediscovered it entombed in my White Lotus bag Whispering Pines sample as I was trying to find what happened to my other Zhao Zhou Jun Chiyabari black tea sample. Hysteric understates my mentality when trying to find my sample-because it was not where I thought I put it. So sifted through layers of my reused bags to see if I put it in a weird place, and I decided to finish off the whopping 7 grams I had of this at once in a full teapot using flash steeps.

I think this tea is underrated because it combines a higher oxidized tea with gardenia scenting. I wasn’t in love with it at first because it was cloying and bordering on tannic, but it’s grown on me as I’ve fallen in love with similarly profiled teas like Qilans. It is sweeter and ruddier, but I like it enough to at least have two cups of it. I get notes of incense in the dryleaf smell, and woody incense again in the taste, gardenia, brown sugar, and a little bit of tannin.

I still wouldn’t buy this, though I appreciate it now more than I have over two years ago.

Backlog.

When it comes to scented teas, some flowers translate into better flavor than others. I was excited to try this blend because I love the fragrance of gardenia and had never experienced it in tea form before.

I brewed 4g in a 120ml gaiwan using almost boiling water for 1 minute, adding 20s to each subsequent steep. In a heated gaiwan, the tea leaves have an alluring aroma of perfume and flowers. The taste is like jasmine and rose combined, sweet with notes of warm spice. It reminds me of a high grade jasmine green tea but lacks the clean and delicate taste of a real jasmine tea. It’s pleasant enough though not particularly remarkable. The heavenly, lustrous aroma of gardenia flowers unfortunately can’t be found in the taste.