Tea from Taiwan

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Recent Tasting Notes

84

Beautiful fruity high mountain oolong. First steeping gave almost-soapy floral notes, I got hints of peach blossoms and just a touch of citrus leaves. Not as aromatically stunning as the Wu Ling Oolong from Tea from Taiwan, but quite enjoyable nonetheless. The unfurled leaves are very pretty and quite large. The brew is straw colored—darker than the Wu Ling. Three subsequent brewings reveal notes of granny smith apple, honey, and toasted marcona almond. The initial aroma of peach blossoms remains and manifests itself on the palate as well.

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92

Just got my sample packs from Tea From Taiwan. This is the first of the samples I brewed and was very pleased. The dried pellets smell so floral, like a combination of lilac, rose, and jasmine with a hint of vanilla bean and butter. Brewed it western style in a glass tea pot with a glass strainer. Just below boiling water brewed for 2 minutes after an initial rinse. Color is straw-yellow with a hint of green. Aroma is intoxicatingly floral and rich with a hint of butterscotch. Nice sweetness on the palate, thick and heavier than expected. Hints of baked goods, almost bready, buttery-smooth and back end caramel action. The floral aroma really dominates here from beginning to end. A beautiful product.

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24
drank GABA Tea by Tea from Taiwan
411 tasting notes

I wanted to like this tea. I really did. But I didn’t. It was very sweet and very wierd. I can see the honey and soybean that people mentioned before. I kept sniffing and sipping and going “BLEA” and then thinking that it couldn’t be that bad, and trying again. Won’t be getting this one.

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90

This sample has been quite educational, as when I opened the packet it smelled exactly like the DAVIDsTEA milk oolong. And, comparing this flavoured one with the unflavoured ones I can see the difference.

This tastes a bit greener than the DT one, though. It’s really nice. It’s not incredibly milky, more buttery. Very smooth and fresh. Yum!

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70

Seems a bit “richer” than the Tai Xing. Steeps darker. Tastes more savory and floral. Not detecting much butter or milkiness. Very smooth, to me. Cooldown seems a little “starchy” like a white tea. And there’s this almost jasmine-like scent—just a hint.

For me, this is good but somehow “meh” overall? It’s just very very mild.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 5 min, 30 sec

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80

Very light, fresh and slightly buttery. Has a nice chlorophyll-laced buttery scent, too.

Maybe a little but too light for me, but otherwise very refreshing to drink.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 5 min, 30 sec

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90

I was very excited to try this flavored milk oolong. I love milky flavors.

This has a very milky, green, sugary aroma. Like condensed milk over steamed plantain leaves—tropical and humid. Slighty roasty.

The taste is like green and toasty leaves ladeled with diluted cream. There is a definite buttery component—but it doesn’t overpower or seem too unnatural to me. It just seems like a slight enhancement. The creamy, buttery scent is delicious and adds to the experience.

All in all, I really like this tea. From the few oolongs I’ve tried, this seems like a quality oolong too—just a bit butterier. :)

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec
LiberTEAS

I like the word butterier!

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87

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83

My first flavored milk tea, and I must say that I really do enjoy it. I’m not sure if I have a preference for flavored or non-flavored milk tea yet.

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80

Ooh, my little Tea from Taiwan package arrived delightfully quickly! I wanted to try definitely unflavoured milk oolongs and ordered up their sampler. I also threw in a set of samples including this. Advance warning: I don’t know what I’m talking about or what I’m tasting, really. I just like oolong and thought this would be a good place to start learning.

I chose this at random to try first. It’s nice and mild, with a pleasant sweetness. It’s not knocking my socks off, but it’s very enjoyable. I love the scent.

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80

My first milk oolong. I having a hard time tasting the milk aspect of this time. It really comes off as a green oolong to me.

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76

First of all… I think this tea is mis-named. On the package it says “Dong ding ming xiang” but then the Chinese characters are “Dong Ding Mi Xiang” (i.e. 冻顶蜜香 = Frozen summit honey fragrance). I don’t know what this “Ming” is… I’m assuming it’s just a typo.

Anyways, I might change my rating a bit later, but for right now I’m comparing this mostly with the Wu Ling (also by Teas from Taiwan) that I tried just a couple days ago. This one is a bit smokier and less sweet. Around the 3rd or 4th steeping I tasted hints of the same butterscotch-ish flavor, but it wasn’t nearly as pronounced. I liked this tea, but I think it was different from Dong Ding Wulong that I’ve had in the past.

Overall, a nice relatively mild but satisfying balanced tea. It rates below the Wuling, but it is still good!

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 30 sec

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84

I hate an overpowering Wulong more than anything, so the first few seeps were only 30 seconds. The tea came out a nice light yellow color and tastes great. Very subtle toasty flavor but overall very mild and delicious. The flavor of butterscotch came out more strongly throughout the steepings, and I’m now at number 5 or 6. At first I couldn’t place the flavor, but eventually figured it out (I think). I also drank a different Wulong with a friend later, and that only made the sweet butterscotch flavor of this one more obvious!

