Taiwanese Orchid Oolong

OMG! Amazing! Ahh-mmmmmm-azzzz-ing!

Of the few Orchid Oolong teas that I’ve encountered, this one possesses the strongest Orchid essence I’ve ever tasted. The others were like … yeah, ok, that’s orchid…maybe… but this is ORCHID. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed those others too. But, this has the most amazing and well-defined orchid essence.

It also has this incredible sweetness to it… like old fashioned rock sugar candy that I used to get from the candy shop on Main Street at Disneyland.

If you like Oolong – put this on your MUST TRY list … and at the very top of your shopping list.

You’ve GOT to be kidding me!

This is SO UNIQUE…I don’t even know where to begin!

It’s smooth but it’s sweet…it’s sweet but it’s creamy! It’s creamy but it’s candy-like! It’s floral but it’s NOT grassy! OMG!

Let’s chat about the candy-likeness first, I guess…

You know those hard pieces of candy – old fashioned – that have a tad of powder coating on them…loose powder – right over the top!? That’s what this reminds me of! This has a texture both loose leaf – dry and the actual tea liquor texture that I have NEVER come across! Then once the sip is complete the taste morphs and lingers! It’s very hard to describe but I am totally LOVING this! It’s almost like a licorice…not a hardcore licorice…but a sugary sweet toothy type candy licorice NOT the black tarry kind.

There is an awesome raw sugar type taste to it too! Very unusual but I say that with the utmost respect and interest as I am already a HUGE fan of this!

I’m going to ponder on this one more but for now I’m going with a 95 and I think the rating can only go up! This is so unique and so different – I’m truly impressed!

Gosh, if I had been aware that I had not already posted about this one, I would have picked something else.

Very tired, can’t think.

Boyfriend quite liked this. I find it reminds me of ginseng oolong, with the licorice-y flavour right when swallowing. This happens with cooling. When it was still all fresh and warm and stuff, it was much more flowery.

This is all I’m capable off right now.

Could have lived without the ginseng-y flavour. That was not what I was looking for at all.

Thank you, TeaEqualsBliss! This is my first Verdant Tea, so I’ve been really excited to try it.

I felt today was the perfect day for this. I’m a bit stressed, as I got an order on etsy for a large number of knitted hats, and I need to pack for college AND everything else since my parents are moving. All in less than a month. This seemed like it would really help calm me down a bit.

Steeping, this smells so good. It makes me think of that feeling right when you get your blankets out of the dryer and just want to hide in them and be comfy. There is this slight scent in there that makes me think of baking bread.

I love how this tastes! So smooth and creamy. There’s this sweetness that kinda sticks on your tongue after each sip.

I look forward to trying more Verdant Teas…if I ever have the money! Maybe some free samples, eh? wink, wink But seriously, this tea is really good and it held up well to a second steep.

Thanks to Lindsay for this one. My first Orchid Oolong. Now I’ve seen Orchid’s, Licorice, Ginseng oolong, and King’s oolongs and they seem to be synonymous with each other. Or so I thought. Check out the package no coating on the dry leaf really like you might see on some licorice oolongs(that candy coated like shell). Brew up the first cup. Eh kinda of a semi roasty nutty flavor to it. I didn’t get that sweetness though till the end of the cup. I didn’t really enjoy the first steep. However, in consecutive steeps afterward this tea really begins to unfold like an orchid. In the second steep is where I’m starting to detect the orchid. It reminds me of jasmine scented teas, but you can definitely tell that it is orchid and not jasmine. Then you have that sweetness at the end of the sip. This I enjoy quite a bit. I might be wrong but there has to be a little bit of ginseng in there or licorice root to produce that sweetness. If I am wrong…fabulous. I am thoroughly enjoying this tea. So with steep 3 and 4 I combined it with a sample of Teavana’s Dokudami Umami. The combination with licorice root in the umami was fantastic. I can’t wait to finish the rest of this, and try more to come!

Hmm this is very interesting. From the look of the leaves it reminds me of the Blue People Oolong I’ve seen recently from the Aroma Tea Shop which was fermented with licorice and mint. I am getting way more licorice than orchid here.

