I’ve been spoiled with samples lately! I love oolong, so I appreciate these samples. The dry leaves here smell like SPINACH. I don’t mind it.. I eat enough of it! The steep color is a bright yellow. I let the water cool for quite a bit and steeped for 45 seconds. The taste is lovely! The flavor maintains a bit of that spinach flavor, but I’d say the dry leaves smelled more like spinach than the tea itself tastes like spinach. But it’s like spinach that is buttery and slightly sweet and also a tiny-tad-hint of spice, very silky… it really lingers. I’d say this oolong has more of a vegetal flavor that the usual floral.
But oh no! I just looked at the description and this was the tea that was the milk oolong. I had David’s milk oolong a few weeks ago and this definitely doesn’t taste like that one. The David’s was distinctly milky. This one is just buttery and sweet. I never would have even considered it was the milk oolong if I hadn’t looked at the description!
Second steep: Water was still cooled down a lot // steeped for 50 seconds. This cup is MUCH more like a floral oolong but mostly very peachy! Most of the spinach flavor is gone. I love the evolution of oolong.
Third steep: Water was much closer to boiling // steeped for one minute. I would say this steep is closest to the milk oolong flavor, but that may be because both the spinach and floral/peachy flavors are less distinct. It’s still good!
I think the first steep was my favorite because it was different as a buttery spinach oolong! On my oolong flavor rating scale where one has the lightest and most floral flavor and five has the strongest flavor, this one gets a two. But I think I’ll take a couple points off the rating just for not being what I’d call a milk oolong. A very delicious tea! One of the steeps (or all of them) is bound to be something any oolong fan would love.
