Milk Oolong | Jin Xuan

So much new tea! The order I placed with Teavivre two months ago finally arrived, along with my official second order from Butiki. To think if I had withheld myself for another week or two I could’ve tried that delicious caramel tea Stacy just put up. Next time. Only when I’m down to 50 teas.

Anyways, that puts me back to just over one hundred teas again, despite my best efforts to swap away large quantities this week. It’s like starting all over again. at least I have tiny samples that I can drink up and check off to make me feel better tonight.

This one is from OMGsrsly and it smells amazing in that sour, milky, sweet way that rich floral green oolongs have. If someone told me I was drinking Quangzhou Milk Oolong from David’s Tea right now I would just nod my head in agreement. I can’t discern much of a difference, although this one tastes and smells almost fruity. The finish and the aftertaste are sweet! I thought I was crazy for picking up fruit but Tea Sipper mentions pineapple notes so I’m not alone!

I opened my sample bag and I have never smelled a tea so sweet…like candy!! I was surprised to read on the bag that they do not do anything to flavor this, but grow it in a specific way to make this so sweet.

First steep // 4 min // I set the leaves free in my new infuser! The leaves are pretty big and a nice jade green color. The first sip, I was surprised at a pineapple flavor! Not as much of a milky taste as I would have expected from such scented leaves, but still sweet and buttery. The color is a pale yellow

Second steep // 3 min // This was still juicy sweet pineapple and not so much milk. But it is so good!

Third steep // 3 min // This one is more of a floral and a bit of pineapple. It’s nice to see these leaves actually are LEAVES. Sadly, I think when I took the leaves out of the dipper infuser before, they were still mostly little bundles. These almost filled the entire infuser.

Overall, a very nice oolong, especially for the pineapple flavor. I wouldn’t mind getting two ounces of this one.

Sipdown! 266/365!

This was nice. Definitely a flavoured milk oolong (it says it’s unscented but I really don’t believe it), nice and richly creamy. Flavour didn’t last into the second infusion, really, which was too bad (but the cup was also a little underleafed to begin with).

Thanks to OMGsrsly for the sample! I should have been paying more attention while I was drinking both steeps, but I was distracted by school work while drinking this so maybe that dulled my senses.

The first steep was like your typical green oolong, but again, maybe because I wasn’t paying enough attention? The cup was gone before I had a chance to stop and observe.

But the second steep was noticeably more buttery. There was a touch of milkiness but it wasn’t as prominent as other milk oolongs I have tried in the past. Actually, if I didn’t know this was a milk oolong before tasting it, I probably wouldn’t have even guessed that it actually is.

Oh god, I have a meeting with the visiting distinguished scholar from another university in 45 minutes and I’m terrified. I actually have her book on how to conduct quantitative analyses so it’s a little intimating to meet the person who wrote it. And she’ll probably be asking me about what I’m taking into consideration for my thesis, methodology, etc, so the butterflies are going crazy at this point. :/

I’ve been meaning to write a review of this tea for awhile. I kept drinking it, but couldn’t decide what I was going to say. I really wanted to do a side-by-side comparison with Della Terra’s oolong creme de la creme, so I just did!

Boy, they are different. At first, I noticed that Della Terra’s is more sweet and Tealux’s is more vegetal. Then as I kept drinking, I decided I liked Tealux’s more! What?!!! I was in love with Della Terra’s. What happened? I think that the sweetness in Della Terra’s got more annoying as I sipped it along with Tealux’s. I guess Della Terra’s is good when I want a sweet milk oolong, but if I want something a little more savory, Tealux’s is better. Is Della Terra’s flavored? Their packaging says not, but now I’m not so sure. Interesting. Oh, and btw, another winner from Tealux!!

Yep, I like this one. Again, it’s amazingly milky with just a bit of that green grassy seaweedy flavour that I’m coming to associate with oolongs. Since I had a disaster with my Cuppow lid this morning, and had to dump my tea out before I wore it all, and I’m studying at home today, I’ve decided to work on steeping one tea as many times as possible.

Steep 1: I’d still prefer to steep less than 1 minute, but I don’t have a timer that does seconds. I bet there’s an app for that. :)

Steep 2: 45 seconds. Better than the first steep, because I found a timer app. Yay! It’s kinda caramelly, kinda milky, sweet, and has a little grassiness.

The scent of the tea itself is a classic oolong, with a strong, creamy, melted-buttery goodness. I like to brew it hot and strong, and only drink it once the leaves have all unfurled. The “milk oolong” flavor is not overpowering, it is delicate and perfectly balanced. This is a great tea.

An old favourite and still the best milk oolong I’ve had to date. Used up my the last tsp from my old stash from a year ago and it’s STILL good. I have a new stash I ordered on my last Tealux order though so no worries about running out.

Mmm, I forgot how much I loved this one. Almost a sip down for me, I have just enough left for a bowl brew. I’ll have to add this to my re-purchase list though. This is one of my favorite Jin Xuans. Not the creamy floral type ( à la Green Terrace) I love so much, but the delicious fruity style. Lots of tropical fruit notes swimming in a custard. So so good. Not my everyday preference but I certainly like it enough to keep on hand for times I crave this style.

I had to brew this one 3 separate times in different containers to make sure it tasted/smelt as I was thinking and it wasn’t just some weird contamination. After I had Teavivre’s version of milk oolong I was hooked. So I ordered the 100g of this one. They should have been similar right? Nope. Lol.

This tea reminds me of raisin bread, from the dry leaf through the 2nd brew it’s beautiful warm raisin bread, light on the cinnamon. Once you get through to the 3rd steep is when I got the more familiar ‘milk oolong’ taste – which for me is that kind of indescribable kinda sweet creamy taste that’s wonderful.

It doesn’t compare to the Teavivre version, as in it’s almost a completely different tea, but it’s still worth it to try out!