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Day 14 of the Kiani advent calendar. I steeped this up gong fu style and got three steeps. The flavor was enjoyable, but not what I normally expect from a phoenix honey oolong. The first steep had a slightly drying, almond-like bitterness and wasn’t as sweet as I was expecting. The second steep had a strong note of stone fruit with the pit, or maybe red grapes (don’t ask me why those are next to each other in my mental index). For the third steep, I tried a shorter steep to see what would happen. I was finally able to place a note that had been having trouble identifying – a mineral sort of note reminiscent of rock oolongs. The short steep did bring out more sweetness, though I’m still not sure I’d call it honey-like. I don’t know why I couldn’t coax the right/expected flavors out of this tea, alas.

Day 15 is really cool – it’s a wooden cup! I have a fairly large teaware collection, but I didn’t even know that wooden teaware was a thing! So I loved learning about the existence of a new type of thing I didn’t know about, and I really like this particular cup. It just fits in my hand perfectly and is very well-balanced, so it’s super fun to play/fidget with. Since it requires special care, I have not used it yet, but am looking forward to testing it out!