Daylon R Thomas Send Message

I wish this site would actually save my notes….

Okay, I need to let out some tea verbiage confetti. Before I do that, I will say that the majority of the teas that I’ve drank so far and have mentioned are not on steepster yet, so it will take some time for me to put them up. I missed it when companies used to put the teas on here themselves. Oh well.

Moving onto this one, Wang Family teas never dissapoint. Oolongs dominate their catalogue, but they are all different, but they are all smooth and easy to drink. Gaoshan’s are usually smooth by default, but Wang’s teas smoothen out the rougher edges of their teas, whether that edge is the nuclear spinach quality of most high mountain green oolongs, or the smooth out their roasting edge by relying on charcoal, or at least roasting the tea to caramelize the sugars evenly in their tea.

The Dragon Boat Festival brought up a few new finds on their website that I had to try. I was already scouting out their Oriental Beauty, and thinking about getting more of their Shan Lin Xi because it works as a good morning tea, but then they had to add a few more interesting additions, including this fine tea.

It’s a wild grown one, so I expected some heavy florals, maybe fruitier qualities. The companies description is vivid, breaking it down session by session after the rinse and the 55, 45, 55 second pattern. They describe sweet orchid coating the tea’s flavor, and then detail osmanthus and mung bean in the middle steeps. They found stonefruit and brown sugar in the aroma of the later steeps.

I personally got it in reverse order, and used around 5-6 grams instead of 7. The dry leaf is extremely sweet, having some stonefruit and brown sugar qualities with the already in the dry leaf. I also got more of those notes in steep one after the rinse rather than the third ones. Orchid, followed by osmanthus were obvious. Mung bean and orchid described the rest of it. It was not as vegetal as other Shan Lin Xi’s I’ve had, which is nice given how sweet it is. I also find that it did not evolve to much in the later brews up to brew 7, but they were balanced, sweet and refreshing.

I really enjoyed this one, and the leaves were huge. Even the dryleaf looked like oversized dragonheads. My only nitpick is the price, since it was $16 per 25 grams. I usually expect a little bit more complexity with that price point. It’s a quality tea for sure with a sweetness that stands out against other Shan Lin Xi, but it still has the flavors you can usually expect from this quality tea. I don’t regret buying it for a minute, and I recommend Gaoshan devotees to try it, but I can also see more people being picky about the lack of complexity.

I’d like to see if someone has a similar reaction, though I have a feeling I’d rate it on the higher end than some people just because of my preference for easy going teas. I’m tossed up between 87-92 for the rating.