Spring 2021 Lishan

From Leafhopper, purchased from Tea Forum member Bok – thank you!

The dry leaf has the most natural creamy and sugary sweet aroma I’ve ever smelled in a high mountain oolong. It reminds me of a touch of pineapple blended with coconut cream. The floral aroma mixes very well displaying fleshy notes of tuberose and magnolia and a more airy orchid.

Warming the leaf brings out more of a sweet vegetal, nutty character with spinach, creamed corn and macadamia with a good dose of nutmeg and a hint of kale.

Both the taste and aroma are delicate yet entirely intoxicating. Instant calm. Grass, tuberose, pineapple, palm sugar (those Vietnamese pucks), coconut, macadamia, ginger lily, nutmeg, cream, an overall slight umami quality. Very smooth with both balanced acidity and astringency that leave the mouth watering. The tea goes down with ease, finishing minty cool and buttery clean. Soul-warming.

The leaf has good longevity and with my hand, seems to express itself with numerous peaks and valleys. It’s not a very forward tea and needs some coaxing to maintain an even display of character. Even though the warm fruity, nutty and spicy tropical aromas and tastes would appeal to many, this is a leaf that might be best appreciated by tea enthusiasts with perceptive palates. I would love to see what others think of it, though!

I bought this oolong from a member of TeaForum who also sold me my 150 ml Hongni-Zhuni teapot from the 1990s. I’ve been drinking it for over a month now and have almost finished my 150 g bag. I’ve found that it does better with slightly longer steeps in the Hongni-Zhuni pot, but I’m reviewing it in porcelain because that’s what most people have access to. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot at 195F for 35, 30, 35, 40, 40, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds.

The dry aroma is of pineapple, orchids, and grass. The first steep has notes of pineapple, orchid, sweet pea, other florals, butter, coriander, spinach, and grass. The next steep adds kale and umami, but also mandarin orange and peach. The third steep reaches peak fruitiness, with pineapple, stonefruit, citrus, white sugar, cream corn, orchid, lilac, spinach, grass, and umami. This tea is greener than perhaps I’d like, though some of that is smoothed out when I steep it in my clay pot. In the fourth to sixth steeps, the pineapple and florals are pronounced and the tea is creamy and sweet. The tea becomes more green and floral as the session winds down, until it peters out around the twelfth steep.

There’s a lot to like about this oolong. I enjoy the pineapple, stonefruit, and florals, and the aroma of the leaves is wonderful. It loses a few points due to its greenness and relative lack of longevity. Longer (around one-minute) steeps in my clay pot bring out a savoury, umami quality that one TeaForum member compared to buttery lobster, and while I thought this was fun, I prefer to emphasize the fruitiness with shorter steeps. I’ve made this tea almost every day and still look forward to my remaining few sessions.