First infusion: steeped in the xi ying teapot for 2 minutes after a quick rinse. Although the leaves smell incredible, this is really way too sweet for me.

Second steep: I only went for 60 seconds this time. It is much more subdued and the floral notes are coming through but still pretty sweet and I can’t quite get the overwhelming taste of licorice out of my mouth.

This is ok but really not my favorite thing from Verdant by far…

Ohhh wow this… is… incredible. Simply yet ever so complicatedly incredible. As in my tongue and my nose do not believe what they are tasting and smelling. I have never had an orchid oolong and I wanted so very much to try this when I saw it on Steepster a couple months ago. I inquired first with David as to if it would be returning, when it seemed not, I turned to Steepster and used it for what it is: a community, a community of very generous tea lovers. So I asked around, starting with the locals and those who didn’t care as much for this one. The good lady Angrboda who is in no way local, answered my plea and sent me this and some other lovely samples from Europe! Thank you so very much for giving me the opportunity to try this, I am so grateful.

The teas from Ang arrived a couple weeks ago, but alas I had a sinus infection and put them off. However if I had known what this tea was going to do to my throat ans nasal passages i probably would have drank it right away. It is so cooling and cleansing and tea gods don’t strike me down, but it does remind me of my brew of Throat Coat and Twig Tea. However I am glad I waited to take the time to fully savor this, I probably would have thought I was crazy for that observation then anyway. For today I have the house to myself, a rare blessing, as my mother has taken the toddler to a parade. I took a shower, lay down for awhile and treated myself to this very special tea for my 99th tasting note and after this I think I may do some art!

Upon opening the pouch I was met with an unexpected aroma, true I didn’t know what to expect, but definitely not dark grassy Gyokuro. I have not found this grassy note in the cups I have brewed and infact it changed as soon as the leaves hit the warm mug, to something strange and culinary I just can’t put my finger on. I did the quickest of steps with water just off the boil and the smell changed to something more earthy and illeagal, the word hash sprang to mind, though I only have one vague years old memory that. The aroma of the liquor shape shifted in the cup as the taste did in my mouth, starting out sort of charcoaly and morphed into that cool almost medicinal brew (medicinal in the most natural herb and root sense).

I was worried at first that I had scorched the leave as it started out toasty, then came a slight sweetness, then a coolness at the back of the mouth, developing into candy and flooding my nose from the inside out. I have never had ginseng oolong, but I can understand the comparison as this is all ginseng and anise and only the slightest bit of floral, candied flowers, orchid concentrated, sweetened and made into a cough drop and a nasal spray and I love it. Yes it is sweet but it’s also intense, almost harsh at moments, but with a self-soothing mechanism built in.

So I can understand why a few didn’t care for it, but I immediately want to share it, in a tasting with Yabao and the ‘04 Yanxin’s Reserve Shu Nuggets. Me thinks this would have to be the last tea tasted though. I wish I had enough for that and a cold brew, but sharing wins out. But for now I am going to see if I can draw out more that these first five infusions, it’s getting a bit ashy, but I think there is still life in them yet. Thank you Angrboda for sharing this and David Duckler and Verdant Tea for supplying and sourcing it!

Thank you to Amy Oh for a sample of this tea. I had been wanting to try this tea for the longest time. It just sounded too delicious to pass up! I ADORE oolongs. They have to be my favorite tea. I’m a bit disappointed with this one, though. The tea is too smelly for my tastes. It smells like that stinky grass that lingers on your fingers after you pull it out of the ground. I just can’t stand it. I suppose that it’s the orchid that I’m not liking. The slight sweetness is nice, but the orchid is just killing me. I thought that I would like orchid much more, but I think that this is one more thing I should add to my ‘dislikes’. I can’t get more than a few sips down.

I got this one as part of my Black Friday/birthday tea order and after reading all of the glowing reviews decided to save it for my birthday (instead of including it in the massive tea-drinking binge that usually follows a tea order).

Oh…..wow. I was not prepared for how incredibly awesome this tea would be! It might have just snagged the spot for my favorite tea ever, and I am not usually the type to have an absolute favorite (can’t leave any tea out, you know) Flowery, sweet, nutty, yummy…and I think I might have oversteeped it but it didn’t hurt it at all.

