I’ve been holding on to this tea both because it is good and because it’s hard to pin down the flavours in a tasting note. I think it’s from 2022. Floating Leaves called this a cross between a Bai Hao and a Lishan oolong, and they’re absolutely right. I steeped 6 g of leaf in 120 ml of 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.
The dry aroma is of mango, apple, honey, raisins, florals, brown sugar, and malt. The first steep gives me lovely notes of mango, apple, and raisins, plus rose, cream, vanilla, spices, brown sugar, honey, and mild tannins. It’s like an impossibly decadent cake in tea form. I get nutmeg, rose, honey, and pine in the next steep, plus lush mango and more tannins. Steeps three and four add violets and other florals to the spice/rose/mango/honey base. By steep five, the tea takes on some muscatel and autumn leaf overtones reminiscent of a Bai Hao, while still having lots of mango, rose/orchid/violet, honey, and malt. As the steeps get longer, the tea becomes slightly more malty and tannic, though the spices, muscatel/raisins, honey, and brown sugar persist. It tastes more like a traditional black tea, though a very good one. I didn’t want to say goodbye to this tea, so I did some final, slightly disappointing steeps that had notes of malt, minerals, wood, honey, and the ghost of those beautiful florals.
Whenever I have this tea, I’m absolutely smitten with it and sad about my dwindling supply. It has lovely fruity, floral flavours, basically no bitterness, excellent longevity, and the characteristics of all the tea types I enjoy. It confirms my belief that Lishan black teas are truly special.
Flavors: Apple, Autumn Leaf Pile, Brown Sugar, Cream, Floral, Honey, Malt, Mango, Mineral, Muscatel, Nutmeg, Orchid, Pine, Raisins, Rose, Spices, Tannin, Vanilla, Violet, Wood
