Gui Fei Oolong

Good Lord! I am kicking myself for not trying this before now! SERIOUSLY!
This oolong is out of this world!
I am on steep three and I am sure I could get at least two more if not more than that.
The leaves still have dryness and tons of aroma!
The cup is still colorful and flavorful!
When I smelled this steeped tea – before even taking the fist sip I knew I was going to be angry for not trying it sooner and I was right!
Peachy yes, woodsy yes, Juicy, apple flavors, almonds, yes its all in there but there is this wonderful mouthfeel that is outstanding – sort of syrupy in a way.
My full review will be on http://sororiteasisters.com/ later this month.

Accidently brewed this one for over 8 minutes, my bad! However, it doesn’t seem to have suffered! It’s just a toasty oolong, with… wow, a super sweet flavour that reminds me strongly of an ice wine I had recently. Like, very strongly of this ice wine. So delicious! Oh man. I’m drinking this one waaaayyyyyy too quickly now. I suspect I won’t get a second infusion this fabulous, but this is absolutely delicious!!

Wow. I can definitely see myself picking this one out again when I’m looking for a darker tea that isn’t a black but has lots of flavour! Too many times I’ve found darker oolongs to either be super finicky, or lacking in flavour. This is neither!

I just realized I’m the first person to review this one?! Seriously!? C’mon, people!

ETA: Second infusion, not sure how long I let this one go, is still pretty tasty, but not nearly as intense in the syrupy ice wine flavour. There’s a bit of astringency, perhaps, coming out (but it may have been a very long infusion, again), but it’s still very delicious, and the aftertaste remains that delicious sweet ice wineyness. Hopefully I’ll get to #3 tomorrow. This tea definitely hit the spot tonight! Exactly what I wanted, apparently!

ETA again: Third infusion, 180F for 5 minutes, is more your generic sort of woody oolong flavour. Nothing wrong with that, and it’s still quite flavourful, but I definitely enjoyed the first two infusions much, much more. I may try for a fourth tomorrow if time permits.

i needed a break from flavoured teas so i pulled out a couple of oolongs that i’d ordered (willingly) from Stacy. This is the first one. Although it’s a darker oolong it has taste that i associate with the oolongs that i don’t like. it’s less present in this tea than in others so i’m not overly frowning but i feel like this could be so much better without taste lol. Still though, not a bad little oolong and i’ll likey do a couple of resteeps just to see if the flavour changes enough for me to really enjoy it.

Thank you Stacy at Butiki for this sample tea!

I didn’t have any tea this morning because I slept in. Luxury!
It’s something I don’t do very often though.

Old
Everyone thinks that one day when they retire, they’ll sleep in every day but it just doesn’t happen that way.
I’ve often wondered how I worked 8 hours a day, managed kids and bills and raking leaves on my own for the 10 years I was a single parent (I worked another 20 years besides that).
I got in a grove for 40 years like a slot car and off I went.

Last night one of my granddaughters said, “When I get to be an old lady, I’m going to have a blast and do all kinds of things with my grand-kids, drink tea like grandma and write music.” That did my heart good. She said that many of her friends say they hate old people.

I’m trying to show how them (and their friends) that getting older can be wonderful.
Most of the people reading these tea reviews (like you) are young. You’re parents or grandparents might be getting older. (Heck, everyone will be old one day.) I’ll tell you this…I’m free to be myself now, more than at any time in my life. Old isn’t bad, it’s a challenge at times and an adjustment. (My peeps landed on the moon, protested for Civil Rights and Woman’s Rights, invented and built the Computer Industry, the Beetles, Rolling Stones, Richard Gere (63) all from oldies. Talk to an oldster sometime. You’d be surprised at what they know.) It’s fantastic in many ways!

Tea Review:

I chose this Butiki sample and was stunned at how wonderful the aroma of the wet leaves were. Savory, roasty and a little floral in a way that matches the best quality Oolongs I’ve tried. Stunning scent…hard for me to pull myself away from the dark moss green leaves.

Taking my first sip I wasn’t disappointed. The roasted flavor was smooth and rich, honey with a little potato mouth-feel thickness.
I remembered that this was the tea made sweet by leaf hoppers chewing on the tea tree leaves forcing the tree to work harder producing new leaves with more sugar in them. (The sweetness was lovely!)

Stacy has noted an apple, raw almond and lightly burned toast flavor…which I thought about for awhile. I could imagine a fragrant yellow apple, home grown…sweet and cold chopped and mixed with a little grilled white pork and sprinkled with some almonds. The meat would have to have some roasty bits from the bottom of the pan.

