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Thanks, Derk, for all the generous Japanese tea samples! This is also my first Japanese oolong, and I was drawn to the ones featured on the Thés du Japon site because they were described as resembling Taiwanese gaoshan, even down to the cultivars used. I had no idea how to steep this, not having a 60 ml vessel, so I filled my 85 ml teapot most of the way and hoped it was okay. TDJ also only gives directions for the first steep. I used my 3 g of leaf in boiling water and steeped it for 30, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of apricot, tart fruit (I haven’t had quince, but that seems accurate), grain, lemon, lilies and other flowers, and sugarcane. The lily, honeysuckle, orchid, and maybe even lilac florals do remind me of a Baozhong, as does the grass, butter, and silky texture. There’s definitely an element of grain that I haven’t found in Baozhong, and the tart quince/apricot/peach comes in on the aftertaste. (That peachy aftertaste might be the best part of this steep!) Spice is quite prominent in steep two, along with flowers, grass, minerals, grain, sap, and tart fruit. I see how Derk is getting mango in steep three, though there’s also some astringency, grass, spinach, lily, apricot, lemon, and minerals. The tea is starting to get a bit rough around the edges. Coconut appears in the fourth steep, though the spinach and grass are getting stronger and the fruit/florals are backing off. There’s still some creamy mango sweetness as it cools. The coconut, mango, and apricot continue in the next few steeps, but this oolong is getting very grassy, vegetal, and bitter.

This oolong evolved throughout my gongfu session and was a bit temperamental, though that could have been due to user error. While it did have some similarities to Baozhong, it took a wildly different direction in later steeps. (Also, keep those coconut teas coming!) Thanks to Derk for letting me try this tea!

I bought this tea in 2020 just before the pandemic. As is true of a few other people here, Shibi is my favourite green oolong from Taiwan Tea Crafts because of all the tropical fruit. Fortunately, the vacuum sealing meant that this tea didn’t lose much of its flavour in the two years it’s been in my tea museum. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of coconut, pear, apricot, lilies, honeysuckle, and grass. The first steep has notes of coconut, cookies, vanilla, pear, spinach, orchid, honeysuckle, butter, and grass. The second steep adds citrus, apricot, cream, and wildflowers. The third steep is all about the heavy coconut cream, with heady florals, vanilla, and what might be passion fruit in the background. The florals become more noticeable as the tea cools. By steep five, spinach, grass, and herbs are coming to the fore, though there’s still plenty of creamy coconut and honeysuckle, orchid, narcissus, and other florals. I also get an apricot/peachy aftertaste. The fruit fades by steep eight, though the florals persist until the end of the session.

As always, this Shibi is an excellent tea. Any oolong with so much coconut automatically gets a high rating from me, and the variety of other fruits and flowers is fantastic. My only small complaint is its relative lack of longevity, though that’s only in comparison to the other, pricier tropical fruity oolongs I’ve been drinking lately (the 2021 Longfenxia from Ethan and the 2019 Li Shan from Zhao Zhou come to mind). I highly recommend this tea for aficionados of fruity Taiwanese oolong!

Purchased as part of the Eco-Cha Tea Club sometime in 2016, this hongcha has spent too long in my tea museum. Its flavours are very soft and hard to coax out, and I have a feeling that’s due to age. I also laughed at the description of this as small leaf black tea, as the leaves of this tea are wiry and huge! I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 20, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 180 seconds.

The dry aroma is of rye bread, wood, honey, and cherries. The first steep has notes of rye bread, honey, malt, wood, minerals, and tannins, with aromas of cherry and raspberry that don’t make it into the cup. Mild raspberry appears in steeps two and three, and there’s a pronounced honey aftertaste. There could be some sugarcane in there too. The next couple steeps add raisins and spices. The tea fades into rye bread, wood, tannins, and minerals.

I wish I’d tried this tea when it wasn’t over six years old! It has some characteristics I associate with Taiwanese Assam (though I’m not sure this is actually an Assam tea), but I’ll be happy to see it leave my cupboard.

I usually don’t go for roasted oolongs, but bought 50 g of this Dong Ding due to its many good reviews and low price. It was the right decision, as I’ve been enjoying it all winter. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of grain, roast, char, walnuts, and flowers. As promised, the scent of this tea is sweet and cozy. The first steep has notes of walnuts, roasted grains, butter, honey, and char. Nutmeg, orchids, other flowers, and grass emerge in steep two, and I can see how it could remind people of popcorn. The next steep has more spices and roasted nuts, but is also a bit drying. Steeps four and five continue with the florals, grass, honey, grain, and walnuts, but the dryness also persists. The roast becomes more noticeable in the final few steeps, though it isn’t too abrasive; I also get wood and minerals.

This is a solid, unpretentious, well-made Dong Ding that lives up to its “sweet scented” name. It’s one of the few roasted teas that I would consider repurchasing.

Wuyi Origin released this “benefit tea” to provide a lower-cost option during the pandemic, and I applaud them for their thoughtfulness. What’s more, it’s actually a tea people would want to drink! I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

I’ve had this tea several times and still have trouble pinning down the tastes and aromas. The dry leaf smells like squash, sweet potato, cherry, malt, and wood. The first steep has notes of carrot, pumpkin, tart cherry, grass, malt, maple syrup, tannins, and wood, and has a silky texture. The second steep adds gooseberry, cream, sugarcane, and hints of sweet potato. The next couple steeps have more wood and malt, though they still have very vegetal notes of carrot, pumpkin, and sweet potato. The next couple steeps are more tannic and have notes of lettuce along with the orange veggies. The final steeps have notes of malt, tannins, wood, minerals, and roasted veggies.

