Tea Masters

This is my first time trying Wenshan Baozhong and I am impressed!

The style is supposed to be a lightly oxidized oolong that blends notes of a Chinese green tea with an oolong quite well. It was one of the first styles of Taiwanese teas exported from the country, being brought first to Europe in the late 1800s. While it is typically made from Qing Xin (“Green Heart”), one of Taiwan’s well known cultivars, this example is Tsui Yu (TTES #13, “Emerald Oolong”), often called the Jade Oolong cultivar.

This tea has no bitterness or astringency. Almost no sweetness. Hardly any aftertaste. Lasts about 8 infusions.

Cultivar: Tsui Yu (TTES 13)
Harvest: April 10, 2025
Location: Pinglin area, Wenshan, northern Taiwan

Unfortunately this one is not great. Just not much in the way of flavor or fragrance unfortunately. Not sure why – I’ve liked most Shan Lin Xi I’ve tried. A real standout in a negative way from Tea Masters’ selection thus far.

Dang this is another winner for sure! Super unique for a high mountain oolong. Very floral but in a way that is different to any tea I’ve had. I’m so bad with flower smells, but seems like gardenia maybe? Just a (uneducated) guess.

No bitterness, astringency, sweetness. Very smooth. Velvety smell with thick mouthfeel. Good longevity at 7-8+ infusions.

Harvest: May 16, 2025
Cultivar: Qingxin
Location: Tsui Feng, Lishan
Elevation: 1900 m

This one has a much more savory nature to it, though it is fairly hard to pick individual notes out of it. There is still a bit of fruit on the nose of the dry leaf, though not as potent. The flavor overall is not as potent as their DYL. I think there is something missing from this tea, but it is still an enjoyable drinking experience. Nowhere near as good as the FSS from WFT, though that one is also fairly savory.

No sweetness, bitterness, or astringency.

Harvest: May 13th, 2025
Cultivar: Qing Xin
Location: Fushou Shan (Lishan) Elevation: 2200-2500 m

Have had my eye on Tea Masters for some time, and decided to try some of their Taiwanese oolongs this year. This is the first I tried as it was the one I was most excited for, and it is amazing! Definitely see some of the characteristics that WFT’s DYL has as well.

Minimal sweetness. No astringency or bitterness. Very high elevation in flavor and smell.

This is supposedly from garden 104K, but I see when looking online that in 2015, Tea Masters Blog itself stated that this garden had been reclaimed by the government and was no longer producing tea: https://teamasters.blogspot.com/2015/05/da-yu-ling-sorrow-and-joy.html. So I am curious how they are now selling it? Other sources seem to confirm that the gardens were reclaimed. Perhaps they have been replanted since 2015? I will probably write to Stephanie and ask. This is also, I suppose, the second highest tea garden in the world behind the 105K garden (which may not be operational either?) at 2600 m.

Harvest: May 21st, 2025
Cultivar: Qing Xin
Location: Da Yu Ling (2580 m), 104 K

Breastmilk, steamed yucca, honeysuckle. Vegetal on first steep (no rinse) which quickly faded into a baby smooth joyride. Amazing tea for the price.

Everything is in its place, so I sit with mouth closed and enjoy the silence.

March 2021 harvest

First brews from a bag freshly opened had a sugarcane-sweet nose and tastewise, a combination of flowers, tropical fruit and gentle grassy-spinachy character. Refined sweetness and brisk astringency in a moderately viscous and buoyant liquor. A pleasure to drink prepared in a mason jar with water-dispenser hot water at work. This tea produced three fully flavored and textured steeps of forgetful mind timing. It helped to allay my nerves during a frantic and frazzled work day. So far, my biggest issue with this tea is the rather drying quality.

If Tea Masters calls this an everyday baozhong (which I agree with), I can’t imagine Stéphane’s next step up. At $3.50 for 25g, I consider this a deal but there are much better baozhong out there. Let’s see how I can connect with this leaf in a more relaxed setting.

