35 Tasting Notes
Expected to hate this because I dislike white tea so much and yellow yea seems close to white, conceptually. But I neither like nor dislike it.
It certainly tastes healthy. Very vegetative. Lots of corn in there. No real depth with fruit or spice complexity for me. But definitely good if you want something very, very light.
Preparation
Edit: revisiting this with more leaf and a briefer steep, I get more from it. I also suspect it will get better as it ages, so I will revise as that happens. At 5g/100ml this is earthier, saltier. I don’t have clay teaware but I suspect this tea would be great for clay.
Pale but strong, with an apple hint. Has a good syrupy feel in the mouth. The taste is not my preference but it’s definitely not bad – lots there for someone.
Flavors: Apple, Earth, Mineral, Seaweed, Wood
Preparation
Rose hips and rhododendron. H keener than I. It’s good, but likely to divide opinion depending if you like floral fruity oolong.
Flavors: Flowers, Fruit Tree Flowers, Rosehips, White Wine
Preparation
Dry tea gave me overwhelming scent of pipe tobacco and lots of nostalgia with that. Later malt – lots. Then even later some of the scent of a struck match, but not at all in a bad way, not sulphurous.
It’s hard to pinpoint what’s going on so I suspect I’ll edit in future.
Flavors: Burnt Sugar, Malt, Molasses, Tobacco
Preparation
A——— at What-Cha added this as a sample in my latest order, presumably based on my like for strongly flavoured, well roasted Oolong. Hot and at first steep I got lots of seaweed and iodine. As it cooled and in subsequent steeping there’s pear as suggested on the supplier’s site, and also I got a nutty green flavour not unlike roasted acorns.
H tasted turpenes — how to put this delicately? — of the sort smelled when wandering out of Camden or Brixton tube stations. But I didn’t get that at all.
Flavors: Green Wood, Iodine, Pear, Roasted Nuts, Seaweed
Preparation
First oolong. First grandpa-style brewing. Overwhelming tastes of butter. There’s butter popcorn down there somewhere, and buttered veggies. But mainly just butter and it’s delicious.
Flavors: Butter, Popcorn, Vegetables
Preparation
(This is a very personal review unlikely to help another reader.) H’s note on the bag says, “Nope”. Mine says, “sour”. My first white tea and this wasn’t to my taste at all. It was woody and bitter and set off my stomach ulcer. I tried brewing a few ways and temperatures but it’s not for me.
Flavors: Bitter, Sour, Wood