Ti Quan Yin (Spring Floral)

This is a sample sent to me by Russell Allyn of Harney and Sons.

The aroma of the dry leaf is absolutely intoxicating. When I opened the pouch and sniffed I could hardly believe it, and every time I put the pouch down I found myself very shortly picking it up again to sniff it some more. I did a 15 second wash of the leaves, then poured near boiling water over for four minutes.

The liquor is light to medium gold. I was halfway expecting this to be one of the roasty ones, but it isn’t. This is green and floral, but not sissy. It has a lot of presence. It is smooth and not astringent, yet it grabs your tongue with a woodsy flavor and leaves a bit of tingle while a floral note begins to hover in the back of the mouth. The floral note persists, filling the area of the soft palate. Then it travels to the upper throat and hovers there, sweetening your whole world. This is one of those teas that “quiets the din of the world.” It isn’t terribly buttery, terribly green, overly sweet, it is simply a TQY with a lot of presence and character and a great price.

The second steep is even better as the sweet taste intensifies.

Edited to add: It has been about fifteen minutes since I finished my tea and as I am sipping my water, the floral taste of the TQY is still going strong. I feel like I am drinking flavored water! Very pleasant, indeed.

Thank you, Russel, for sending this!

This is my last Harney and Sons sample that Russel, from Harney and Sons, had sent me. I must say that this is my favorite! This is my first experience with drinking Oolong, but I doubt that it will be my last.
I brewed the Ti Quan Yin to 195 degrees fahrenheit. These tea leaves were neatly rolled up into tiny balls. I was amazed at how much they expanded after the leaves were steeped.
I steeped it for approximately four minutes. The aroma has a lovely floral scent. The liquor was a light yellow/gold to a medium gold. The taste was a fresh taste that reminds me of green tea with a floral taste that isn’t overpowering. I also tasted a slight vegetal flavor but there is a sweetness that balances it out. This was a smooth cup that I really enjoyed. I would recommend it.

I would like to thank Russel from Harney and Sons for sending me this sample. I really appreciate it!

I enjoyed 3 steeps of this yesterday. It’s a little floral, but not as strongly floral as I was expecting, given the name. I got mostly a fresh, crisp, veggie taste for all three steeps. Much different than the buttery, creamy oolongs I’ve had. It brewed into a really pretty yellow color. Not bad, but probably not one I’d seek out. I think I prefer my oolongs to be buttery! ;)

This is a lovely green oolong. I like my teas nice and light with a floral taste to them and this is one. The little green balls expand so much into large whole leaves, I’m always amazed by this and enjoy watching it. Dry, it has a lovely floral smell without it being overpowering like a jasmine tea can be. Wet, it retains that floral scent to it but there is a slight vegetal-butteriness to it. The taste is nice and light and fresh and again very floral. In the aftertaste I get a bit of the vegetal-butteriness. After the third steep the mouth-feel became a little too much for me, almost cloying, and I decided to take a break from it. The butteriness stayed in the back of my throat after the third steep for a decent amount of time, I’d say a solid half hour. This is a nice light, floral tea that can be re-steeped many times that I really enjoy. It is beautiful to watch steep, it is beautiful to smell (both dry and wet), and it is lovely to taste. Truly a wonderful tea.

After trying and reviewing H&S’s Top Ti Kuan Yin, I decided to try their other TKY offering. I wasn’t expecting much but honestly I was surprised.

I opened the tin and took out a few leaves for inspection. The dry leaf is made up of tiny tightly curled up balls with a rich bright green color, very pleasing to the eye. They are very aromatic with even a single leaf giving out a gentle floral fragrance.

Surprisingly this tea did come with instructions on the side of the tin, but it asked for boiling water. I usually don’t prepare TKY’s using water that hot, so I double checked the brewing instructions in their website, and surprise, they were a lot more detailed. So I prepared this tea following those instructions using 205F water, 4-5 min steep time and a gaiwan. As with my other TKY’s I re-brewed this 7 times.

The resulting brew gave me a clear bright green cup with a very nice floral aroma. The taste was a combination of subtle fruity and floral flavors with a refreshing floral aftertaste. The second cup remained mostly the same in terms of fragrance, but the taste became much more floral with a more pronounced “fresh” aftertaste, almost minty. In the third cup, it became less aromatic but retained most of its flavor and aftertaste qualities. Fourth cup, aroma is now very faint, taste remains consistent but the aftertaste is now gone. In the fifth cup, the tea began tasting slightly “green” with a slightly smooth texture. The sixth cup retained that hint of smoothness and was still slightly floral. The seventh cup was just a hint of the floral flavor with the green taste but still, I found it quite enjoyable.

The wet leaf was very well preserved, mostly small to medium sized leaves, few broken pieces, and no stems in about a teaspoon of tea that I used.

Overall, I enjoyed this tea a lot, it is everything Harney & Son’s describes it to be. It surprised me that it was able to make it up to the 7th cup and still deliver some flavor. This tea is perhaps the best TKY I’ve had in this price range. It is floral, has a great taste, very fragrant, and while not as complex as other high end Ti Kuan Yins, it at least adds a level of complexity to your drink that others simply do not have. At about $4 an ounce, this has to be the perfect everyday TKY.

Wow. This is on the light side of the oolong spectrum. In fact, I bet I would call it a green tea if I tasted it blind. I think this one of least oxidized oolongs I have tried. It has a definite vegetal taste, but it is slightly sweet. It is very smooth to drink, almost creamy. I think I would use this tea as an alternative to green tea, rather than a tea to fulfill a craving for oolong.