I bought the sampler, so once I finish all of these wulongs, I’ll adjust my ratings a bit and decide on a favorite

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 30 sec

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93

The Final Sipdown: Day 16
Decupboarding Total: 32

Apparently I needed to catch up on my sleep after this Thanksgiving. I spent most of today napping. Which makes it kind of hard to decupboard teas. Fortunately, I had one more Tea from Taiwan sample, which is good because they can be a single serving pretty easily so I’d still be able to make my quota for today.

The dry leaf of this one smells pretty awesome – fruity and honeyed and kind of sexy, actually. The taste is a little fresher than the smell but it’s still got that rich sweetness about it that makes me roll it around on my tongue. I think this tea is trying to seduce me.

Flavor-wise it really doesn’t strike me as a ‘milk’ oolong (which tend to bring up thoughts of Juicy Fruit gum for me… in a positive way, I promise) but this is still very good. There’s a touch of dryness that sometimes pops up in the middle of my tongue at the end of a sip but it’s just a flash and it’s actually not unpleasant. It gives the tea a bit of a sparkle which it might otherwise lack with the heavier flavors it’s got going on.

It’s heavy, silky, sweet, a little fruity, a little floral, honeyed, creamy but with a dash of fresh crispness that keeps it all from being too heavy. It’s all very attractive and seductive and pretty darn sexy for a tea. I don’t know if a tea can be sexy, but this one seems to manage it.

Honestly, I thought I was going to get through my Tea from Taiwan samplers without finding a ‘must have’ tea. But I think this one just broke that streak.
8g/10oz

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 1 min, 30 sec
Ellen

I felt the pretty much the same about their samples >_<

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78

The Final Sipdown: Day 11
Decupboarding Total: 25

The Final Sipdown will be great for my few remaining Tea from Taiwan samples, of which this is one. I’m not exactly sure why I haven’t tried this in the ages I’ve had it. Typically, I’m a big fan of this type of oolong. And yet this sample has been sitting, lonely, in my pantry. No longer!

The smell and flavor are a bit less intense than I expect from greener oolongs, but that could be due to the length of time it has been in my pantry, vacuum-sealed or not. There seems to be a little spicy bit to the green note. It’s also darker, heavier and a little… roastier? than expected. But there’s also a sweet, light orchid-ish or some other floral note that begins to come across as the tea cools.

This really reminds me of a lighter, greener version of Samovar’s TKY or Chicago Tea Garden’s Zealong Dark. But instead of making it a dark-ish oolong that I like (green oolong fan that I am), it seems a bit indecisive to me. Not a creamy, floral, soft green oolong but not a sweet, honeyed, roasty wonder of dark oolong. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just a hint of confusing.
8g/14oz

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 1 min, 15 sec

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78

It wasn’t great this time, there was hardly any flavor =( I remember really enjoying it! Maybe I didn’t store it well, for a while I just had it in a stapled bag. I guess I’ll have to bump the rating down a bit.

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78

1st Steep – Medium body, hint of spice, crisp, creamy, lemon?, a little bit of astringency in the aftertaste which I hope doesn’t become more defined with more steepings

2nd Steep – A lot more fruity (apples), still smooth overall

3rd Steep – Still holding up!

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 2 min, 15 sec

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79
drank Tai Xing Jin Xuan by Tea from Taiwan
1137 tasting notes

Maybe I’m just used to drinking these Taiwanese oolongs now but I didn’t really get the “milk” flavor this time, or at least more than any of the others I’ve been drinking. I’ll have to try Rui Feng Jin Xuan again but I think that was my favorite of the milk oolongs (though it was also the FIRST of the samples I tried…)

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78
drank Zhu Shan Jin Xuan by Tea from Taiwan
1137 tasting notes

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78
drank Zhu Shan Jin Xuan by Tea from Taiwan
1137 tasting notes

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52

I have to second Ellen’s review. Brewed this up and just didn’t have a taste, smell, or mouthfeel worth mentioning for me. I even tried different temps and times, but was just weak in every sense of the word. It was a depressing day all around for me and fellow progressives since I was watching election coverage. :(

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 min, 0 sec
Ellen

Wow I’m glad I’m not the only one…
Second your feelings about the elections =P

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84

The Final Sipdown: Day 4
Decupboarding Total: 6

Yay! I’m ahead my one-a-day goal. Very exciting! (Well, it is to me. You might be less than thrilled.) I might make two-a-day my new goal. How daring do I feel? Hmmm….

This is a really interesting oolong – sweet and fruity and floral and vegetal. It’s got a note of something that is really unusual – it’s like a combo of kettle corn and stewed apples. I’ve been more daring with water temp on green oolongs (normally I do them at 175° since they seem to be easily ‘cooked’) and this one held up well and gives more sparkle than at 175° so thumbs up.

The second steep (1:30) is more ‘normal’. (In other words, not so strong on the kettle apples.) Nicely sweet on the front end and a flash of astringency at the end. It’s a tasty tea. Tasty, I tell you!
3.2g/6oz

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 1 min, 30 sec
takgoti

Two a day! Two a day!

Auggy

Oh the pressure! Especially since a lot of the samples I have left are fairly large. But I will overcome!

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84

Green, a hint of vegetal, creamy and sweet. The sweetness is more fruit than floral or nectar. Not a lot of dark undertones to this – just light, gentle sweetness and nom.
4.1g/8oz

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 30 sec

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