676 Tasting Notes
Spring 2020 harvest.
Been a while since I’ve dabbled in yancha. The oily texture and heavy roast usually turns me off but this one has a unique flavor that’s just delightful.
The lovely aroma of roasted peaches and chocolate surprised me. The aromatics resemble a dan cong more than a typical wuyi oolong. I brewed it grandpa style as I usually do with this kind of tea. It has a familiar but gentler taste of wet rocks with floral accents and a fruity finish. Notes of brown sugar and hazelnut. Glides across the tongue smoothly without any ashiness.
A quite refined and elegant yancha with a lot of aromatic complexity and lingering fruitiness.
Flavors: Fruity, Juicy, Peach, Wet Rocks
Picked this up from TJ Maxx as I needed a cheap and convenient bagged jasmine green for homemade taro bubble tea. It certainly served the purpose but I was surprised at how good it tastes on its own. It has a fresh, clean jasmine flavor without the bitterness or weird taste that low grade jasmine tea usually has. You don’t really taste the green tea base but that’s fine by me. I just want the flavor of pure jasmine flowers in my cup.
That said, it’s best to throw out the teabag after a couple of minutes as it infuses quickly and turns astringent if left in the mug. In a side by side tasting, my Yunnan Sourcing jasmine dong ting bi luo chun still blows this way but it’s not really fair to compare it to a loose leaf tea. By bagged tea standards, it’s more than serviceable.
Flavors: Jasmine
Preparation
Finished this one up a couple of months ago. Another very nice Wang family tea that offers a lot of florals that shift and evolve from steep to steep.
The rolled tea leaves are gigantic and dark green in color, emitting an aroma of apple and flowers. Following a rinse, coconut and tropical fruit emerge. The tea begins with creamsicle, flowers, and mineral accents. Lily of the valley and daffodils bloom in the second infusion. This is followed by more floral notes of gardenia, perfume, and a little honey. It begins fading after the 5th infusion but still offers a pleasant syrupy flavor.
I also prepared this by combining / stacking the infusions together. The result was a sweet and rich floral bouquet. Not as thick though and lacks some of the top notes. Nevertheless still full flavored and tasty.
First spring green tea of 2022.
Pale green leaves shorter than a typical dragon well. Matcha like aroma that changes to spinach and chestnut when the leaves are placed in a heated vessel. The brewed tea is nutty with a pronounced roast. Tastes like stir fried vegetables with an astringency that becomes less noticeable the more you sip. Notes of grilled asparagus, green beans, zucchini, straw, and edamame.
Enjoyable tea but not memorable.
Backlog.
This was the second tea from my Wang Family Tea order. A few months ago when I was knee deep in studying, my tea consumption went way up despite having less time for leisurely gongfu sessions. Most of the time, I just wanted to be able to quickly fill up a mug or tumbler. So I resorted to compounding all of my gongfu infusions into one mug. And to my surprise, infusions often tasted better when combined than on their own. Such was the case with this tea. It expressed itself differently depending on how it was steeped yet was delicious no matter what.
I brewed it grandpa style the first time. Upon opening the bag, the tea leaves smelled of buttered flowers. First sip tasted like crisp, clean spring water with a lily floating in it. Reminiscent of baozhong with its lilac and light floral notes but absent the usual body and minerals of gaoshan. Refreshing flavor with a little fruitiness in the finish. After topping off, it had a more body along with sugarcane and vanilla notes.
Next session was normal gongfu where I tasted each steep individually. The leaves, which had been allowed to rest for a couple of days, now emitted a soft tropical aroma. A heady burst of orange blossom, coconut, and mango following a rinse. The flavor of the tea was sweet, juicy, and mineral rich. Full bodied with a bright, minty herbaceous note, and lingering florals.
The best result though came from combining all of the steeps. Using my 65ml mini kyusu, I stacked 4 steeps at a time and was shocked at how intensely fruity it tasted. It felt like a tropical cocktail in tea form. Fresh pineapple juice accented with with lychee and melon. Some top notes disappeared by the time I got to the later infusions but it was very fruity and delicious.
After seeing all of the rave reviews for Wang Family Tea on this site, I finally pulled the trigger and placed an order last November. Picked up 25g each of Gangkou, Lishan, Shan Lin Xi, and Long Feng Xia. I’m happy to report that all of them were outstanding and having experienced these teas, I get the hype for this vendor now.
Gangkou is the first tea I tried and the sole low elevation tea of the bunch. Wang Tea’s website describes it as having five flavors: sour, sweet, salty, bitter, and spicy. Indeed, this was the wildest one of the bunch as the flavors are all over the place. The website recommends a high leaf to water ratio and “heavily boiling water“ to steep. Despite my better judgement I followed their steeping parameters initially.