I get carried away….

Boy this is good tea! An Oolong that doesn’t get astringent, has just enough roasty, floral, fruity flavor too! This is not your average Oolong. It’s substantial!

This Fui Fei Oolong would be a great choice for Fall and Winter.

Superb Tea, right now I just don’t have much to say about it because my mind is preoccupied with other things, I haven’t seen Lance since Thursday when he went into the hospital for hip replacement and worried for my mother.
I will get to see Lance tomorrow(at his moms, where he is recovering) but I stayed home on this hospital visit because I’m just not in a proper emotional state right now and he needed stress free time in the hospital, I’m stressing very badly.
I’m worried for my mother’s brain surgery on Monday to remove a tumor and hope it is a success and if it is then we have to pray that it’s not cancer, Please those of you who pray, Pray for my Mom :)
Its a really good Tea tho I’ll give it a proper review soon just wanted to log it and I guess I wanted to let you guys know what’s happening in my life right now.

Another tasty sample from SIl! Thanks! :)

Naturally honey flavored oolongs are a favorite of mine. This one smells very promising.
Mmm…yes. Honey dipped apples. Specifically, skin on green apples. Barely toasty. Floral sweet, like lychee. This is like a middle ground between green and dark oolongs. I like.

I think all those black teas I’ve been drinking are ruining my taste buds. The lighter teas I used to enjoy are tasting too light! Ack. How do I retrain my taste buds? :(

Whoa!! What is this delicious devil juice?

ETA

I know I should qualify this tasting note, and have been thinking about it, but the thing is I’m not entirely sure what to say, specifically.

When I was drinking it, I was trying really hard to notice all the flavors that supposedly come out to say hello, but as per usual my tastes are just not that refined.

So you might be wondering why I liked it so much. Reason is, it is a straight up tea, but it tastes like a flavored tea. Even though I cannot discern what the flavors are, exactly. I’ve tried a few of those along the way, so my basis for comparison is limited. It reminded me of a more subtle and less roasty version of Laoshan Black, which I realize isn’t the same type of tea at all, but that’s also a straight tea that magically has a bunch of flavour.

It’s sweet and multifaceted and would be a great tea to start the day with.

I would totally order this, so it’s going on my Butiki wishlist.
Steepster, you may just make a refined tea drinker out of me yet!

Thank you to the awesome Sil for sending me this to try. Win!

Can’t type, sniffing.
Can’t type, sipping.
Can’t type, sniffing again.

Edit: I just realized that SOMEONE filled my kettle today with bleachy-tasting tap water. Wow. I am gonna LOVE this tea once I get that cleaned better.

RE-edit: Yup. This was awesome. Drank it like a week ago though. Everything I had hoped and a little more. I really should have taken notes.

Tea of three days ago (actually three and two days ago). I haven’t been posting as much as I would like, been occupied with re-reading the Silmarillion while pinning art from it on Pinterest, because if it’s not Steepster it’s Pinterest. I just got a Verdant order yesterday so there should be more notes here, but I wanted to get around to some of the straight Butiki oolongs I had been so excited to order almost two months ago, but hadn’t gotten around to.

This tea smells sooo amazing, I knew I would love it the moment the vapors reached my nostrils. I’ve had one or two similar smelling teas before a very roasted Tung Ting and Rou Gei, so this felt familiar and at the same time very unique. I brewed it gongfu style and it was perfect for me, but will be sure to try the recommended western brewing parameters. I had a big migraine yesterday and between that and not taking notes this log will have to be brief for now. I remember it being sweet and roasty, woodsy and a tad fruity as well as spicey, but a very sweet spice like cloves, star anise, cinnamon and almonds but with none of those notes dominating. I steeped it for a day and half and the leaves just kept on giving! This should definitely be a staple in my cupboard.

The initial smell left me with some trepidation. I have loved the leafhopper bitten teas up to this point but this smelled just like the oolongs that made me think I didn’t like oolongs. I was pleasantly surprised when I tasted it. Woodsy, vegetal, juicy, I totally get the burnt toast notes but not in a bad way, if that makes any sense.

This is a darker oolong than I am used to trying. For that reason, I am not giving it a rating – no experience with it and while it will all be used eventually and I won’t dislike doing it, neither will it be replaced in my cupboard. :)

Wow, I’m sipping this thinking how unique it is compared to any other oolong I’ve had. Then I went back to Stacy’s comments on the Butiki website and saw that Gui Fei, otherwise known as Honey Oolong, is one of those Taiwanese leaf-hopper teas, just like the Mi Xian black that I like so much. I find it amazing that in nature, an insect nibbling a tea leaf can have such major effects on the flavor and aroma of a tea. Wow. And to think that an earthquake in 1999, causing neglect of tea farms and lack of pesticides and fertilizers, resulted in some great tea discoveries. I got 3 steeps brewed according to package instructions. The fragrance is very appealing, but I’m not sure how to describe it. An incredibly smooth cup with complex honey sweet flavor. Nantou County, Taiwan, is producing some mighty fine tea!

