China Milky Oolong

Let me start by saying that I am completely new to loose leaf tea. I was in Raleigh & wandered in to this tea shop. It smelled heavenly inside the shop. I was curious about the tea named milky oolong. The nice employee informed me it was her favorite of the lot. She pulled the tin down & let me smell it. Wow! I was sold. I immediately purchased a cup of this at the tea bar. I lived this tea from the first sip. To me, the aroma & the taste was an unbeatable combination. I purchased a 100 gram tin if this. I’ve been drinking it daily for almost 2 weeks now. I love this milky oolong. Sooooo good!

It’s a flavored oolong, but in the spectrum of milk oolongs out there (the ‘natural’ kind), this one was pretty affordable since I’m a poor college student with fancy taste buds. 50 grams for approx $10, and according to the sweet salesperson, I can get approximately 12 steeps out of this tea.

The initial sniff and I’m astounded that it smells EXACTLY like the Asian milk candies of my youth. It’s so bizarre, but hey, I’m totally down for milk-candy flavored teas. I steeped it for 2 minutes (and some change) and it was a pale yellow color, the pungent smell of sweet milk and nostalgia filling the room like a sweet song. I’m honestly excited for winter so I can sip this tea like the calorie-friendly version of hot milk and honey.

I’ve only tried three steeps out of this tea since I’m quite the busy bee at the moment.

1: It was quite creamy and a very rich tea. A touch of sugar and this will undoubtedly be my favorite afternoon pick me up tea.

2: Still creamy, less sweet, and I can taste an emerging vegetable flavor. Still pleasant though.

3: Definitely more vegetal, but at this point, I’m caring less about how hot the water is, and I’m pretty sure I wandered away for more than 5 minutes whilst dancing to a Taylor Swift song, but I happily drank it anyway.

Yum yum. This tea has me smacking my lips after every sip! My first milk oolong of any sort, I have a sample from Teavivre sitting around as well so I will have compare the two later. They are both flavored I think (not super sure about this one), but that’s no problem.

Creamy and delicious, milky sweet. Just plain delicious! First steep, we’ll see how the others go. I’m glad I got a decent sized back of this!

This was not for me. Fake movie theater butter flavor with a weird greasy texture.

Another lovely gift from Grandma. I hope she knows how much I appreciate this, especially since this obsession with tea is far from practical.

Again, I recommend the tea shop and I highly compliment the staff. I also have three more teas I need to write about.

Now, I have had MANY milk oolongs over the past few year, flavored and unflavored. I might have said this before for other teas, but this one is basically the standard of what you should expect. It has the general profile I like about these types of teas: creamy, sweet, floral, buttery, a little coconut-y, and a touch complex. It is undeniably savory and dessert like.

The first steep was the sweetest, and was better Western with slightly less than a teaspoon at 2 1/2 minutes. Short steeps do work for this tea at 15 sec with a little more leaves, but since the flavoring of the tea is stronger than the natural notes of the tea, it can be tricky to find it’s right balance. This is drinkable straight, but a touch of honey or sugar is recommended.

It can rebrew well; however, some sessions were better than others. If you get butterscotch in the smell, than you’ve done it right. The vegetal qualities of the oolong can unfortunately contrast with the flavoring and make the tea seem a little more artificial. The flavoring/tea leaf balance is my main criticism, and this would be easier to sell to tea newbies or those who are not afraid of stronger flavored teas. The more experienced snobs might think it’s slightly too artificial.

I might not buy it in bulk, but I enjoy a small amount of it. I would not say no if I were offered a single drink of it.