Heritage Honey Oolong

Thanks Nicole for sending a sample of this! This is the type of oolong I love after having too many ick charcoaly flavored ones lately. This is sweet, floral, peachy, apricot, a little bit vegetal. It just has a very full flavor since there is so much going on. The second steep was very peachy and floral. It’s hard to say which cup was better. The first had more happening, but the second had a stronger floral and peachy flavor, and seemed more committed to being just PEACH and FLORAL. The third cup was okay, but not the best. All of the steeps were around three minutes. This is a nice one!

A very nice crisp citrusy and sweet cup. There is a nice balance of contrasting astringency and honey, citrus sweetness – kumquats come to mind while I sip away. I’m currently discovering a numbing sensation to the roof of my mouth and sides of the tongue. There are some faint floral notes after you get past steeping 4. I’ll need to try this one at a lower temp later on and try to pull more perspective from it total capabilities. Pretty great start for a Saturday morning (now afternoon:)!

Logging this for now. Tasting notes will follow when I have more time. Midterms, midterms, midterms right now. =/

For now I’ll leave you with a first impression: Like a mix of milk oolong, da yu ling, and a white tip formosa. Very nice!

UPDATE: Adding the tasting notes I managed to scribble down… may not be the most in depth tasting, but at least I’ll get the general profile out there.

As mentioned above, there are aspects of formosa oolong, milk oolong and da yu ling. Yum. Smell-wise, it’s both vegetal and creamy. There are spinach notes, butter notes, slight honey/sugar notes. Also getting subtle cinnamon notes…interesting! Very sweet smelling.
As it cools a bit its more honey-ish.

Taste: I’m getting vegetal/spinach, along with a nice milky, smooth taste. Some floral aspects are present, and the whole tea is slightly sweet. Honey notes are very light in this first brew, but come through a bit more as it cools.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to do another steep, so I’ll be expanding on this the next time I brew the tea. Look out for another tasting note on this one soon. I’m leaving the rating blank for now, as I can’t recall what I would’ve given the tea.

This is a tea that I’ve been eyeing for a while. I love oolongs and one called “heritage honey” sounded so alluring! The scent of this tea is very strongly floral. Super floral oolongs make me nervous, but I’m interested to see if this floral note carries over into the taste. Sipping… oh, good! It’s not a mouthful of flowers. It actually starts out as a very smooth cup and fades quickly into a light honey flavor. So tasty! Some floral notes do come out at the end of the sip and blend very well with the honey. The honey is not terribly dark and sweet like that in a Mi Lan Dan Cong tea, but it is so nice mixed with the floral and lightly fruity notes. This is a nice alternative to the darker, roasted, fruity and strongly floral oolongs. It’s definitely a unique tea that would be a nice addition to any collection. I’ll keep this one in mind for future orders! Thank you, Nicole for sharing!

Yesterday was chilly and rainy, today was hot and sunny. It is days like this that make me loathe the Midwest, I was so enjoying the rain that when I woke up to the blazing sun I snarled at the sky and hid under my pillow wishing it was November already. After braving the heat and sunlight and crawling out from under my mound of protective pillows, I decided I want a tea that evokes Autumn, and honey is one of those things. I am not entirely sure why honey evokes Autumn to me since its sunshine colors are more of a Summer thing, but here we are.

Leaves are beautiful!
Today we are reviewing Heritage Honey Oolong by Mountain Tea, an Oolong from Nantou, Taiwan that was picked at an altitude of 1,300 meters about sea level. The aroma of this beautiful green Oolong is first and foremost of honey, very rich and sweet. It reminds me more of raw wildflower honey than clover, but that just shows how much honey I tend to eat. Following the initial honey aroma is heady flowers, especially night blooming Angel Trumpets, blending the almost intoxicating floral with a tiny hint of citrus. Lastly there are notes of chestnuts with a slightly figgy afterthought.

Note to self: sticking face in hot tea cup will end in a burnt nose
While the tea is steeping I notice that it, like the Tie Guan Yin I reviewed earlier, is managing to fill the area with its aroma. Considering I am outside on a breezy day, that is no small feat. I think if I had to chose one word to describe the aroma of the steeping tea it would be hypnotic. The slight figginess has disappeared, but the remaining aroma is that of honey, chestnuts, and intensely floral. Orchids and orange blossoms swirl around in my nose and it is bliss. The liquid without the leaves takes on more of a roasted chestnut aroma with notes of sweet honey.

The taste is pleasantly and surprisingly mild. I was expecting with an aroma that was so intense that the flavor would knock me into some sort of trance, but instead the flavors are subtle and mild, they just creep up on you. The main flavor is floral, reminiscent of orchids with just slight tart notes of orange blossoms, it melts into sweet honey and finished with a whisper of creamy peach. This mild Oolong would be heavenly on a rainy day, but I actually think drinking this on a hot day was perfect. I have to get more of this Oolong, if I am not careful it may supplant Tie Guan Yin for the coveted spot of ‘favorite tea’.

Thanks, Nicole, for the sample of this amazingly delicious oolong. I’ve had two infusions of this so far and both were so good. The flavor is nice and rich, and vaguely fruity. The flavor is also very thick – I feel like this should be syrup, it’s so thick and rich, but it’s lovely lovely tea instead.

And I see this is currently on clearance at Mountain Tea. BUYING NOW.

A lovely gift from the equally lovely Emily M, this was a surprise addition to our trade. I absolutely adore this tea, and my husband had some, added a little honey and some lemon (his throats bothering him) and he seems to equally love it. This is the first I’ve had of this brand, and I can say I’ll be trying them soon in a bigger quantity, if only to get more of this.

Wow, this is fantastic! I was skeptical, because the dry leaves smell rather grassy. But the taste is a floral honey, like wild honey, like the fancy jar of white gold honey I could eat straight up by the spoonful. The second steep is the best, though the first steep comes out better if I give it only 2 minutes.

FWIW, my order arrived faster than I expected, and although the tight vacuum packaging delays my childish “I want it now” diving into a newly delivered box of teas, and further requires a transfer to an empty tea canister (b/c I’m so inept at opening the silly vacuum pack), all is forgiven because the tea is so delicious.

This tea is pretty good, and for the price they have it, it’s a steal. Aroma of the leaves definitely was honey-esque. Throughout the session I got floral and honey notes, with a bit of fruitiness in some of the later steeps (and it wasn’t particularly strong or noticeable). Reminds me a bit of mead. The body was relatively thick, but not “creamy” feeling so much. At least not as much as Jin Xuan oolongs.

Nice taste to this tea and the leaf looks great, however there is a very minor bitterness.This one goes for a few steeps which is nice and a taste that brings me back after a few cups. Easily drank a few pots of this myself.