Milk Oolong

Thank you so so so much again to Will Work For Tea for this wonderful surprise!

What I really wanted to do this morning was go swimming, but of course it started raining around 7am and not this afternoon as advertised. Even if it wasn’t raining I’m not exactly in a good mood given the whole movie theatre shooting and the dumb things people have to say. (Like seriously you can cool it on worrying you’re going to see a spoiler somewhere on the internet, people.)

So oolong time it is.
On the first steep alone this tea tastes worth its price. And the first steep isn’t even the best one when it comes to milk oolongs. Woooow. Condensed milk candy, that is the only way to describe it. Creamy, buttery, just a slight touch of the green taste of the oolong. Wow. It even leaves that feeling on your tongue that cream generally leaves. Normally I HATE that feeling but with this tea, oooh yes, do like.

Second steep is butter butter butter. Smooth and creamy and buttery.

I oolong’d myself out after the third steep, which had a bit of a spice to it compared to the others. I’d keep going with these leaves but man this tea is so rich and intoxicating, I don’t want to take another 90 minute nap.

This is going on my “if you love me and want to buy me a present” list. It’ll just be this tea on the list. I have enough to steep it again using my gaiwan and I will be holding off on that for another rainy day. This stuff is ridiculous. When I get my first real job next year, I’m buying myself 2 ounces as a self congratulatory gift.

A few years ago, when I first got bitten by the tea bug, I purchased a few oolongs from LifeinTeacup. They were so good that I fell in love with the light oolongs.
But somehow I let the whole oolong range fall to the side this past year. Maybe it’s the few less remarkable oolongs that I subsequently purchased from other vendors or maybe it’s the chinese black tea kick I’ve been on this past year. At any rate, I forgot how much I love a good oolong, how light and sweet they are, how refreshing.

Then this tea came along and reminded of me of all that I love in an oolong. I ordered it because of all the great reviews. It did not disappont!

I don’t really get the milky aspect, but that might be because my oolong tasting skills are a bit rusty. Either way, this tea is delightful. Buttery and vegetal.

The first infusion disappeared way too fast. I think I need another.
What a treat!

My first milk oolong and one of my favorites. A subtle taste of sweetened condensed milk matched w/creamy oolong. I have heard about some milk oolongs that are adulterated. I have no clue if this one is – hard to believe that this is natural? But regardless, a great tea.

This was a great Milk Oolong to experience as my first milk oolong. The leaves are so dark and tightly rolled, the aroma is very sweet and creamy. The leaves brewed up a nice pale yellow with an exquisite taste. I love how creamy this is. I didn’t think I enjoyed it much at first, but then the sweet, almost peachy taste hits my tongue and I NEED more. This was a great way to start my day this morning.

I enjoyed the rich sweetness of the first steep more than the milky creamy second steep. Thank you LauraR for the opportunity to try this tea! I can see it becoming a favorite!

Let me just first say that this is a tea unlike any other I’ve ever tried, and I have QuiltGuppy to thank! I’ve always been a bit curious about milk oolongs, but I’ve never tried one before. The smell of the dried leaves when I opened the package was amazing… definitely milky (sweet, like a condensed milk), but also with a floral fruitiness.

After a light brew, the liquor is only a pale yellow, but the aroma is full bodied and strong. Here the notes are primarily floral, vegetal, a bit ‘bready’. The milk aroma is still there but a bit muted. I never expected to be this blown away by this tea, but it’s true! It’s so delicious. Sweet, creamy, buttery peaches, like the most delicous fresh peach cobbler with cream. That’s what this tea is recalling. I don’t even love peach cobbler all that much, but I would love one that tasted like this. All the elements are there: fresh, floral peach, right off the tree, both very sweet and slightly tart; buttery crust, and breadiness from the oolong; bubbling caramelized sugar; smooth, rich, sweet cream. Definitely a major yum.

Thank you so much QuiltGuppy for sending me this sample! I have a whole new kind of tea to explore and love!

Tea of the afternoon……

And day #3 of 24. This came from QuiltGuppy. I am trying to branch out into oolongs and greens as I am normally a die-hard black tea drinker, and she was gracious enough to send me a generous sample of this tea in a swap. Thank you, QG!

This is surprising. I get a light floral, creamy aroma. It kind of smells like butter. And the taste is also kind of creamy and buttery. The liquor has a thick taste….thicker than just water for sure. Very pleasant and refreshing. I can drink this one straight up….no additions.

15 oz mug, 185 water, 2 1/2 tsp tea, 3 minutes.