For the tea nerds, this #2028 “is produced from a cultivar that was developed at the same time as Jinxuan (code #2027) and Tsui Yu (code #2029). However, even though this cultivar was never officially released by Taiwan Tea Research and Extension Station, farmers have continued to use it in their plantations.”

I’m glad to have received this baozhong as a freebie (a 25g freebie!) as it’s not a tea I would have added to my cart, so thank you very much!

Writing a review as I ride to a funeral. Yesterday I drank this tea and it was wonderful…. But thoughts: my family kind of deemed me to be the family member who is going to hell when I started dying my hair and getting piercings so I’m not close to them. These family events are awkward because I disagree with them on so much. Religion is a touchy subject because they are going to say so and so is looking down on us from heaven now… Ugh, I’ll leave that idea alone though.

Anyways. Moving in two days and the place was flooded. Now I get to find out how I’ll switch everything over to the other unit they offered instead. What a fun day, and I had no idea the funeral was today until two hours ago. Stressed x100

So this tea smells wonderful like a dark chocolate that’s dusted with cocoa. The brew comes out much lighter than expected. The nutty notes from the dong ding are so faded and taken over by the disaapering roast that has turned into a charcoal chocolate with some burnt sugar. When a roast is done right and the tea is stored correctly you get an almost dry caramel taste because the sweetness from the tea can shine over the harsh roast but it is faded due to the leaf losing its vibrancy. This is a wonderful tea and can easily hit a top 10 for aged oolong because of its unexpected notes that pop. I didn’t even brew this carefully either which means it can be even better :)

I brewed 4 grams of this tea in my Hungni teapot (also from stephane). Each brew yielded a consistent and full flavored liquor. This tea is packed with notes of white flower, tropical fruits (mangosteen), and cane sugar. There is a nice subtlety of unroasted almonds and a vegetal umami (glutamic acid) that reminds me of tomatoes. The tea goes down the throat smoothly and brings a pleasant salivary affect to the mouth. there is a slight cooling in the throat as well as a strong and long lasting hui gan.

This is a very high quality low land oolong at an amazing price point. It’s fresh and strong flavors more than one year after being produced are a testament to the producers skill and the base materials quality.

I have to say this tea has a nice taste :) tastes like oats. also when I smell it, it smells like fancy soap. when I smell the brewed leaves it smells like that too. this tea is ok to me however I had better oolong tea

thanks to paola for this tea :)

this tea has a honey taste that is very strong. although it smells musty when dry the rest is strong honey taste, smell (drink and leaves) and aroma. so I’ve had better but I do thank Paola for this tea its good but not as good as other teas

when I smell the dry leaves, I smell flowers and jasmine.

when I smell the wet leaves, it smells like flowers and jasmine too :D

when I smell the brewed tea, I smell a strong lovely jasmine smell.

when I taste the brewed tea, it taste just wonderful! nice jasmine taste.

thankyou paola for this lovely tea.

This tea is a treasure in the cup and on the tongue. The velvety burnt caramel color brings a warmth to this cold fall day. The smell is a sweet, floral roast of reminiscent of Sun Moon Lake or Bai Hao with a hint of pear. The first infusion is light in body but rich in complex flavors. the first not is a warm honey flavor followed by a bright nuttiness and finishing with a crisp roasted apple pie smoothness.

This really has become one of my favorite teas in my collection. Sweet and roasty taste. An aroma of toasted chestnuts and the texture of light cream. Lots of infusion potential. I’m not sure if the tea is getting better (certainly possible as rolled oolongs tend to do this) or if my taste is just aligning with it more.

Also maybe worth noting that I’m pretty sure the pinyin for this tea would be ‘hong shui’ (紅水), meaning ‘red water’. Taiwan uses many different romanization systems, though, so who’s to say what’s correct?

This was harvested from Feng Huang mountain in November.

Dry leaves have the aroma of licorice candy and smoked ham. The smoky sweetness fills the mouth similar to the aroma of a good Tung Ting, but without the flowers. A caramel aftertaste lingers. A creamy texture flows over the subsequent infusions, mingling with a slight dryness that remains on the tongue, although not unpleasantly so.