Taiwan Jin Xuan Milk Oolong Tea (Flavored)

New samples! Thanks TeaVivre team.

First up is the flavored milk oolong. The dry leaves smell like buttery milky oolong sweetness! Exciting. This is the second ali shan I’ve tried. At this point in my life they are my favorite oolongs. First steep, 30 secs in a gaiwan at about 85 C. This cup isn’t overly milky, as I assumed the flavored milk oolong would be. This is actually more vegetal and buttery than milky, but the milk flavor pops up in the middle of the sip. It’s interesting, and I imagine this would be more milky with a longer steep. Second steep, 45 secs: milk flavor is almost gone, which is quicker than I predicted. I still really like the quality of this oolong though.

I’m starting to have black tea withdrawal symptoms but they are not severe enough to keep me from trying another non-black sample from Teavivre. Oolong is not my favorite but Teavivre always seems to make it interesting.

When I opened the sample packet, a somewhat sweet and milky or malted aroma spewed forth. The green and yellow tea leaves had been rolled into tight little nodules.

I steeped this blend for three minutes at 212 degrees. The brewed color was a light yellowish green.

The flavor of this tea is rather sweet, malty, and tangy. There is also a light tea taste reminiscent of Teavivre’s green teas. I didn’t find any bitterness. A soft and sweet aftertaste was left on my tongue.

I noticed, in the description of the tea, that it is recommended to use three to four teaspoons of tea per cup. I didn’t see that in time and scooped my usual one teaspoon per cup. I still thought the flavor was full and ample enough to enjoy.

Oolong (any Oolong) wouldn’t be my morning beverage of choice, but I would really appreciate this one at the end of the work day or as part of my dinner dessert.

This is yet another very nice tea from Teavivre. If Oolong is your preference, you will probably like this tea even more than I did!

Finishing off the last of this very generous sample today! It’s got me hooked, I want this tea in my cupboard always!
It is 97 degrees outside right now but I am still drinking hot tea! We’ve got the AC cranked, I actually feel like going and putting on a sweater! Lol. I think going outside for about 10 seconds will help. This may be blasphemous to some, but I am really looking forward to brisk fall weather!

This is again thanks to Angel and the Teavivre crew. smiles

This is a better review than the Lapsang Souchong by a mile! LOL. I had wanted to try a more ‘traditional’ Oolong because I’ve had such limited experience so far, and wanted something to compare teas with an Oolong base to, even teas that have a lot in it. I had a imsomnia filled night so if my wording comes across as odd, that is why. Lack of sleep can make me a little loopy.

1st smell Dry: Sweet and uncomplicated. I can easily picture myself relaxing after a long days work with a cup of this, though long before I go to bed, as the minor caffeine amounts may affect my sleep later that night.
Wet: Even more sweet, and maybe because I was expecting it: Creamy.
1st taste: In reading the reviews for the tea before sipping my cup, I noticed frequent mentions of a buttery taste. Truthfully, the idea kind of repulsed me, even though I have had and do enjoy butter tea. But when I took the 1st sip, without any sweetener, Mmm. Nice. I knew I had to add sweetener….I’m getting resigned to that factor…..lol. So I added one at a time, took a sip so I would make sure not to accidently put to much.
Oh, almost forgot to mention: I do not have any traditional tea items for this, I had thought if I did get to where I really like at least 2 of these samples, then I would start saving up for a nice gaiwan. So instead, I was going to use one of my teapots, but one is ridiculously big, to big for 1 cup, and the other is in the dishwasher. So I used my owl cup and favorite strainer. I put the visual equivalent of what I use for other loose tea, rinsed them, preheated my cup and then boiled more water, and set the top on it. When I took the top off, my 1st thought: (Mind you slightly befuddled due to lack of sleep.) that the leaves had exploded! Then I thought….Ooooo I think I put to many in the cup. So I thought to myself that I’d better do at least 1 more steeping of the leaves, that is if I could stand drinking down the 1st cup.

It isn’t the usual type of tea that I’ve gotten used to, so I don’t think I would choose this one very often. It is sweet, creamy, kind of grassy. I just might decide to buy this in bulk form.

This tea is a perfect 10/10 in my books! Seriously, you guys. As someone who could eat condensed milk straight out of the can with a spoon, or subsist on nothing but tres leches cake all day, this tea is a godsend. It is a boldly flavored, distinctive tea, so it’s not necessarily the tea I would pick if I had to have one “desert island” tea for the rest of my life, but if somebody told me I could never have baked desserts or candy again, I would use this tea to fill the void!

The dry leaf smell is striking. The tightly rolled, vivid green pellets have a rich sweet cream sort of smell. The buttery fragrance lets you know you’re in for a treat! The first four infusions have a luscious creaminess to them. If I steep it past the point of milky perfection, its flavor profile reminds me a lot of Teavivre’s Tie Guan Yin.

The aroma and flavor calls to mind milky candy, condensed milk, and caramel. A subtle creamy floral note perfectly marries the condensed milk flavors with the smooth, vegetal, green oolong ones just beneath them. Some people initially balk at the notion of a milky caramel candy flavor pressed up against green tea, but the flavors here are so artfully balanced that everyone I’ve offered this tea to has been really impressed. It’s delicious and deeply satisfying, but it also seems so… delicate. It’s not the clumsy slap of a sticky, oily caramel cake that just popped out of a vending machine, it’s the little kiss of a petite treat from a chic pâtisserie.

