Mim Classic Spring Darjeeling Oolong

Super excited as this is my first single-estate Indian tea!

Intoxicating fruity, spicy, malted sugar, and floral aroma. More complex and beautiful than many of my Chinese oolongs! Most resembles a dancong oolong or a white tea in aroma.

The liquor tastes tangy and citrusy. It is sweet but not a caramelised malty dessert sweet, more a natural fruit sugar sweet. Great tea body and mouthfeel, pairs well with my sweet yoghurt breakfast. I might try adding sugar to the tea another time just for laughs but it doesn’t need it.

Steeped 2.5g of leaf in ~6oz of water at 183˚F for 4 minutes, as per instructions.

Thought I’d review this again as we are tasting the 2016 vs the 2017.

Wet leaf
2016: peppery and vegetal
2017: more intense aromas. creamed corn, floral and mild pepper

liquor and aroma
2016: bitter vegetal.
again very vegetal and peppery. high astringency

2017:
floral
high astringency, but not as noticeable due to the creaminess/umami. bit of a lactic quality like a sour sausage

Overall, the 2017 is more floral, mouth-filling and balanced. whether this is merely due to being fresher rather than vintage variation unknown, but fun to compare.

I had received this sample from nishnek a while back, but I’ve been slowly catching up on sampling teas from previous swaps.

I didn’t dwell on this one too long last night, for it was late and I had a long day of processing shipments at work. I’ve been trying to accomplish new steps at the job; to which I’ve received many compliments from the boss. He hadn’t realized that I was catching onto the work so quickly, but I simply suggested that I have had an abundance of help from my coworkers, so the work is less tedious all thanks to them. My job isn’t too difficult when understanding the processing aspect of the job; however, there are so many tiny steps and issues that arise, that it can get overwhelming and extremely tedious. Fortunately, I’m willing to learn and take many large steps to obtaining such information from the help of others.

With that whole monologue past us now….

Notes: The dry leaf has a sweet pine aroma; while the wet leaf reminds me of dandelions. The tea is extremely astringent, and it leaves you with the dryness in the back of the throat—with that dryness, there is a pine nuttiness lingering too. Overall, it’s a nice tea, but nothing I’d write home about ( << who says that?).

Very fluffy twisted and clean looking leaves in a dark and white array, very visually appealing as I’ve come to expect from Teabox. The smell of the leaves is already quite sweet, with a floral fragrance.

The brewed liquor is an orange gold, very fragrant aroma of lilies and sugar and some other flower. The taste is as sweet as the smell, with a piney pepper touch to it when hot and a juicy berry-like finish that gets stronger as it cools. The aroma lingers after swallowing and leaves a moderately dry feeling to the tongue.

A nice, mindless tea to sip and enjoy since the flavors are light despite being very prominent, although something about this particular kind of sweet is offputting to me (in my opinion, it almost tastes like artificial sweetener like splenda) and although the initial taste is strong with that sweet flavor, something, somewhere, inbetween makes this taste almost thin to me.

Again this reminds me of Bai Mu Dan. Not sure what the difference is between Classic and Special teas offered at Teabox but I’m assuming it has to do with leaf quality and processing. I previously tried the Special Mim Darjeeling Oolong and if going by class system alone, one would expect the Special tea to outclass the Classic, but not in this case.
The aromas off this dajeeling are insane; peony, lilies and hints of celery leaves; if you could bottle it, it would make that perfect perfume present as opposed to the Avon I usually give. The flavors are also spot on with abundant peony and light pine nut tones, coupled with a long sweet aftertaste. Drinking this now but since the oomph is not huge it would be nice to drink any time during the day.