Back to a nice flowery oolong. I like it when an oolong with a flower in the name is actually scented with those flowers (as opposed to being given that name because the natural characters might evoke that flower) because my expectation of those oolongs is often for a more floral tea than I end up getting. This tea is interesting because of all the myriad of aromas and flavors going on!
When I first smell the dry leaf it has that vegetal, slightly grassy, oolongy, slightly floral aroma that I might expect from any green oolong. What’s crazy is that if I blow into the pouch, the aroma that comes out is roasty toasty grains, though more like toasted rice than a dark oolong. That slowly fades back into the first aroma, and somewhere in the middle of that transition is what the tea actually ends up tasting like. It’s also what the steeped tea smells like: greenish florals (a kind of oolongy florals, not intense like smelling that particular flower) with a warm toasted grains backdrop. This is a green oolong that you can definitely tell is half-oxidized, and the combo of flavors is nicely balanced. The main body of the sip seems to really be the vegetal, not-too-floral green oolong with the toasted background notes. There is some natural sweetness to this oolong, and it swells up at the back of the sip along with more intense florals. Overall this is a very tasty tea, and really not overally floral for a tea that is scented with orchid flowers.