One of the best things about this tea is its full, creamy mouthfeel. A lot of oolongs have that subtly “buttery”, heavy mouthfeel, but this one is the densest feeling I’ve tried yet! Even without sugar, it’s a subtly sweet treat, but the addition of a little bit of sweetener takes it to new heights of decadence in a tea cup.

Considering how many times I can infuse this tea and still get fantastic flavor out of it, it is a wonderful bargain too. I hope I can keep my cabinets stocked with this for life!

Dry Leaf: I get a creamy or milkiness off the bat and I could see someone even say almost coconut like.
Wet Leaf: That creaminess or milky aroma still up front with a slight vegetal in the background.
Liquor: this had a nice yellowish color.
Taste: Has a nice creamy or milk like flavor for several infusions be for the vegetal aspect comes to the front and the creamy milk like flavor falls back then disappears.
Overall Opinion: I give this tea a solid 91. This is a great tea for the milk oolong lovers that like a more up front creamy milk flavor.

Much thanks to Teavivre for the sample! It was very generous to offer samples to someone so inexperienced in the tea game (not to mention how generous the samples themselves are).

Anyway.
This was my first milk oolong tea, or oolong tea at all, honestly, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t terrifying to try; I’m brave. So I brewed it up in a pot, using a couple spoonfuls of the dry tea and taking the water all the way to boiling. I wasn’t completely sure how to go about brewing a full pot since it only had directions for one cup, but I think that it turned out great.
I loved the scent of the tea, which turned out mostly floral. The flavor was just as good. Sweet, hitting the same floral notes as the scent, and slightly creamy, which I figure is the milk flavoring. It was lovely.
The second brewing was similar. Slightly less of the creamy taste, but still nice. I haven’t gone for a third time, but I’m sure that it will be good.
I would definitely recommend this tea and it was a great introduction to loose leaf teas.
Now I’m excited to try the rest of the Teavivre samples.

This is a delicious milk oolong. Rich, creamy and a bit sweet – the generous sample I received from Teavivre (thank you!!) went very quickly! :)

That’s much better. I got the oolong flavored sample pack from Teavivre. Thankfully it comes with two packets, so you get to do a little trial and error before running out!

Instead of using 212 degree water for 3-5 minutes like the package said (and failed miserably last time) I dropped the temp to a more usual 176 for my oolong, and 4 minutes.

It made this TASTY and smooth. I’m a big fan of milk-flavored things from Japan, so was a bit sad when I didn’t like this at first. The milk can easily taste “sour” to me when this is too hot.

In other news, staying up until 3am playing a video game about a civilization that frequently starves and freezes to death is somehow ironic. (Thanks Banished!) AND causes painful headaches in the morning o_o

Mmm milk tea to soothe my insomniac wounds.

Teavivre graciously included a sample of this oolong with a recent order, and since it felt like forever since I tried a flavored Jin Xuan, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. Flavored Jin Xuan is usually hit or miss for me, but this one was quite good. I would not call it a favorite, but I would definitely be willing to buy a larger amount to play around with in the future.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 7 grams of rolled tea leaves in 5 ounces of 195 F water for 8 seconds. Oddly, Teavivre recommended a water temperature of 212 F for this tea, but that seemed too high to me, so I stuck with my usual 195 F instead. For whatever reason, I cannot get into using a higher water temperature for Taiwanese oolongs, though I often do for green Anxi oolongs. Go figure. Anyway, the initial 8 second infusion was chased by 13 additional infusions. Steep times for those infusions were 10 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of cream and butter that were underscored by traces of grass and sugarcane. After the rinse, I found a stronger sugarcane aroma as well as hints of orchid and ginseng. The first infusion then released a stronger ginseng scent. In the mouth, the tea liquor opened with grass, ginseng, and unexpected spinach notes before revealing cream, butter, and orchid notes around mid-palate. On the finish, the ginseng returned just as the sugarcane emerged, leaving herbal impressions and sugary sweetness on the tongue and back of the throat after the swallow. The subsequent infusions saw the sweetness reigned in as the liquor started to soften and grow smoother. New impressions of steamed milk, minerals, violet, lettuce, kale, orange zest, daylily, and fresh daylily shoots emerged, and yes, I finally started to note a spinach presence on the nose as well as in the mouth. The later infusions (the longer ones) offered notes of minerals, butter, and steamed milk underscored by lingering touches of violet, lettuce, and ginseng.

Far from a bad flavored oolong, it took some time for me to warm up to this tea. I absolutely hated the first infusion, but the tea pulled me in from there. Though flavored oolongs are generally not my thing, I would have no issue coming back to this one at some point. I would imagine that fans of flavored oolongs would enjoy it and that is the audience to whom I would recommend it. Personally, I would have liked to see more fruity character and more complex, prominent floral notes to better balance everything else, but this should still be a pleasing tea for fans of flavored oolongs.