Milk and Honey Oolong

Trying to sip through this since I don’t love it. Easily oversteeps and starts getting quite bitter. Still not getting the sweetness associated with honey or creaminess associated with milk. Mostly butter and cooked veggies.

I was excited to see this tea in my package from Daylon. I can’t remember whether I didn’t get it last year because I’ve had mixed experiences with milk oolongs or because it was out of stock, but either way, I’m happy to try it. I steeped 6 g of leaf in a 120 ml porcelain pot using 195F water for 25, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus some long, uncounted steeps.

The name is promising and so is the aroma: violets, honeysuckle, milk, and other florals. The first steep is subtly milky and pleasantly floral, with honeysuckle, lilac, violet, and maybe some gardenia. I get a buttery honey note in the next steep, along with grass and that floral bouquet. I notice honey, milk, florals, grass, nuts, and whispers of roast in the next couple steeps. This tea has a thick body and is easy to chug. The next few steeps are very floral, with lilac and honeysuckle predominating, with milk, honey, nuts, and very light roast providing a balance. The nuts and roast get stronger near the end of the session, though they never become too sour or aggressive.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this tea. The roast was just enough to get rid of the grassiness I often find in milk oolongs, and the florals and honey were lovely. I didn’t detect any fruit, but the flavours that were there made up for it. I particularly appreciated the ethereal violet florals in the first couple steeps.

I’ve eyed this one for a while, and decided to gert 30 grams of this. I contemplated getting 60, but it would have been 14 bucks more, and I’m trying to be more frugal right now….meaning I’ve already spent more money on other stuff. Instagram got the better of me, and I bought a Matcha preworkout that’s extremely tasty along with a variety pack from a Canadian company called Gogonuts with boba milk tea flavored whey protein packs that are insanely good. Many of the bases of the powder have tea in them.

Back to this one! It’s exactly as Shiuwen described, and super easy going and forgiving Jin Xuan with the best combo of florals and mouthfeel. There’s a light roast to this one that you can’t really taste, but it gives off a very nutty and cookie like aroma in the dryleaf. Tasting it, it’s vaguely nutty like a macadamia and high in the buttered milk notes. The honey is there more like honeysuckle, and the teas florals lean more in a purple direction of the flower category, bordering between plumeria and hyacinth in hints, and violet later on.

I’ve only had it western in a mug and in longer steeps gong fu with my Manual Tea Brewer (Spirit Branded Gaiwan) 20 sec rinse, 35 sec, 45 sec, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, then essentially grandpa. I got more nutty tones western style after about 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Gong fu, there were more floral qualities and more viscousity.

I felt like it stood up even to my flavored oolongs, and a lot the Jin Xuans I’ve had lately are up to par with some of the higher mountain stuff. This teas only down side is the lack of longevity for 3-4 grams. I went lighter so I can share more with Leafhopper, though I have a strong feeling that this would do really well in the 7 gram serving territory gong fu. I preferred Western ever so slightly because I got more nutty and savory qualities with the sweeter florals that way. I’d definitely recommend this one in a green oolong rotation for sure, and what’s unique about it is how balanced in smooth it is. This is the oolong that you’d expect to taste through the way companies try to sell Milk Oolong in the first place, and like Shiuwen, it’s got all the qualities I look for in my oolongs too. Easily a tea I’d place between a 85-92% rating.