Alishan Qing Xin Spring 2021

Yay for the Steepster homemade advent calendar swap! Thank you Kelmishka! Since Christmas isn’t my holiday and we never adopted any Christmas traditions growing up, I’ve never felt the need to do so as an adult. Everyone please enjoy Santa, Christmas trees, etc., but I’m good with my menorah, latkes, and sufganiyot. There are exactly two exceptions to this: gingerbread cookies, which are objectively delicious, and, more recently, advent calendars. I only got into advent calendars in the past couple of years, but it turns out they function as a really great way to try out a bunch of different teas in manageably small quantities, which is really appealing when my tea stash is otherwise out of control. I probably got too many this year, thanks in no small part to the temptation of this thread: https://steepster.com/discuss/44363-advent-calendars-2022 

I’m vaguely trying to use these as a countdown to Hannukah, which is already only 22 days away, eep! I won’t post about any of the other calendars until Dec. 1 because I don’t want to spoil them for anyone, but since the homemade advent calendar is unique it can’t be spoiled. Day 1 is this high mountain oolong. 

I brewed this up western style, getting 3 steeps out of it at 190f and a final grandpa style steep at 190f. Even with a solid leaf-to-water ratio, it tended to come out a bit thin/light even for an alishan. A longer steep (3 min) helped with that, but that brought out a little dryness that wasn’t there on the 1-2 min steeps. Making this gong fu style might fix for that. Other than that, this had a buttery, floral aroma and flavor with a round, smooth mouthfeel in earlier steeps and dryer mouthfeel in later, longer steeps. Looking forward to the rest of this calendar!

So light and delicate! I’m getting a floral, almost fruity sweetness, with a soft, smooth mouthfeel. Very satisfying for a lazy afternoon sipping session.