Woot, I won first place in the Butiki unflavored tea giveaway! Drinking my winnings away now starting with Gui Fei Oolong!
I’m sipping tea, listening to the new Devin Townsend Epicloud album and working on the knitted shawl of dooom! 12 rows left (that are 300+ stitches long with beading)! Nice and relaxing!

DRY: Kinda floral, sweet, and fruity.

STEEPED: Oolongy nutty woody and lots of other smells. Pretty complex.
I did the recommended 4 minute steep for my first steeping.

TASTE: I can pick out a great nuttyness, subtly sweet honey and a roasty taste almost. The honey note sits on my tongue, yum! No astringency or bitterness.

Second steep I did for 8 minutes at 175f, and it was much sweeter and fruity! Amazing! A slight slight astringency is starting to peek out, but no bitterness still. I could drink this steeping all day! Next time I’ll do the first steeping at 8 minutes.

COMMENTS: mmmm very tasty! I chose this tea because Kittena did a long steep saying it tasted like ice wine. MMm ice wine! Reading the description of this tea… “green leafhoppers are allowed to bite the tea leaves..” OMG bugs ate this tea?? I wonder how they rigged it so the bugs didn’t eat all the tea? I know if my bunny ate part of anything he’d leave broccoli and fur notes instead of honey notes!

Wow, this is an amazing oolong! I’m so thrilled I ordered this.

Again, tonight, I wasn’t quite in the right mood for oolong, but the first sip of this quickly changed that. I haven’t had too many oolongs to date but this one is unlike any of the ones I’ve tried. They’ve all been great, but there’s something different about this one that makes it special. I’m on my first steep and I’m excited to see what subsequent steeps will bring.

I’m not sure what to think about this. It was good to try, but not necessarily my cup of tea. I’m just not that big on unflavored oolongs right now. Something I think I’ll eventually grow into a bit more, but not right now.

I taste citrus and maybe some nuttiness…I think. And it’s green tasting, which isn’t something I care for much in my tea. Might be why I’m not enjoying it as much as the other reviewers here did.
I need a list of flavors/tastes/etc when I drink unflavored tea. Might help my ineloquence when writing these things. XD

I’m gonna hold off rating it ‘cause it’s not exactly fair when it’s my taste that’s wrong, not the tea. Lol! I’ll probly keep a cup or two’s worth around to try again later when I’m a bit better at tasting nuances and the like. But this one’s mostly gonna go in my swap pile.

I’m having a blast trying the different oolongs that I ordered from Butiki. This is good stuff. It’s complex. Lots of flavors going on here. I definitely get the burnt toast flavor, which I love. I also taste a nutty flavor. Really good stuff!

I love this one iced. It has that deliciously strong “tea” taste with a toasty lingering, and with the natural sweetness I only ever feel the need to a small bit of honey to it. Definitely my favorite of all the iced tea experiments I’ve been conducting over the past few days! And I am glad to find an oolong I like iced, since it’ll be nice to get a resteeping or two out of it.

Wonderful oolong with lingering flavor. This is an incredibly interesting, and perplexing tea given it’s description. I was expecting something like a traditional roast Dong Ding, but it is in fact a lot more like a Dan Cong in flavor. Wonderful sweet apple and honey fragrance with a hint of something floral in the first steeping. Later steepings give some more astringency and actually are better with a shorter steeping. Oddly, you get more of the roasted notes in later steepings. Because of the roast and the lingering aftertaste, I’d immagine this one would be a good candidate for aging as well.

Wow what an interesting tea! This is the first tea I am trying from the orders I received today from Butiki Teas and Tea Trekker.

This is the first time I have tried a tea that really does not taste at all like what I’ve always known as tea. (And I have had lots of blacks, greens, and oolongs before.) It was such an unusual flavor that I was really surprised. If I had to pinpoint it, I’d say it was much closer to the flavor of a sweet white wine than tea.

I did 2 infusions of 1 1/2 tsp in 12oz water. Followed Butiki’s steeping suggestions. 2nd infusion had more flavor than the first.

I am now even more excited to try all the other teas I got. If tea of this caliber can be so unique, then I am in for quite a variety.