Back to a nice flowery oolong. I like it when an oolong with a flower in the name is actually scented with those flowers (as opposed to being given that name because the natural characters might evoke that flower) because my expectation of those oolongs is often for a more floral tea than I end up getting. This tea is interesting because of all the myriad of aromas and flavors going on!

When I first smell the dry leaf it has that vegetal, slightly grassy, oolongy, slightly floral aroma that I might expect from any green oolong. What’s crazy is that if I blow into the pouch, the aroma that comes out is roasty toasty grains, though more like toasted rice than a dark oolong. That slowly fades back into the first aroma, and somewhere in the middle of that transition is what the tea actually ends up tasting like. It’s also what the steeped tea smells like: greenish florals (a kind of oolongy florals, not intense like smelling that particular flower) with a warm toasted grains backdrop. This is a green oolong that you can definitely tell is half-oxidized, and the combo of flavors is nicely balanced. The main body of the sip seems to really be the vegetal, not-too-floral green oolong with the toasted background notes. There is some natural sweetness to this oolong, and it swells up at the back of the sip along with more intense florals. Overall this is a very tasty tea, and really not overally floral for a tea that is scented with orchid flowers.

I brewed this in the Gaiwan. When I first smelled the brew I thought I was not going to like it. I let it get stronger. The taste is a floral sweetness. A profile I have yet to encounter. I know I stated in my profile that I do not drink scented teas but I had to try this for some reason. The aftertaste is beyond sweet. A nice change of pace for me. I enjoyed it….

After sampling a new medium roast Oolong that I found only so-so, I turned to this sumptuous and complex tea. The orchid is not overwhelming or even fundamental to my enjoyment. What captivates me is the lingering sweetness and a fine anise seed taste mixed with a lemony tang. A singular tea-drinking experience!

This tea is totally insane. At first sip it tastes like a good, standard, par-for-the-course green oolong. Then you swallow, and BAM! Candy sweetness in the back of your mouth and across the tongue. It’s not even specifically floral-tasting, just…clean and sweet. VERY sweet.

Love this tea.

Take note of the description: “almost candy-like.” What an understatement!

This tea really does taste like you’re sucking on a delicious sweet piece of hard candy. And even more fun, the real heart of the flavors lies mostly in the aftertaste, building and building over time, blossoming up from your throat and the back of your tongue. Candy sweetness, orchid, lots of yummy brown sugar. What a treat! It’s hard to believe you’re not racking up calorie points as you sip this.

This is a sure favorite “traditional” tea for anyone who usually lingers by heavily-flavored only. A sure-fire winner at any little girl’s tea party, even if those girls are now all grown up. Feminine, clean and refined, without having any of the choking/heavy floral dustiness of grandma’s old perfumes. And the flavor really stays with the tea throughout multiple steepings.

This tea is very yummy iced, too. No one will believe there’s not a trace of sugar added to your brew. Just add some leaves to a pitcher or tupperware, fill with cold water, and let them sit over-night. Pour yourself a glass in the morning, and go relax in the hammock on your summer porch.

Definitely fun for anyone to try; guaranteed to please!

The sweetness comes on at the end of the sip and just stays there, which I like. Quite an interesting tea, but I just can’t dig the orchid.

I opened my little sample bag, and was greeted by a very light ans subtle aroma of the loose tea. After I finished infusing it, the aroma changed dramatically, with very prominent orchid notes. It was actually rather nice, as it had a stronger aroma than my Qi Lan tea, which was one of the only things missing from that tea.

The tea its self was a very light Oolong with a very smooth taste. The taste is hard for me to describe, but it seemed flowery to me. The after taste of this tea was actually excellent, with a warming sensation in that back of the throat, and a more prominent flowery taste.

Unfortunately, like most light Oolongs, I only got five infusions out of this tea before it became too bland. The Aroma and the flavor decays gradually over these infusions, and the aftertaste starts to fade away, leaving behind a rather bland taste. Regardless, it was a wonderful tea, and one that I look forward to getting more of in the future,