Silk Oolong Formosa

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Butter, Caramel, Cream, Milk, Popcorn, Rice
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Jack
Average preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 2 min, 45 sec

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13 Tasting Notes View all

  • “My last oolong wasn’t all that hot so I decided to try something I knew was good. I’m surprised I have as much of it left as I do. And when I say that, I mean I’m surprised I have more than one...” Read full tasting note
    89
  • “Wow. I’m loving this tea. I’m currently on my third infusion, and will likely get 1 or 2 more. On first sniff of the dry leaf, you get cream and fruit tones. These continue throughout the...” Read full tasting note
    86
  • “Shortbread. That’s what I tasted on the first two steeps. Delicious, warm, buttery, with fruity notes and that distinct cookie flavor, shortbread. I should mention that I’m now on steep five of...” Read full tasting note
    87
  • “Joy of joys! My order from Red Blossom Tea Co. arrived today. My first shipment of new tea since joining Steepster… almost makes me a little misty-eyed. New teas: Silk Oolong Formosa, Organic White...” Read full tasting note
    80

From Red Blossom Tea Company

Oolong from Tung Ting, Taiwan, gathered in early spring, then infused with the creaminess of milk before roasting.

A tea that defies description: light and sweet yet incredibly rich, with hints of passion fruit, mango and caramel. You’ve likely never tasted anything this good.

About Red Blossom Tea Company View company

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13 Tasting Notes

89
911 tasting notes

My last oolong wasn’t all that hot so I decided to try something I knew was good. I’m surprised I have as much of it left as I do. And when I say that, I mean I’m surprised I have more than one cup’s worth of leaves. I have two. Woo!

Okay, but now that I’ve brewed a cup up, I have the one cup left that I figured I did before. Confused yet? I kinda am.

Anyway, the flavor notes say light, sweet and rich with hints of mango, passion fruit and caramel. I’m with ‘em on the first bit. It’s light and sweet but it’s got a rich flavor to it. More like condensed cream than just sugar. Sweet but richly so. I’m a little iffier on the mango, passion fruit and caramel. What flavor is Juicy Fruit gum? Because that’s what this always makes me I think of. Wikipedia says that they probably use pineapple, peach and banana, so at least we’ve got the tropical fruit thing matching. I can see the caramel now though. I’m pretty sure that’s what give this tea the rich tone to the sweetness.

Anyway, I do love this tea. The Silk Oolong Anxi was a little better but I think it lacked what I’m now going to say is the caramel. So when I say ‘better’, it’s really a personal preference thing. I think when this tea was fresher it had a bit more body to it (or that might have been the Anxi) but all in all, it’s aged pretty well. I need to be better about remembering my greener teas so I don’t have to worry about how they age.

Well, one cup of this left for some unknown date in the future. Then, aside from samples, I will be left with only Citron Oolong for my oolong teas. Yikes. I need to order some oolong, stat!

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 2 min, 30 sec
takgoti

Eep indeed! The oolong situation must be remedied.

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86
411 tasting notes

Wow. I’m loving this tea.

I’m currently on my third infusion, and will likely get 1 or 2 more.

On first sniff of the dry leaf, you get cream and fruit tones. These continue throughout the steeping process. Each successive steep gets a little less fruity and a little more “green” but oh! is this a nice yummy tea. Definitely has a high tannic content, as it does leave a little of the dry mouth, but does it without any bitterness.

So far, my favorite oolong.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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87
260 tasting notes

Shortbread.

That’s what I tasted on the first two steeps. Delicious, warm, buttery, with fruity notes and that distinct cookie flavor, shortbread.

I should mention that I’m now on steep five of this.

I know that I’m really digging an oolong if I get this far with it. Even though I know that oolongs are generally meant to unfold over steeps, if it’s really not gelling with me after steep two, I have a lot of trouble forging ahead [and often don’t]. Clearly, that’s not a problem with this one.

Auggy [thanks Auggy for this, by the way] and LENA F. mentioned tropical, candied, Juicy Fruit-ish flavors from this, and I didn’t really get that strongly until at or around steep three. The buttery component had become significantly weaker during the second steep, though I could still taste the shortbread, but by steep three it became notably more tropical in character. It shed its tartan and bagpipe and threw on a hat made of fruit and a coconut bikini.

