I recently received another round of free samples from Teavivre… Angel Chen and the folks at Teavivre are really too generous! And with such great tea. Anyway I’ve had their unflavored Jin Xuan before and loved it, but I was wondering how this one would taste. It’s not often a tea company specifies about milk oolong flavoring, and I am excited to try this one.
In the pouch the dry leaf smells incredibly milky, buttery, a bit fruity, as expected. Even milk oolongs that brew up pretty un-milky start out smelling milky, but this one is more amped up than usual. The steeped tea smells more floral, almost magnolia-ish, with a nice sweet creamy background note. If I smell really deeply I get a cooked-greens note in the lingering about as well. It doesn’t have a really rich baked-buttery aroma to it, it’s a bit fresher scented.
Early sips of this yield a nicely sweet-cream, slightly peachy flavor. You know, for all the flavoring it’s pretty light, and it tastes much like some of the other milk oolongs I’ve tried in the past. It’s pretty tasty, but I’m also pretty sure I prefer their unflavored variety. I will have to try that one again now (I still have some sample packs left from my sample of it) to compare because I am curious. I can’t say exactly why except this one seems less creamy which is surprising because it’s the flavored one! But it just kind of seems like the creaminess is on the surface, not melding with the flavor of the tea itself. I’m unsure because it’s been a while since I’ve had the unflavored.
Thanks so much for the opporunity to try this one, Angel and Teavivre!
