I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more oolong
Hi all,
I just tried my very first oolong tea today (a coconut-flavoured one), and it was great! Colour me intrigued about oolongs!
Now, I’d love to get a few more sample sizes of other oolongs to try, and I want your recommendations. It would be great if you could give me recommendations with the following things in mind:
- I’m based in Toronto, so local/Canadian tea shops would be great
- I like green teas/lighter flavoured teas, but I’m looking for something that’s on the creamy/floral end of the spectrum here
- If you know of an online shop that gives cheap/free samples, that would be good too.
Thanks!
Well, if you want good oolongs, then Tao’s the only place to go in TO. But his teas are more expensive (and not necessarliy as good) as what you could find online.
Best wishes,
sherubtse
Oh. Yes. I also avoid the roastier oolongs and can strongly recommend:
Mandala milk oolong (just ridiculous, and I’ve had a lot of different milk oolongs). If you only get one, this is a great choice.
…and the rest of my favorite lighter oolongs: Mandala Colored Species; Eco-Cha Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Concubine; Verdant Hand-Picked Autumn Tieguanyin.
Teavivre has a lot of different oolongs: http://www.teavivre.com/oolong-tea/ I ended up trying 9 different oolongs for comparison, and I really liked the Big Red Robe. Most of these oolongs are unflavored though.
They also offer free samples for people to review on Steepster, although I’m not sure how to request them. They followed me on Steepster and when I followed back they sent me a message asking if I’d like some samples.
Not sure who to recommend locally. Davidstea has some oolongs, but I can’t say how great they are. The good thing is that if you go in store to purchase them you can a) smell them and look at the ingredients, and b) purchase any size you want, so it’s quite affordable to try a lot.
+1 to Teavivre. Here’s a link to sign up for the free samples for reviews program: http://www.teavivre.com/contacts/free_tea_tasting/
Their samples are pretty cheap too, though, and I’ve never seen a better value (a lot of their oolongs are extremely good and they sell them at unbelieveable prices relative to other companies). If you want to really explore a wide variety of oolongs they are possibly the best place to start.
Tea from Taiwan has some relatively cheap oolong samples with free shipping. http://www.teafromtaiwan.com/shop/tea-samples. Zen tea has a popular coconut pouchong. They have a sale on right now and offer cheap samples.http://zentealife.com/tea/type/oolong-white.html.
Zen Tea’s coconut oolong is really good, and they’re based in Canada plus they’re having a 30% sale right now.
Tao Tea Leaf offers affordable (usually under $2 IIRC) samples of everything they have, and I’ve had some nice oolongs from them.
Coconut Pouchong by Golden Moon is outrageous! smells like toasted coconut! the aroma is just exquisite.
although i have not tried the Milk Oolong by Mandala, everyone on here raves about it, so i myself am dying to try it..
I guess this was the last straw. That coconut pouchong has been on the wishlist forever….trigger pulled. Thanks!
And yeah, that Mandala milk oolong is the biz. ;)
hahah…don’t you just love it when that happens? LOL! glad i could be of service ;p
yay for milk oolongs! i love teas that have smooth, buttery qualities to them..
Cavocorax, thanks for bringing the Teavivre site to my attention. They’ve got a nice little deal on samples of 4 different oolongs in one package – great for tasting and figuring out my preference.
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