Here in steep five, it’s light and fruity. I’m probably going to stop at this cup because it’s become significantly weaker for me. Similar to when you drop some fruit into water and let it sit for a while. It’s still enjoyable at this point, but in another cup I suspect the flavor will have dissipated beyond the point of notability.

This isn’t as complex as other oolongs I’ve had, and it is very, very different from other formosa oolongs that I’ve tried, but I imagine that I’ll want to have it around for, at the very least, those first three steeps.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec
teaplz

This sounds like awesomeness in a cup. :) I’m terrified of multiple steepings, but I’m going to give it a shot tomorrow with my Gunpowder from Adagio! Oolongs, greens, whites, and pu-erh can use multiple steepings, correct?

Your summaries are awesomesauce, by the way. I just pictured a burly Scottish man in a kilt wearing a coconut bra. WIN.

Auggy

If it weren’t so late, I’d make me some. So much love for this.

Auggy

@teaplz: A lot of blacks can get another steep or two out of them. Flavored teas seem to lose the most out of a second steep, but I’ll do most Keemun or Yunnan teas 3 times. I think I did the Assam I had twice and it turned out nice, too. So pretty much everything can take multiple steeps. The big question is how much you like what they give you in them. :)

takgoti

@teaplz Aww, don’t be scurred! I’m going to say that it really depends on the tea. For me, multiple steepings tend to go better with oolongs and pu-erhs. In fact, they almost always result in the cup evolving and are well-worth it to explore. [Some oolongs can have a much more vegetal taste on the first go round than on subsequent ones.] Some Japanese greens are meant to undergo a lot of steeps at different time intervals to unlock the flavors.

Pretty much anything else has the capability of taking more than one steep, but in my experience it’s wholly dependent on the quality of the tea. Some flavored blacks, for example, can become rather tasteless even on steep two because they use a low quality tea and the flavoring comes out in the first steep. The best way to learn from tea to tea is to experiment!

takgoti

@Auggy We are of one mind.

teaplz

Oh no! I threw out my Yunnan Jig leaves today. D: Do you just gradually increase the time of the steep? And should you keep the water temperature the same for subsequent steeps?

I guess I always figured that blacks would get more astringent/bitter on a second steep. Guess I’m wrong, then!

I’m pretty much borderline terrified when I make ANY cup of tea. I just keep thinking “Oh no oh no oh no this is going to go WRONG what if my water temperature isn’t exact and my timing exact what if there’s too much leaf or too little leaf oh gawd.” That’s pretty much the mini panic attack every time I make tea. With bagged tea I’m pretty insane as well.

takgoti

@teaplz Tea is pretty forgiving, but you’d best believe that we’ve ALL ruined plenty of cups along the way. One of the best feelings I get is when I revisit a tea, tweak some things, and all of a sudden it’s like I’m drinking something completely different.

For the most part I usually keep time and temperature the same. If I notice that something is starting to taste weak, I might let it sit for a while longer to see if it brings more flavor out, but more often than not the tea is just sputtering out. One of the best things about Steepster is that I can go back and look at old logs to see what I did and try something new the next time round.

Letting go of “The Fear” is very difficult, but I think/hope that once you’ve played around with things a bit more it will begin to lose its hold on you. We tend to dissect things and get so specific on here that I can definitely see it sounding intimidating, but seriously, brewing a cup of tea isn’t rocket science. So long as the tea is ultimately enjoyable to you, you’ve won anyway!

Auggy

Awww, don’t panic! There are very few teas that you will ruin by fudging a little on the time, the leaf or the temp. (Japanese greens tend to be the most picky in my experience). And just because you CAN resteep does mean you have to. I almost never resteep my morning tea because I just don’t have time.

I think the general rule is to increase both steep time and water temp, however I’m lazy and rarely change the water temp. I sort of guesstimate the next steep time depending on the tea type and how the first cup was, but typically end up with something like 3:00, 4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 9:30, 13:00, 17:00, 22:00… But that’s my own personal set up that I find works best for me (and usually with oolongs – blacks never seem to last THAT long). Again, that’s just me. You probably might want to increase your steep times more since you seem to prefer bolder tastes.

