Heritage Honey Oolong

Good Lord Almighty this is delicious!
I am So happy I made an order with this company!
Thick, rich, PEACHY – and not hard to find the peach notes at all!
An absolutely pristine cup of oolong that any oolong lover should get to try!
Not bad pricing at this site either!
This one is under the clearance section.
Full review will be on http://sororiteasisters.com/ on the 15th

This was a tea I had bought during the black Friday sales. I left it vacuum packed in a box under my desk since my usual cupboard didn’t have room for more tea at the moment. I vowed that I wouldn’t open new packages of tea (except samples :p) until I made more room. Well, my dogs had other ideas.
Husband and I went out to dinner with friends and came home to find a pair of furry escapees waiting for us at the door and a pile of vomited tea leaves. They found the tea under my desk and chose this one to rip open and gorge on until sick. Genius. I’ve got to say though, best smelling pile of vomit ever. So floral and sweet smelling. Too gross? haha

Thankfully, pup was fine, and I got to have some new tea. Weee! While this is a very tasty oolong, I wouldn’t say it’s particularly honey tasting. Very creamy and milky. Nectary stone fruits. Fresh and green and summery. Delicious. Subsequent steeps are vegetal like steamed greens. Still smooth and milky. Not much honey. Am I missing something? Maybe I should try again when I haven’t just had banana spice waffles for breakfast.

So much tea. So little money in my bank account. Can you say, shouldn’t have bought enough stuff to make lip balm forever? Cries.

But at least I can just live off tea I guess until I get the rest of my money in two months. Or maybe this sampler box that goes on sale tomorrow will bring something in, because it is now slooooooow online at least.

I am so so so so so so glad I got up this morning for Formula 1. IT WAS THE BEST RACE. I just have to gush somewhere. My favorite driver had to start from the pit lane, and he worked his way up the field not once but TWICE and managed to take third place and keep his lead in the championship.

My second favorite driver won, the two of them are best buddies, so it was awesome. The only thing is, the race was in Abu Dhabi so there was no champagne on the podium…instead there was fizzy rosewater. Here is a priceless reaction from the guy who got second place: http://www.abload.de/img/untitled-1o2qfr.gif

Now this tea!

Being that this is the kind of tea I got a yixing pot for, I decided to make it in there. I had to modify the brewing instructions a bit. I used 7 grams of leaf.

First steep, about a minute: I could probably have gone just a slight bit longer on this one, but it’s delicious as is. It’s smooth, sweet, and a little fruity and floral, with just the right touch of cream and pepper. It’s not as creamy as a milk oolong, but it’s not too far off. It’s like one with added fruit.

At this point I’m not getting peach but we’ve only just begun.

Second steep: Now I am getting peach, but I think my choice of steeping this tea gives me far more floral notes than peach notes. And that is okay, because this is a super tasty oolong. And given it’s $2 an ounce, you SERIOUSLY cannot do much better than this, I’d think.

Third steep: I think I like this one the most! It tastes pretty similar to the second, but it seems to have more fruitiness to it.

Thanks to Azzarian for this gem! Another tea added to my shopping list.

This is fruity and floral – a unique flavor profile for an oolong. I taste honeyed peach and bright citrus, with a delicate floral hint. The brewed cuppa smells divine as well.

I don’t have a lot of experience with oolongs personally so I apologize for the brevity of this review. Maybe I should say this tea leaves me speechless! :)

I decided to have this one after seeing someone else had it today as a rainy day oolong, I waited for the rain to stop actually and I turned on the music to cheer myself up and I brewed this one up Gangnam Style, thats when you put on a fancy shirt and hat and dance the horsey dance while trying to make tea and you get water everywhere, ya get a little wet but its fun, wet outside wet inside. Really good tea sweet and delicious with peachy or apricot notes, slight floral tones and just intense yummy flavor, really good tea, If ya drink it from a small cup and have a long tongue you can lick whats left from the bottom of the cup mmmmm it’s really good like that too :) Thanks Azzrian!!!

Another delicious sample from Azzrian!

Rainy days are oolong days. This one is deliciously sweet, but still tastes natural and oolongy :)

Brewed Western style, 2tsp/16ish ounces.

Mmmm…. creamy, lightly citrusy background notes and a most definite presence of honey. This is a light oolong, which puts it solidly in my “like” category.

Brewed up a pot for Tea Club at work on Friday after our office holiday lunch. Figured we could all use something a bit light to round out the afternoon. It went over well. I only wish we’d had time to try a 2nd steep. I’m glad I went with a larger package of it on Black Friday even though I had not tried it before.

I did steep it for much longer than recommended and it was still very tasty, so perhaps that means this is a forgiving tea. :)

I am just getting started today with this tea from Nicole. Half a cup in and I can tell you I love this. A light oolong that is not, so far, heavily floral (though I don’t mind if it becomes more floral). It has a sweetness to it, there are citrus notes, and I taste cinnamon faintly. I am not getting the peach notes yet but I just started. Very good!

I cruised over to Mountain Teas website and found this in the clearance section. It is $10/5oz! I have no idea what shipping rates are as I can’t tell where this ships from and the site doesn’t allow me to check rates. Anyway for those interested this could be the deal of the week.

Thanks Nicole for sending a sample of this! This is the type of oolong I love after having too many ick charcoaly flavored ones lately. This is sweet, floral, peachy, apricot, a little bit vegetal. It just has a very full flavor since there is so much going on. The second steep was very peachy and floral. It’s hard to say which cup was better. The first had more happening, but the second had a stronger floral and peachy flavor, and seemed more committed to being just PEACH and FLORAL. The third cup was okay, but not the best. All of the steeps were around three minutes. This is a nice one!

Logging this for now. Tasting notes will follow when I have more time. Midterms, midterms, midterms right now. =/

For now I’ll leave you with a first impression: Like a mix of milk oolong, da yu ling, and a white tip formosa. Very nice!

UPDATE: Adding the tasting notes I managed to scribble down… may not be the most in depth tasting, but at least I’ll get the general profile out there.

As mentioned above, there are aspects of formosa oolong, milk oolong and da yu ling. Yum. Smell-wise, it’s both vegetal and creamy. There are spinach notes, butter notes, slight honey/sugar notes. Also getting subtle cinnamon notes…interesting! Very sweet smelling.
As it cools a bit its more honey-ish.

Taste: I’m getting vegetal/spinach, along with a nice milky, smooth taste. Some floral aspects are present, and the whole tea is slightly sweet. Honey notes are very light in this first brew, but come through a bit more as it cools.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to do another steep, so I’ll be expanding on this the next time I brew the tea. Look out for another tasting note on this one soon. I’m leaving the rating blank for now, as I can’t recall what I would’ve given the tea.

A lovely gift from the equally lovely Emily M, this was a surprise addition to our trade. I absolutely adore this tea, and my husband had some, added a little honey and some lemon (his throats bothering him) and he seems to equally love it. This is the first I’ve had of this brand, and I can say I’ll be trying them soon in a bigger quantity, if only to get more of this.

Wow, this is fantastic! I was skeptical, because the dry leaves smell rather grassy. But the taste is a floral honey, like wild honey, like the fancy jar of white gold honey I could eat straight up by the spoonful. The second steep is the best, though the first steep comes out better if I give it only 2 minutes.

FWIW, my order arrived faster than I expected, and although the tight vacuum packaging delays my childish “I want it now” diving into a newly delivered box of teas, and further requires a transfer to an empty tea canister (b/c I’m so inept at opening the silly vacuum pack), all is forgiven because the tea is so delicious.