This tea reminded me in a good way of the most affordable grade of Wuyi Origin’s 2020 Lapsang Souchong. Unlike the Sweet Potato Zhen Shan Xiao Zhong that I had recently, its sweetness was balanced and it had more complex flavours. I’d say it punches well above its price tag of $10 for 50 g.

I bought this tea when we were still fooling ourselves that the pandemic would stay in China. That feels so long ago now. Fortunately, the vacuum sealing has kept this tea in good condition. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 60, 90, and 120 seconds.

The dry aroma is of lilac, orchid, citrus, grass, and egg custard. The first steep is like a Tie Guan Yin with notes of lilac, orchid, spring flowers, egg custard, coriander, citrus, pineapple, butter, pleasant sourness, and grass. There’s a TGY-like apricot in the second steep, along with heaps of lilacs and other flowers and a green undertone. The next couple steeps have even heavier lilac notes, plus spring flowers, egg custard, citrus, sap, herbs, and grass. The tea gets more custardy and floral with each round, though spinach starts appearing in steep six. By the ninth steep or so, the tea is very green, though the lilac florals persist until the end of the session.

Despite being two years old, this is a lovely Baozhong. I particularly enjoyed its resemblance to Tie Guan Yin, which LuckyMe also noticed in a previous review. I wish the fruit had been more pronounced and had lasted longer, but the lilac notes more than made up for it! I’ll be getting more Baozhong this summer.

I bought this Dancong in 2017 or 2018 when DAVIDsTEA still had stores near me. (Those were the days!) I think it was a Frequent Steeper reward, as I got 50 g. Roswell Strange recently mentioned that it was a favourite Mi Lan Xiang, so I had to dig it out of the tea museum. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of lychee, plum, char, and roast. The first steep has notes of lychee, plum, roast, grain, honey, orchid, oats, walnut, and wood. The plum is a lot more prominent than the lychee in the next couple steeps, and the tea is nutty and roasty. The lychee, honey, and florals are mainly in the aftertaste. Steeps five and six emphasize dates, plums, spices, hay, grass, and minerals, with the honey sweetness expected of a Mi Lan Xiang plus a lot of roast. There’s some honeydew melon in the aroma at the bottom of the cup, but it doesn’t make it into the tea. The sweet fruit persists for another couple steeps, after which the tea becomes nutty and roasty with some minerals.

This is a nice, middle-of-the-road Mi Lan with a bit more roast than I like. Maybe the fruit was more noticeable when the tea was fresher.

This is one of a few Zheng Shan Xiao Zhongs that I bought at the end of 2019, and it’s from the spring of that year. I didn’t know that Fujian black teas don’t tend to age as well as those from Yunnan, so they should be consumed more quickly. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, and 120 seconds.

The dry aroma is of baked sweet potato, caramel, chocolate, and malt. The first steep has notes of sweet potato, caramel, chocolate, malt, rye bread, and earth. The aroma is much stronger than the taste, which is fairly light. The next steep takes an unusual turn, adding notes of glazed carrots and vegetal umami while maintaining those savoury sweet potato, chocolate, and bready flavours. The veggies are a bit less prominent in the next couple steeps, though they’re still present, and there’s a long aftertaste of sweet potato and stevia. Carrot, sweet potato, brown sugar, other starchy vegetables, earth, and malt feature in the next few rounds. The final steeps have notes of malt, minerals, earth, tannins, wood, and faint sweet potato.

While I enjoyed the sweet potato and chocolate in this tea, its weird vegetal notes and high amount of sweetness put me off. I’m not sure if these things are due to age or to processing, but for me, they take away from the balance of the tea. Derk, Daylon, and Martin, let me know if you want a sample after reading this glowing review. :)

From the vaults of the tea museum, here’s a Wuyi hongcha from the beginning of the Eco-Cha Tea Club in the spring of 2016. I’ll call it “aged” instead of neglected. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of sweet potatoes, honey, raisins, earth, and medicinal herbs. The first steep has notes of raisins, plums, sweet potato, anise, earth, tannins, malt, sugarcane, wood, and spices, perhaps nutmeg. The plummy stonefruit is more prominent in the next steep, but so are the tannins and the astringency. The next couple steeps add cream and apricot, and I got a floral edge in one of my gongfu sessions. Fortunately, the medicinal character is gone, though there’s still sugarcane and faint anise in the aftertaste. The next few steeps have notes of spiced plum, raisins, squash, honey, cereal, tannins, earth, wood, grass, and minerals, with a nice honey/sugarcane aftertaste.

For such an old tea, this is complex and full of flavour. The honey and spices remind me of other Taiwanese black teas. I wonder if the strong raisins and stonefruit are due to aging, as they’re not noted in the few other reviews of this tea when it was younger. I’m sure Derk and Daylon will be able to add some nuances to this tasting note, as I’ve included it in their swap boxes!

I always buy Baozhong, then let it sit because I’m not sure how to steep it properly. Hopefully these swap boxes will allow me to offload some of this tea and encourage me to experiment with brewing parameters. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot at 195F for 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of lilac, honeysuckle, cookies, citrus, and pineapple. I must have done something right because the first steep is a pile of flowers, with lilac, honeysuckle, violet, and maybe peony. There’s butter, cookies, and grass as well. The second steep has hints of pineapple and citrus, but is still mainly floral, with stronger lilac and honeysuckle notes. There may be lilies and sweet peas in this flower pile, too. The next couple steeps are sweeter, though they also have more spinach and grass. The tea gradually becomes more vegetal, with lettuce, spinach, green peas, and herbs, though it’s still sweet and a bit floral. The last few steeps are like a floral green tea.

As someone who likes floral teas, I enjoyed this Baozhong greatly, though I wish the fruit had been more prominent and the last few steeps had been a bit less vegetal. This was a lovely spring tea in the middle of winter.