Home Roasted Jin Xuan Oolong and Brazilian Coffee

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This one’s been in my cupboard for a while (but let’s be honest, what hasn’t by this time?) I think that’s partly because I was in such a funk for a while, and partly because I’m just plain uncertain about this one. I rarely, if ever, drink coffee these days. I mean, I was a teenager the last time I drank coffee seriously.

It’s actually a lot nicer than I anticipated, though. There is a certain “thin coffee” flavour to it, but that’s easy to overlook in favour of its more engaging properties. It’s creamy, for a start, with a light roastiness, and the flavour of peanuts. Added together, it’s fairly reminiscent of peanut butter. I though this might turn out to be a fight between the coffee and the oolong, but it’s really not – they work together far better than you might think (perhaps because they were roasted together?)

This was my first cup of the day today, and I’m really happy with it. Hopefully I’ll get some extra energy from the coffee, because I could totally do with it right now!

Sipdown

I wasn’t sure what I was thinking when drinking this late tonight…..I wanted to play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for an hour or two, while drinking tea, and I ended up getting enough energy to play for nearly 3.5 hours…. (o_o)

Notes:

1st Steep: 2 minutes, 195 F. Light roasted notes, slight coffee taste, and a bit of a sweet nutty (almonds? pecans?) note.

2nd Steep: 3 minutes, 200 F. More coffee notes (similar to smelling a tin of coffee), thick mouthfeel, and more pecans and/or almonds.

3rd Steep: 6 minutes, 200 F. A lot of coffee flavors & roasted pecans. A bit mouth-drying, but not too terrible.

SO’s request this morning was something to help her wake up, and she often drinks coffee as well as tea most days, so I figured now was a good time to try this. LP threw this in with our last order, so thanks to him, as always!

This is my first time having tea blended with coffee. The dry blend smells like coffee, but I can also smell the nuttiness of the tea leaves. Poured 14 grams into my Ingenuitea and nearly filled it with 90C water. I’ve basically just been using the thing for waste water, so it’s a thing I decided to scrub the tea stains out of the thing last night. It’s all nice and clean and fresh for us today.

It’s interesting watching the leaves unfurl since I use a gaiwan most days now. The liquor of the first steep is quite light, which initially makes me wonder if it needs more time.

According to the SO, who is the coffee drinker between us, this smells like a medium roast coffee. It also smells nutty and roasty, not surprisingly, and it has a creamy texture.
It tastes “like tea and coffee had a baby.” With milk. Overall it’s quite light and quite enjoyable.

The second steep actually ends up split, as SO isn’t ready for it yet, so I take some first. It comes out darker and the flavors come through with a bit more strength and I get some earthiness and a stronger sense of the tea and the coffee being blended together. So doesn’t take hers until a few minutes later, so it’s even darker, and I take a sip of it and it’s stronger, as well. I feel the caffeine really hard after this steep, and now my head is swimming, so I don’t know that this is one I can physically drink much of.

All-in-all, I enjoyed this one and it was a unique experience, but I will have to drink it in much smaller amounts it seems!

Andrew, you are too kind. This tea is pretty interesting. You did a good job with the roast: nice warm and toasty like the cooked whole grain bread of the same adjective and mildly vegetal. The texture is creamy and I got the roasted peanut butter taste after two minutes. The smell is also nutty. I’ll have more to add, but that’s the sum of it for now.

So, I spent the last two days playing Ark like a mad woman. Turns out the big reveal was an expansion pack, one that was a desert world with dragons and giant bugs. Basically it is like Dune, Mad Max, and Dragons of Tarkir (the MTG obsession runs deep) three of my favorite things, Scorched Earth has been amazing so far. Granted I really should have used the $20 it cost to buy some needed clothes, but eh, gaming is more important than leggings.

Today’s tea is one of Liquid Proust Teas’ experimental concoctions, Home Roasted Jin Xuan Oolong and Brazilian Coffee. He took some Jin Xuan and some green Brazilian coffee and roasted them up, going for a tea that is not roasted as much as the other types of Taiwanese Oolongs and for a light coffee. Since LP is not a fan of coffee he asked a local coffee fan who recommended the Brazilian, personally I would have gone with an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe to bring out that sweetness…what? I used to be a manager at a coffee shop, once upon a time I was equally obsessed with the beans as I was the leaf, but it turns out tea is easier on my insides so I only rarely indulge. Anywho, the aroma of this tea is kinda odd, with notes of toasted grains, pine trees, very gently roasted coffee, burnt wood, and a distant note of cigarettes. The blend of coffee and smokes reminds me a bit of an old diner that no longer allows smoking but did years ago and the smell still lingers, but someone brought in a roasted oolong for good measure! It is hitting that nostalgia factor for me for sure.

So how does one brew coffee tea, gongfu of course! After steeping the beans and leaves the aroma of the leaves loses any of that diner aroma to be replaced with nuttiness, toasted grains, pie crust, and an underlying creamy sweetness. The liquid has a blend of toasted nuts, specifically hazelnut and peanuts, with a bit of toast and vanilla cake. It is sweet and nutty with just a slight bit of roast.