If you play around with it enough, you’ll be able to start getting a feel for how things will react best for you.

teaplz

“The Fear?”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-wGMlSuX_c

I think the panic comes from really cheap bagged teas. And that PG Tips really scarred me. I kept thinking to myself, HOW DID YOU GET SO BITTER IN TWO MINUTES?! And Earl Grey! Earl Grey perpetually seems to screw me. It’s like it doesn’t want to be made correctly, for some reason. :(

I do really like bolder tasting blacks. But I do like mild tea as well! I don’t think I’ve had a good one yet, though. Even though I like my tea somewhat strong, here’s a little secret: I loathe coffee. I actually can’t stand the taste of it. Aren’t I weird. But I like expresso (with no milk added in) better. Which means I can stand to sip it a little without wanting to gag.

Auggy

Maybe if you do a little dance with some cute butlers, you would be more relaxed prior to tea brewing. Hehe.

Oh, I should have shared earlier… I made my hubby PG Tips this morning in honor of you. :D

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80
45 tasting notes

Joy of joys! My order from Red Blossom Tea Co. arrived today. My first shipment of new tea since joining Steepster… almost makes me a little misty-eyed.

New teas: Silk Oolong Formosa, Organic White Monkey, Pi Lo Chun, Ming Qian Lu Jian, Jing Xuan, Silver Needle. Plus I got a very pretty little gaiwan and samples of Phoenix Eye Jasmine and Jade Kuan Yin. Yay!

I was very excited to try this tea. Steepster was how I discovered silk/milk oolongs and the idea was wonderfully new and exciting to me. I think I fell in love with milk oolongs before I even tried one. So it’s fair to say that I had very high expectations for this Silk Oolong Formosa.

The dry leaf smells like caramel or maybe those White Rabbit chinese milk candies (love those!). It smells sweet and creamy – like no tea I’ve smelled before.

The first steep: 2 teaspoons, 6oz water at 195, 2 minutes. The rinsed leaves smell like peach ice cream. That was the first thought that came to mind. Fresh fruit and cream. Such a wonderful aroma. I can’t wait to taste this. The liquor from this first steeping had a light cream flavor but that was kind of… it. I steeped it for another minute and it developed a somewhat thicker mouth feel. The tastes I got were all over the map. At times it had no creaminess, at times I got a very lovely milk flavor at the back of my mouth. For the most part it tasted like a fine tung ting oolong with nice fruity notes. Not bad but also not what I built this tea up into. I can’t really blame the tea for that. The second steep (195, 4 minutes) tasted like a nice oolong. Sometimes like a nice oolong with a little milk added. This tea, on both steeps, leaves a nice, sweet, fruity taste behind. Occasionally there’s a caramel taste.

It’s a very nice oolong. It’s exciting to drink since you never really know what taste you’ll get. I’m definitely a fan. The description leads me to believe that this is an oolong scented to taste like a jing xuan which, based on my research, has the milk flavor naturally. Although the information about milk oolongs on the web is sparse and varied… what I’ve gathered is that jing xuan teas are the “real deal” and then there are milk scented teas. So I’m excited to try the jing xuan.

ETA: Also! Do you rinse the leaves between steeps? I didn’t do that but I’m wondering what the general consensus is…

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 30 sec
takgoti

I do at the beginning but not in between steeps. I guess I never thought to.

Auggy

I think you can do it in between steeps to sort of wake the leaves up if they’ve gotten cold or something, but I’ve never done it or really heard much about it so the fact that I think it exists is pretty much all I’ve got.

LENA

never thought to rinse between steeps. maybe it’s just a personal preference? congrats on all of the new teas. looking forward to reading all about them.

Pithy

Your research is correct! The silk oolong is a flavored tea. It is steeped in milk and then roasted to give it that “creamy” flavor that mimics the natural thickness of the oolongs grown at higher elevations like the Jing Xuan. I recommend having a comparison tasting side by side to really taste the difference between them! And no need to rinse the leaves between steeps.

