Jin Xuan

Brews up deep golden and there’s a satisfaction in watching the tightly curled leaves unfurl in the infuser. Definitely one that needs room to breathe – very tempting to just drink the second steep grandpa style and say screw the finely honed infusing process.

There’s a mellow earthy flavor that reminds me of the smell of freshly broken twigs with a mouthfeel that’s almost silky. It’s not a robust kind of tea, but the mild comfort of its mineral notes are soothing in a way that entices you into multiple cups before you realize what’s happened.

This seems a little more mineraly than the average milk oolong, probably because it’s winter harvest. Still, great flavor and beautiful leaves. I got a hundred grams and I’m already wondering why I didn’t order more, which is what I wonder literally every time I buy Jin Xuan. You really cannot have too much of it.

Another sample slain! I’m going through them at a blistering pace, reducing that mountain! My girlfriend is helping me pick them out at random so I’m not paralyzed by indecision :) This rolled oolong had smaller nuggets than most others I’ve seen. I would say these leaves smelled pretty classically Jin Xuan – with some floral and creamy/milky aromas coming off of them. I preferred this one at 180F, which is lower than I typically go for oolongs.

The flavor was simple but satisfying. Green floral and slight milky notes dominated, though nothing about this tea suggested domination. It was pretty gentle, with a nice smooth and thick silky texture to it.

Ooh this one is interesting! This is the type of oolong most companies use as the base for Milk oolongs (Including Zen tea’s Milky Oolong, which I reviewed rather extensively here: http://steepster.com/teas/zen-tea/56529-milky-oolong) since it’s regarded as a Milky tasting tea already and that they add to that with flavouring. If your mind went straight to davidstea’s Quangzhou milk oolong, yes they use a different base tea. Anyways yes so Jin Xuan is often referred to as Milk oolong just on its own.
Right okay I should probably talk about the tea,
The first couple steeps for me were really vegetal and almost more like a black oolong rather than the green oolong it is. The tea’s pretty bitter and astringent, at least while steeping according to Zen’s GongFu instructions: 2 tsp, 6oz water and 2.5-4 mins for about 5 steeps, which I listened to at first but then I put too much water into my Perfectea maker (yes, this is how I brew gongfu okay) and poured maybe 2oz out straight away and it was almost as flavourful after 5 seconds of steeping as it had been in about 3 minutes so I started to feel like they were messing with me and i went for like 30 second steeps. Granted, at this point the tea had lost a decent bit of its flavour. Alright anyways.
I should maybe talk about the tea at least a little.
So after i started doing shorter steeps, the tea was actually really creamy and a bit milky, with hints of seaweed and vegetalness, .. wait, vegetality? vegetal.. lets go with vegetal flavour. You know what, I liked vegetality. I’m gonna say that from now on.
Anyways, yes, so the vegetality is rather light amongst the creaminess, but at this point im getting a bit of that taste of an empty flavourless oolong (you guys know what i mean by that right?)

This review was weird. I like weird
I’m gonna make more weird reviews

Mmm, man this is tasty! I can’t believe I used to dislike green oolongs. I was missing out on so much!
This tea is so delightful I don’t even know where to start. It tastes like Spring in a cup. Sweet, floral, very refreshing. The first infusion isn’t very milky, but it’s beautifully balanced with a silky, creamy mouthfeel. Oh it’s delightful. And I’m feeling quite teadrunk after only 1/2 a cup. I will absolutely be picking up more of this once I’m through.