(I am holding off on a rating as I am certainly no oolong expert……)

This is a delayed note, I sampled this about a week ago. The memory of it is still in my mind, the taste and aroma haunt me many days later. This was a special gift from my Second Steep Book Club cohort QuiltGuppy, and I have been saving it for weeks until I had a proper gaiwan to steep it in. I love caramel, and this tea gave me much pleasure with it’s creamy feel, and milky, smooth taste. I can understand now, as this is my first Milk Oolong, why it is so highly prized. I burned my fingers slightly using the gaiwan the first time, but after 6 steeps, I had the hang of it. 6 steeps, each a little different, but still so incredibly good. I loved every drop and when it was gone, the experience recalled a rare aged port I had the honor to try at the Ritz Carlton years ago…incredible. THANK YOU QG!

I’m excited to be trying this sample that I purchased from American Tea Room, which offers nicely priced small samplers so that one need not dive deeply into the unknown and the pocketbook.

The aroma of the dry leaf is hard to pin down—floral and sweet is about as far as I can say. The brewed tea is a nice yellow. The taste is naturally creamy and sweet (I added no milk or sweetenter, by the way). This has more vegetal overtones than other oolongs I have sampled, but they are nuanced. In a blind tasting I might say that this is a green tea.

Overall, I anticipate extra steepings. There’s something I cannot quite capture here, but it is something amiable.

I bought this one almost a year ago when I first started getting into tea because it was super highly reviewed over on Teaviews and someone called it like a “condensed milk” oolong. Well I had no idea what that meant and made some expecting something VERY different and was highly disappointed. After that I steered clear of oolongs.

I decided to revisit this tea now that I know a little more about tea and my expectations were much more in line.

I’m really glad I did. This tea is crazy good. I’m not going to get into my steeping play by play, but each additional one (4 in total) yielded a super buttery, creamy, almost roasty, treat. I would compare the butter flavor to that of snyder’s butter pretzels. And that’s a good thing. I could drink this all day. Especially when I’m craving a butter. The price tag is a bit stiff, but considering how much tea you get out of one or two teaspoons, it’s worth it (I tell myself….)

Anyway, yum.

This is one of the samples from Quiltguppy that I was most eager to try. I had never heard anything called a milk oolong until not long ago and I was curious about them, especially since hubby just gave me a tetsubin and warmer last week! I researched milk oolongs a bit so I would be ready to try this.

The leaves have a very nice scent and if you can tell by looking, I would say they look like a high quality leaf. I am just getting to know oolongs gradually so bear with me!

The aroma of the freshly brewed tea is lightly floral, just right for me. It is a very natural floral scent, not a scented tea type of scent. There is a definite creaminess or milkiness to the tea texture and taste-wise. I can see how it got its name! Unfortunately, i just brushed my teeth anticipating the arrival of my student, and it is interfering with my ability to fully taste this. Swishing it, I get a lightly buttery, slightly nutty flavor. YUM! I am glad I have a whole pot to sip on through the evening. Thank you, Quiltguppy for this lovely tea experience!

Now, does anyone know how to make sliders behave on an iPad?

Wow. This is fabulous. I am in love with this tea. It is SO tasty!
It’s creamy with a touch of peach like sweetness and behind that, a hint of tartness the way a peach would deliver. It has a very refreshing finish, which I did not find in the Tea Lux sample.
This is complex and stands alone without any sugar added… it has all the things I love in a tea!!
My only woe is that it irritates my throat a bit, but not nearly as much as some greens or whites do every now and then so I really don’t mind.
Thankyou QuiltGuppy, you are my tea hero!!
I wonder what the second steep will be like…

My cousin gave me sample of this tea and I’m pretty happy with it. It’s a very sweet smelling tea that has a buttery taste and a subtle sweetness to it. I did three steepings of this tea and by the third, the tea definitely transformed so it lingers on my tongue longer. I need to buy some more…

I can’t believe I’m almost done with my 3.5 oz of this!! I just got it a couple days ago! It’s almost addicting. :)

It’s true, though. This tea is very good. And I feel really good while drinking it.

It’s very milky tasting, soothing and smooth. And there’s this intriguingly rich, round, buttery-green leaf flavor in the background.

I’m getting more milk than cream or candy. Steamed whole milk that’s almost silky tasting. Underlaid with something very “green” and crisp. Like butter-laced chlorophyll.

This is yummy and refreshing—not “heavy” feeling at all. Perfect for this sweltering, summer day. Perfect for any day actually.

I would have loved to have detected more “sugary”, condensed milk-like flavors (like White Rabbit candy in other reviews) but as it is, it’s delicious. I like it a lot.

This tea will be a staple in my cupboard.

I think this must have come to me from QuiltGuppy. Not that I can remember for certain, but it was in one of those little pouches that I asked her to get a package of for me.

I’ve had one milk oolong before, from Nothing But Tea, and I was a bit torn about it. I liked the flavour but I thought it smelled like heated dairy. This one has a bit of that as well, but not the cloyingly sweet hot yoghurt that I remember from the other one. There’s more tea coming through here. Sweet and green. This pleases me.

