Today is a day of primer and ooze, so much primer and so much ooze. With the official completion of the Christmas minis that are being mailed away (I still need to varnish them, but not on such a breezy day) I can take a break from painting presents to working on some of my personal side projects. Namely I primed alllllllllll of the ships and terrain and other sundries from Dreadfleet and applied copious amounts of Nurgle’s Rot to my Bathalian and Well of Chaos. In a perfect world I will have Dreadfleet painted by my birthday next week, but I doubt I will get anywhere close to finished…Dreadfleet has a lot of really detailed pieces and I am such a perfectionist.
Enough about my painting shenanigans, it is time for tea rambling, today I am looking at LiShan Oolong from Joy’s Teaspoon! Ah, Taiwanese Oolongs, one of my oldest tea loves, this tea hails from the Yi Ping Chun Tea Garden by master Zhi Xing Chen in Nantou, Taiwan, on…you guessed it, the mountain called Li Shan, a very famous tea mountain indeed. The aroma of the curled up green leaves is sweet and floral with nice notes of lilies, hyacinth, orange blossoms, and a touch of sesame seeds and a delicious undertone of custard. Mmmm custard!
Into my XiShi Teapot the leaves go, and the aroma is so sweet! Notes of custard and lilies, ricecakes and honeysuckles, sesame seeds and a gentle note of green at the undertone. The aroma of the liquid is sweet, that is a definite theme with this oolong, with notes of custard, orange blossom, lilies, and a gentle note of toasted sesame seeds.
The first steep is light in both taste and mouthfeel, a gentle start to a tea I always enjoy for its gentleness. It starts with gentle creamy custard and sesame seed notes and blooms (heh) into a heady blend of honeysuckles, lilies, and a touch of lilac. The finish is a gentle note of vegetation that adds a crispness to the end.
Second steeping brings heady notes of hyacinths, lilies, and lilacs to my nose, with a finish of creamy sweet custard. The mouthfeel of this steep is thicker, much like that custard note that pops up from the first sip, it is rich and creamy, and super sweet. After the initial custardy goodness it moves on to flower nectar, blending notes of lilies, lilac, orange blossoms, and hyacinth. At the finish is the green, with notes of sweet peas and a touch of cooked turnips, it lingers on for quite a while.
Third steep, and you know what, that heady aroma is something else, notes of lilac and hyacinth, with a really great custard sweetness. The taste and mouth is rich and creamy, still holding strong with that custard sweetness, ever have Bird’s Custard? Because that is exactly the kind of custard it reminds me of. This moves on to flowers again, a bit of lilac and honeysuckle which pretty quickly moves to sweet peas and again that touch of cooked turnips. I went on for several more steeps and found this tea was a great accompaniment to painting.
For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/11/joys-teaspoon-lishan-oolong-tea-review.html
