Anxi Benshan Oolong

A simple nutty oolong, almost cruncy. I like to oversteep it.

This was the 3rd steeping on these leaves. I let it brew 10 minutes (compared to 3 min for the first pass) so I’ll be discarding the leaves after this. This is a full-leaf tea, like most of the better oolongs, in my experience. The tea is pale greenish gold in my glass mug, neither too grassy-tasting nor astringent. Not as flowery as some oolongs, but mellow vegetal aroma is quite enjoyable.

Another one to finish from Ost, thank you! This is a lovely oolong! The leaves look darker and there are hints of roastiness… and PEACH. Love when I find a peach oolong. The color of the cup almost looks like peach too. Peaches and cream deliciousness in the first steep! The second steep had more of a roasted flavor, which I don’t love as much. The third steep has even less flavor, which is a shame. I’d love the peaches and cream steep back!
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 10 minutes after boiling // 1 minute steep
Steep #2 // few minutes after boiling // 1 minute steep
Steep #3 // 10 minutes after boiling // 2-3 min steep

I got this one as a free sample and one of my first from Enjoying Tea. It’s very similar to Tie Guan Yin, but not nearly as flavorful. This one is more vegetal than floral, and it’s pretty solid, but I personally wouldn’t buy it again.

This one was quite far from what I expected, to be honest. xD
Don’t really think I like it actually, but it’s not horrible. Might just pass the sample along to someone else.
Since the steeping aroma was so roasty, I figured that’s how it would taste too.
I was wrong.
Well, partially.
The first thing I tasted was a roasted oolong, but then came an orchid flavor-almost floral even. And the aftertaste was even weirder!
It’s like at the end of the sip the roasty notes go away and are replaced by fruity, sweet notes. It’s very odd.
I don’t really understand this tea to be honest! It’s not something I’d drink again, but it’s definitely interesting…
Think I’m gonna have to pass this sample along to someone else. Thank you for letting me try this, Mandy!:D

First thing’s first. This tea has a nice smell and taste, very sweet and with a lightly roasted taste. I’m definitely getting something fruity, nectar-like, and like a sweet and mild floral… like orchids.

On a second steeping, the toasty flavors emerge even more, and so does the sweetness. There’s an almost berry-like fruitiness and the toasted flavor and sweetness blend exceptionally well together with it. I’m really enjoying this! It is very complex in its flavor. There’s a subtle floral and a creamy finish resulting in a lasting flavor that reminds me of soy milk or a malted milk shake.

Third steeping brings out even more of the mellow creamy, roasty, malty, subtly fruit-and-floral sweetness. I am not going to try to do it justice with words. This is just wonderful.

This is truly a comfort tea. The lightly roasted flavor is very relaxing and very well balances with the other flavors. The flavor is long-lasting and stays in your mouth for quite a while. Everything about the aroma and flavor is gentle. I really recommend this!

Update

I have found myself perpetually lowering the score of this tea the more I try it and the more I try other teas in the same category. It simply isn’t the best quality. The leaves unfurl way more quickly and are easy to overbrew because of that. The taste can be rather tart at times. I don’t know how I went from loving this tea to not caring for it, but it has happened slowly over time. It just doesn’t hit me like it used to.

I bought a couple of the cute sherapop-sized yixing clay pots from Enjoying Tea. I have not quite graduated to the “brew a gulp” or “brew a sip” culture, so 11 ounces is definitely okay with me!

Along with the pots, the company included an array of samples, including this Anxi Benshan Oolong, in adorable little tins which look to hold about an ounce. Very generous provision of tea to those who purchase the already wildly inexpensive pots.

So the tea. It’s toasty, definitely more oxidized than the green spectrum oolongs I’ve been trying of late. This variety is also less creamy and sweet than milk oolong and its close neighbors. The flavor is much closer to that of my old concept of oolong, derived from middling filter bags years ago. However, I feel that the quality is better. It seems like that same mid-range level of oxidation, but perhaps because it involves leaves rather than dust it tastes much better and does not seem to be making me feel queasy. I wonder whether my body just dislikes half measures. I say this because I also dislike light-roasted coffee, which sometimes induces a gag reflex in me.

Back to tea. My preference appears to be with the greener oolongs, although I did enjoy a near-black oolong the other day, and I recently learned that darjeeling, which I like a lot, is really oolong disguised as black tea! (Thanks to boychik for confirming what I suspected all along: that darjeeling was only posing as a black tea…)

I have already consumed the second infusion of this Anxi Benshan Oolong, which was about the same as the first. I think that this tea is perfectly fine, not compelling enough for me to seek out a larger supply, but I’ll certainly empty this tin.

third infusion: this ended up being the best of them all. The liquor was fairly bright gold but still with a tiny tinge of green.

I’ve been drinking off of this one all day. I think I got 4 or 5 steeps out of it, with the last one being a little weak, plus another short steep that I poured on my yixing teapot to feed her (that’s what you’re supposed to do right?).
First of, the smell of this one reminds me of pine nuts for some reason, (I don’t even know if I know what pine nuts smell like) probably because of the vegetal and nutty aromas mixing together.
This is a nice smooth sort of buttery tea, with a nice mix of nutty and vegetal, two of my favorite notes in a tea. This is lightly sweet and nutty in the first few steeps, with the vegetal and sort of metallic taste coming out more in the later steeps. This tea is also sort of bright or crisp, its a really refreshing tea. Another tea that I didn’t end up sweetening!

Thanks, EnjoyingTea, for the free sample. This came in the cutest wee li’l tea tin. And I greatly appreciated the amount of free tea stuffed into it. I imagine I can get at least 10 cups in if I’m careful.

This is delicious. The leaves smell nice, a fresh almost-nutty scent. I steeped a tiny scoop of this and left it in for a while. The flavor is nice and strong. Distinctively “oolong” but without any fruity aftertaste like some others have. Instead, it tastes almost-smoky and just toys with turning bitter but never does. YUM.

Very grassy/earthy tasting, which I enjoy. Great price. I have served this oolong to company who enjoyed it quite a bit. This one is a keeper, but I would like to try a flowery more expensive oolong at some point.