The flavour is… thick. So so thick and almost creamy. It tastes exactly like it smells. A bit like warm dairy but also very clearly of a green oolong. It’s slightly nutty at the beginning of the sip and then the milky bits just take over, almost to the point of covering all other flavours. And the weird thing about that is that it’s more a feeling, not really a taste of anything. It’s like trying to taste something through a soft duvet. At the end of the sip I get an apple-y aftertaste, but it’s not super strong and doesn’t seem to want to show up on all sips. Just here and there.

It’s very nice. I think I prefer it non-milked, though.

I received a one-shot sample of this from a Twitter friends. I was very curious about it after a couple of false alarms on my Milk Oolong search. Sure, the others had some detectable creaminess to them but nothing awe-inspiring. This smelled like buttered popcorn right from the get-go on dry leaf alone. After the brew-up, that feeling still stayed. I wouldn’t have thought that I’d like a “butter” taste to my tea (aside from a slight buttery-floral note), but I was wrong. I welcomed the cornucopia of creaminess. A surprisingly and superior cup.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2010/11/21/review-american-tea-room-milk-oolong-2/

Dry aroma: Movie buttered popcorn, Ti Kuan Yin smell, (a hint of spearmint? Maybe that’s from being next to a bag of Grasshopper for day….), black pepper, butter, milk chocolate, burnt popcorn, genmaicha
The movie butter is only in the aroma. The first sip is swoon worthy splash of real sweet butter and other people are wrong here-milk. Hemp milk specifically. Ooh, I love hemp milk.
I let it cool quite a bit before drinking so it felt thin and hydrating, a lot like hemp milk that hadn’t been shaken in a while .After the first sip the butter mellows a bit to silky smooth vanilla, and tones of other planter variety orchids. This makes extremely happy as I planned on painting some orchids tomorrow. I’ll have to keep the bag by my desk for good luck, eh? ;)
Ooh, I can’t wait to try the second steep later.

Best. Oolong. Ever! Another day making sample from the generous Meghann M who saw this on my shopping list and sent it. Miles de gracias.

Lovely. I savoured this tea as my second milk oolong. The scent was heady, milky and rich. I’m still amazed that a tea plant can produce this. First infusion was highly aromatic, and lightly flavoured of creamy milk, sweet vanilla, and a subtle floral. My son, who was tasting this with me, giggled and exclaimed “Wow.” From the 17 year old 6 foot giant, it was a great reaction.

Second infusion and the scent is still coming on strong. The liquor is richer, and the feel on my tongue is heavy, like a light syrup and not a tea.

Third infusion and the floral is coming out more, the cream is subsiding in taste (but not scent, it continues to dominate the scent profile of this tea).

Heaven. This is wonderful complex tea to be savored thoughtfully. Better than dessert!

I’m graduating in a few weeks so I thought it was due time to visit the American Tea Room in next-door Beverly Hills. I got the Afternoon Tea service and ordered a pot of milk oolong without hesitation. I’ve been dying to try a cup of this since reading about it on the Steepster discussion boards.

My thoughts? Delicious and smooth. I’ve only tried the Jin Xuan tea sampler from Tea from Taiwan, so my milk oolong palate is still developing. But this was so good that I paid the $16 to take an ounce of it home. (An impulse purchase on a poor college budget). Hopefully I’ll be able to brew it just as well at home.

I’d been wanting to try this tea for some time, but couldn’t justify paying $39 for two ounces of tea that I might or might not like. Then ATR posted a discount code, which allowed me to justify placing an order.

Secretly, I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t like it. Well, my hopes have been shattered, because this tea is amazing. It doesn’t smell all that promising in the bag — but once brewed, it becomes a creamy, milky, sweet delight. I added just a small amount of stevia and it became so sweet and delicious it was like dessert in a cup (although sweet, it is not cloying or heavy, or at all artificial tasting). The green oolong flavor is there as well, but this tea is lacking the floral notes I would expect from an Iron Goddess tea. That’s fine with me, because I don’t like those floral notes. I would not refer to this tea as buttery, but it is mildly vegetal. And it tastes great at any temperature. Even when the tea has cooled to room temp, it still tastes delightful. So pleasing, so creamy, so smooth.

Sigh. I’ve fallen in love with another expensive tea. I guess I’ll have to wait for the next discount code from American Tea Room.

This is definitely not what I expected =O It is WAY more flavored than I thought it’d be!!! It’s so crazy.. I thought it’d be like a Taiwanese oolong that was just slightly more creamy. This smells exactly like buttered popcorn. This is a real treat for anyone who likes tea, but I’m not sure I will buy more in the future due to the price.