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89
266 tasting notes

Silk Oolong has to be one of the best green oolongs that I’ve had to date or at least the first infusion. The aroma of the dry leaf had me initially uneasy as it reminded me slightly of a mix of sour milk and fruit but luckily the brewed tea tastes a lot better than the dry leaf smells. This is my first silk or milk oolong and it is clearly wonderful and amazing at how much it tastes like milk cream with a sweet fruity and maybe a tad floral notes that remind me of mango. From what I understand Silk oolong is designed to imitate the taste of Jing Xuan and I must say I enjoy the “fake stuff” made with real cream over the Jing Xuan grown to imitate the taste of cream in the tea itself. For me this tea peaked in the first infusion as it came off as declining a bit in the future infusions but it still left a very good impression on me. So you do have to at least admit that real Jing Xuan does hold up a bit better for more infusions than Silk Oolong.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 15 sec
Thomas Smith

I had this sitting on my shelf for a year. I have such a hard time getting past that dry fragrance and hardly ever brewed it because of it. Wound up giving it away…

John Grebe

Thomas, I can understand as it took me a while to get around to brewing it the first time after having it around for around a month. Still regardless of its great taste the tea dies too soon in my gaiwan for it to be worth its high price so I won’t be reordering more, which is a shame as if it was not so expensive I could see this being a semi-regular tea for me.

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75
161 tasting notes

I like this oolong and I’m usually not a fan of hand rolled leaves. This tea is super sweet smelling. I caught myself thinking about cotton candy…but by the time I identified the smell, it faded out. My nose spent a lot of time in my cup. There are several fruity notes in this tea. It could almost be a flavored oolong. Tasty cup!

Preparation
5 min, 0 sec
Auggy

I always think of Juicy Fruit when I drink it. So sweet and fruity!

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87
74 tasting notes

This is a beautiful, glorious tea. Last time I checked at Red Blossom they said they WEREN’T CARRYING IT ANYMORE? If so, that is a travesty. This is a really amazing tea and the flavor is just unbelievable.

It smells like ice cream or popcorn or something in a movie theatre that is glorious. The steeping is pretty solid for at least 2 times or even 3 and it’s great for a dessert. The regular Silk Oolong was very nice but the Formosa version really plussed it up a lot in my opinion. I love this tea, it’s marvelous and tastes and smells like candy and happy tears of joy.

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84
247 tasting notes

Hmm… I’m not certain what to make of this tea. First, let me say that I’m discovering I really love oolong. So, having had a few different silk oolongs, I was really expecting to have my socks knocked off… well, I didn’t. That’s not to say that it’s not a bad cup of tea. It’s simply that I had hoped for more.

First, the scent. I was a bit wary as I’m normally enticed by the aroma of the open bag. That didn’t happen this time. When I opened the bag and sniffed, I actually recoiled because it was so different from what I was expecting.

Okay, so I went with 195/2min steep using the Breville. The color was kind of a light yellow. Lighter than I expected, but I decided to give it a go. Mmm. It is good. I can smell that silk oolong scent that I had been hoping for earlier. It’s very nice, but doesn’t have that creamy heft to it that other silk oolongs seem to have. It does taste creamy, though, but with more earthiness to it. It’s interesting. I’m happy with it, but surprised by the experience all the same.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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87
2036 tasting notes

When I read “infused with the creaminess of milk” I thought I would dislike this. I’ve not had the best of luck with so-called milk oolongs with an exception or two. I have come close to gagging on some of the heavier ones.

So when I smelled the dry leaf of this in the packet, I was prepared for the worst. It has a sort of sprayed on buttery thing going on, like the butter flavor in butter flavored popcorn. In the packet, it smells to me like white rice as a butter delivery vehicle.

Gaiwan. 190F (for some reason my water isn’t heated all the way to 195 in the Zo), rinse, steep for 15 seconds plus 5 per steep for four steeps.

The first steep is pale yellow, which darkens to a champagne yellow and is clear. The third steep darkened to a yellow that was as buttery as the aroma.

The steeped tea’s aroma is also very rice-butter but the flavor is much milder.

There is definitely milk and cream, and maybe a little butter, in the flavor but there’s a sweetness that keeps it from heading toward buttermilk. It’s actually a pretty unique flavor, one I can’t recall tasting in other oolongs. It doesn’t really present as fruity to me, but perhaps that’s what I’m tasting, the hints of passionfruit and mango, and I’m just not recognizing it as such. The caramel is more apparent to me.

It’s always fun when you go into tasting a tea expecting to be horrified and you’re pleasantly surprised. While this is a shadow of the The O Dor, it’s one of the better milk flavored oolongs I’ve had, even with the “infused” bit.

Flavors: Butter, Caramel, Cream, Milk, Popcorn, Rice

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C

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4 tasting notes

Hands down, the first thing you notice is the aroma. To me, it simply smells like butter or buttered corn on the cob. This actually came from a small company called eL Tea http://bit.ly/cCHOyK

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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