The dry leaf had aromas of flowers and freshly baked cookies. A rinse brought out cucumber and a little incense. The tea starts off with some strong vegetal notes and slight bitterness but eventually this fades and fruitier apricot and pear notes emerge. The bitterness wasn’t as bad as I feared but I decided to revert to my usual steeping method and kept the temperature below boiling which produced better results. Lowering the temperature and leaf quantity brought out gentle floral notes of jasmine, honeysuckle, and orchid intermingled with some sugar plum fruitiness. Along the way, there were hints of autumn leaves, toffee, spice, and perfume. When steeped grandpa style, it has a richer mouthfeel, mineral notes, and a sweet, lingering wildflower honey flavor.Overall, this was a complex and enjoyable tea although a bit challenging at times due to how unpredictable and inconsistent it is.
How was the Long Feng? I’ve been meaning to get it, but I always pay too much for all their other goodies. I got a bunch of the green Shan Lin Xi Shui Xian (Chefs Kiss) and Jasmine Shan Lin Xi. Their roasts are also incredible too, though I usually move away from roasted teas.
I’m currently drinking the Long Feng Xia. It’s quite good, tropical-floral flavor but less in your face than other gaoshans. I’m enjoying it more than some of the LFXs I’ve had from TTC.
Haven’t tried their roasts yet but plan to next time. I really want to order from them again this spring but unfortunately they don’t have baozhong which is one of my must-haves. I may end up splitting an order between Wang Tea and maybe Floating Leaves for the Baozhong.
I’m having the same kind of issue for the splits I’m looking for. I am desperate for some Lishan Black and tried Green Terrace, but they’re paypal isn’t accepting mine for some reason. No idea why. I’m also interested in some of Wang’s Shan Lin Xi White Tea. They don’t always sell it, but they’ve been really kind to give me some, and now Liquid Proust sells it. Leafhopper has talked a lot about Ethan Kurland on a tea forum that you buy directly from vendors and farmers. I haven’t done that yet, but I know he has some good Baozhong. Trident’s Baozhong is also insanely good.
Green Terrace seems to bd all but closed. Their online inventory hasn’t been updated in a while. I know What-Cha has Lishan black but they’re sold out of it including a lot of other teas I want. Thanks for the tip about Trident, will check them out.
The Lishan Black was a limited summer crop sold later in that year, and there’s no 100% guarantee it will immediately return. I’ve been hoarding it while I can. Their Long Feng and Shan Lin XI are also good, along with their Darjeeling selection.
Surprised to see the low ratings for this tea. I‘m enjoying this one way more than I expected. I’ve tried other green Earl Greys which left me wanting to wash out my mouth with soap. This tea has a bright, invigorating flavor with notes of orange, mint, and cardamom. The green tea base lets the pure bergamot flavoring shine through. My favorite way to steep it is by adding a little bit to spent green tea leaves.
Flavors: Bergamot, Cardamom, Citrus, Herbaceous, Perfume
Purchased this as part of the Adagio Earl Grey sampler set. I’m far from an Earl Grey aficionado but this was easily the best Earl Grey I’ve ever had. A serious step up from my last one which came from Trader Joe’s.
The tea smelled amazing out of the bag. An intense burst of bergamot and malt. I prepared this as an Earl Grey latte, steeping it for 5 minutes using water just under a boil. Then added a little sweetener and frothed oat milk. I was worried that the citrus would be overpowering due to how potent it smelled but the flavor was surprisingly light and on point. Just a hint of orange zest and sweet perfume that accented the black tea base perfectly.
Flavors: Bergamot, Citrus, Orange Zest, Perfume
Yet another stellar roasted Taiwanese oolong from TTC. The light roast on this dong ding strikes the perfect balance between warm notes of candied pecan, cocoa, and toasted almond on one hand and greener floral notes on the other. Very smooth from start to finish without any bitterness. I love roasted teas that don’t actually taste roasty – not an easy feat – but this one manages to pull it off.
I normally steep this grandpa style using 200 F water. Cold brewing brings out brighter, more lively florals and sugarcane.
Another baked high mountain oolong from the backlog.
Out of the bag, mellow aroma of sweet caramel. Steeped grandpa style using 195 F water then topped off twice with boiling water.
This was a very clean and easy to drink tea with a rich honeyed flavor reminiscent of gui fei. Accented with notes of wildflowers and toasted almond. Next time, I’d like to brew it gongfu and see if I can get even more nuance and complexity out of this tea.