The taste of this tea is fun! It tastes a lot like a creme brulee coffee latte, the creaminess of the lightly roasted Jin Xuan blend with the gentle nutty and burnt sugar notes of the coffee. It is light, not very strong in the coffee department, the roasted Jin Xuan being the dominant tasting note. The finish is light and creamy with a lingering nuttiness of peanuts.

Hilariously I only got two steeps from this tea, and not because there was anything wrong with it. See I gave up coffee because it irritates my guts, but also because it is heavy in caffeine…and when I get hit by a strong dose of caffeine I pass out asleep. Give me a soda and within an hour I am snoozing, too many Matcha lattes and I am out, 18 steeps of shou and it is time for bed…you get the idea, I have a paradoxical reaction to caffeine. I thought since it was a blend I would be safe, but no, halfway through this steep I fell asleep in my desk chair, Ben found me drooling onto my keyboard!! What I got from this steep before I fell asleep was pleasant creamy sweetness and a bit of hazelnut and toasted grains, it is sweet and mild, and I guess great to drink before sleep if you are me! Now I am hoping for a blend of a charcoal roasted Dong Ding and a Sumatra Mandheling, that would be epic…and sleep inducing!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/09/liquid-proust-teas-home-roasted-jin.html

Interesting. This tastes kind of like a VERY light roasted peanut butter coffee with a hint of oolong. Or maybe it is light buttery oolong with a hint of roasted peanut butter. I can’t tell from sip to sip. There is a sort of intertwining rotating dance going on here and neither partner can decide who will lead. That is not a bad thing. You get different, albeit similar, flavors with each sip.

A very creative, unique, and fun tea.

I was hesitant about trying this sample because the thought of coffee and tea together made me recoil. Today I felt a little adventurous and decided to try it out.

The dry aroma is of caramel and hazelnut coffee. When wet, it smells like ground coffee beans. I was expecting the coffee flavor to dominate, but to my surprise this tasted like a nice roasty da hong pao. The coffee flavor is there but not up front and center. You taste the warm toasty jin xuan first and then a little char from the coffee that complements it nicely. Shared it with my better half who thought it was weird at first, but liked it the more she sipped.

Really grateful to have tried this tea as it’s an unusual combination that I would never have picked out for myself. After having this and Watermelon Baozhong, I’m legitimately impressed by Andrew’s mad skills at tea blending. Looking forward to future LP creations.

I liked this, thought the coffee would be a darker stronger flavour but luckily it wasnt.

was super groggy this morning and after a couple o cups of this im a bit perkier.

it just adds a nutty taste & aroma to the jin xuan making it a bit more like a light-medium roast. Nice. It was a nice jin xuan too, fruity & leafy. I thought I might not like this one but I did, the coffee added a sort of dryness to the brew. I also get grass as well which is odd for jin xuan. slight cream but nothing too strong, just was there in the background, and it appeared as the leaf unfolds, couldnt notice very much milk – perhaps it got hidden from the roast – maybe try giving it a milk steam next time like some other makers do when they make flavoured milk oolong? you might be able to get away with heavier coffee if you do that? IDK, just throwing thoughts out there.

Interesting stuff, well made, everything worked & nothing jumped out and scared me. You’re such a nice bloke as well Andrew – keep it up, LP teas will keep going from strength to strength the more you do this, Steepsters #1 Ambassador.

Made me smile this morning :)

This tea is so good! I wish that I had bought more than just a sample of this. I was hesitant to try this because tea+coffee beans? So weird! However, Liquid Proust makes this combination work into a beautiful tasting smooth brew.

I followed Liquid Proust’s brewing instructions for this, which resulted in a light amber liquid that smelled faintly of coffee beans. It tastes warm and toasty. I found myself craving another cup after it was all gone.

EDIT: So my boyfriend tried a sip. His reaction? “Ugh, this tastes like pretzels!”

“Coffee and tea mixed together?! Yuck!” That’s what I got every time one of my coworkers asked what I was drinking. While the mix of this tea is oolong and coffee beans, and it smells like coffee and tea mixed together, it doesn’t taste at all like that.

The dominating flavor is toasty to the extreme—different kinds of toastiness from toasted wheat to toasted coffee. There’s an undercurrent of caramel that I think is coming from the coffee. Let me tell you that I have never been able to taste anything from coffee, but perhaps stripping it of the bitterness allowed the undercurrents to shine through. There’s also a soily, dirty kind of earthiness that reminds me of the smell of fresh-ground beans.

For the base, it tasted almost identical to the Beautiful Taiwan Golden Lily, that creamy, earthy, mushroomy kind of umami flavor that worked well with the notes from the coffee.

As it cools, it reminds me a bit of roasted peanut butter without sugar.

Wet soilier on the second steep.