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Honestly, it’s hard to tell that this is an Oolong. This is a very light roast, an you can tell immediately just by looking at the leaves. The tightly rolled leaves are green, and smell strongly of lilac, completely lacking the usual roasted smell of Oolongs. Of course, my experience is mostly with Wuyi oolongs, that that might not be a fair comparison.

Anyway, the first infusion was interesting. The tea was very much like a green tea, with very strong vegetative notes and a flowery aftertaste. I was a bit surprised by the astringency that was present, but that disappeared after the first infusion. The aroma of the tea is something between an orchid and lilac, and is very pleasing. Later infusions become sweeter, and the flavors mellow nicely, but I only got six infusions out of the tea. Regardless, The tea did improve, peaked with the third infusion, and then mellowed until it was lightly-scented water with a bit of flavoring.

The bottom line about this tea is that it is light, flowery, and a rather pleasant tea that I look forward to enjoying again.

I had a final today, so I needed a dark, highly-caffeinated tea to start my day. Once again, this is a nice dark roast, with a very Wuyi-esque flavor (but without the legendary Wuyi aftertaste, which, as always, makes me a bit disappointed.). Unfortunately, the tea felt a bit…flat today, but that might be because I am still unable to smell anything, and smell greatly affects taste. Regardless, I’m sitting here writing this at 8:45 pm, after 5 cups, and the leaves are still capable of more. The tea is starting to get a bit sweeter, but that is actually rather nice, and I’m once again glad that I have a whole lot of tea.

Too tired to do a good review (local time is 12:39 am), but the tea was great, was just as good as I remember it. Got a lot of infusions out of it, and the way the taste changed throughout the steepings was interesting and delicious. Got sweeter during the last two infusions, which was interesting and refreshing when compared to many green teas I’ve had. Hopefully I won’t be too busy tomorrow, and me review will actually be substantive.

Once again, this was a rather pleasant tea. I accidentally over steeped the first infusion, which resulted in more bitterness than usual, and it was harder to taste the grassiness, which was kind of weird as the grassiness is usually the source of bitterness in green teas. I wonder if that was because of how careful I was with respect to water temperature, or because of the inconsistent water quality in my dorm (which, for the record, was exceptional today). Regardless, the only downside to this tea is that I only got 4 infusions out of it.

I just got this in the mail today, and was eager to try it out. After five cups of Oolong, the sun set and it got cold, so I figured this would be a great way to warm up! As a side benefit, I’ve never gotten more than 4 good cups out of Genmaicha (emphasis on good).

This tea had all of the typical things: The toasted rice taste, the pleasant aroma (which was strong enough that I could actually smell it though my congestion). The only problem was, it was by no means unique. There was nothing to make this stand out, and the flavor wasn’t exactly strong. The first infusion I made was accidentally steeped for minutes, and yet, I wouldn’t consider it to be over steeped. I think that this is a good tea for a beginner, as further experimentation proved that it was remarkably forgiving with respect to steep length and temperature, but it isn’t a flavorful tea by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll probably keep some on hand until I find something better, but make no mistake, if something better appear at a reasonable price, I’ll snap it up.

Usually I start off a review of Qi Lan by commenting on the wonderful aroma. Unfortunately, I am still congested, so this is an exercise in futility. Regardless of my inability to smell anything, this was a very nice session with this tea. The lightly-roasted flavors were interesting, and were nicely complemented by the light honey flavors. One thing that was a bit odd was that the aftertaste was very muted, and the distinct mineral taste of a Wuyi Oolong was very hard to detect. The other strange thing is that I remember the tea having more complex flavors, but they are absent. I suspect that this is due to my congestion, as it is a well documented fact that smell greatly affects taste.

I had the flu for the first half of this week, and didn’t feel like I would be able to keep any tea I made in my stomach long enough to really enjoy it, so I had to abstain until today. I decided to start off rather light, and made some nice jasmine tea. Sadly, I am a bit congested at the moment, so the aroma is extremely muted, but this tea held a few surprises for me.

It was interesting, because the taste of the tea was sweeter and more flowery than I remember. This might be because I took the water off when bubbles where just beginning to form at the bottom of my kettle, as opposed to boiling the water and letting it sit for a while. Another interesting surprise was there was an after taste now, where a “flowery” taste lingers at the back of the throat, and gradually disappears. I’ve never experienced this before, so it was a rather interesting and relaxing experience.

when it’s all said and done, I was rather surprised by how well is turned out, especially after having to suffer through caffeine withdrawal on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also, because of how well this tea turned out, I might start drinking it more often.