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Here is another review from way back. I finished a couple of 10g sample pouches of this tea around the first week of May, but totally forgot to post a review for this tea when I was focusing on clearing out the backlog for May. It seems that What-Cha always manages to offer a number of Jin Xuans from Southeast Asia, and this was yet another of them. I found it to be a more or less excellent and incredibly approachable roasted Jin Xuan. It may not be the sort of tea that will blow all fans of roasted oolongs away, but I found it to be very enjoyable.

I prepared this tea gongfu style, although I did not push it all that hard. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of rolled tea leaves in 4 ounces of 194 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 13 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of honey, black cherry, peach, and blood orange. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of baked bread and malt along with a stronger overall black cherry scent. The first infusion introduced milder aromas of cream, banana, vanilla, plum. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered mild notes of cream, malt, vanilla, baked bread, honey, and black cherry balanced by hints of banana and blood orange. Subsequent infusions saw wood, cinnamon, and cocoa aromas appear along with a stronger scent of banana. New notes of wood, cinnamon, apricot, minerals, butter, red apple, raisin, brown sugar, rose, and pear appeared in the mouth with belatedly emerging notes of peach and plum. The final infusions offered notes of minerals, baked bread, wood, cream, and butter that were underscored by hints of vanilla, stone fruits, and pear.

I am so glad that I took detailed notes of my review sessions for this tea because I would otherwise have been forced to not log this one. As mentioned above, this was a very nice roasted Jin Xuan. It seems that countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia are producing numerous quality Jin Xuan oolongs these days. If you are a fan of sweeter, fruitier roasted oolongs, I would be willing to bet that you would enjoy this tea.