Bai Rui Xiang

Spring 2020 harvest.

Been a while since I’ve dabbled in yancha. The oily texture and heavy roast usually turns me off but this one has a unique flavor that’s just delightful.

The lovely aroma of roasted peaches and chocolate surprised me. The aromatics resemble a dan cong more than a typical wuyi oolong. I brewed it grandpa style as I usually do with this kind of tea. It has a familiar but gentler taste of wet rocks with floral accents and a fruity finish. Notes of brown sugar and hazelnut. Glides across the tongue smoothly without any ashiness.

A quite refined and elegant yancha with a lot of aromatic complexity and lingering fruitiness.

Arby Advent Backlog
Okay so this is a lot more exciting than I anticipated. It’s almost chocolatey. It has quite a tasty, deep flavor. I also mix it with other teas sometimes. It’s pretty good!

Tea from a few nights ago that I just didn’t get around to reviewing. Unlike the lightly roasted oolong from earlier, this had much more depth of flavour. Lovely roasty notes and minerality. Maybe a smidge of chocolate. Unfortunately, I can’t remember it all that well anymore, but I enjoyed it much more.

Oh dear this is good. Creamy. Berries. Slight roast notes. I would recommend this tea for someone who is just getting into oolongs without flavoring and who might also enjoy berry flavors. The natural flavor on this is really amazing.

For the last week or so, I’ve been focusing on the Wuyi oolongs in my tea collection, particularly the ones that were close to sipdown, and most of these come from Li Xianxi and her family. I haven’t done any really comprehensive tea reviews in awhile, like talking about each steep as you’re drinking it, but maybe today will be that day.
So, I followed the typical gongfu steeping parameters: 7G + yixing X 5sec/8/11/14/ etc…
1. Light & clean, and a lovely incense aroma and sensation, both floral and vanilla, with a hint of green apple.
2. This tea features that much sought after (at least by me) ‘after aroma’, where the incense sensation rises into the sinuses and lingers long after the sip is complete. I’m sure there is a Chinese word for it, and I think maybe I knew that word a few years ago when I was posting here more often, but anyway, I enjoy it greatly.
3. This steep reminds me of a vanilla marshmallow, except there is an underlying woodiness and the sensation of metal, neither of which are really appealing to me at this time.
4. Creamy vanilla marshmallow, this is creamier than the last one, and more enjoyable, as it cooled it gave off more of a floral taste as well.
5. pretty much more of the same…
6. Pretty much the same creamy feel, but with a more mineral undertone and a little bitter
7. This is a little sweeter, still creamy vanilla, but with a touch of an floral aftertaste, kind of like you were rinsing your hair in the bubble bath and got a little bubble bath water in your mouth…
I think I’m ready to move on to something else. This is a pleasant tea, but of the 3 Li Xianxi teas I’ve drank in the last few days, my favorite was probably the Mei Zhan.

I absolutely love this tea. On the nose I get osmanthus, violets, creme brule, cassis, aloeswood, and a lightly vegetal note…what is it.
Palate, sugar cane, burnt caramel, and the vegetal is… red bell pepper! Never tasted that in a tea before! Also, grape Jolly Rancher candy, leather, clove, and a long vapory sparkling finish…

Yet another of the samples I recently finished, this made for an extremely interesting contrast with the Mei Zhan. While the Mei Zhan was earthy, grainy, and chocolaty with integrated fruity and floral characteristics, this oolong was much sweeter and lighter. It offered a creamier texture in the mouth and more of a pronounced floral quality overall.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I started off with an initial infusion of 5 seconds in 4 ounces of 208 F water using 5 grams of loose tea leaves. I followed this infusion up with 10 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 8 seconds, 11 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry leaves emitted a mildly floral aroma. After the rinse, I picked up on more pronounced aromas of flowers, vanilla, cream, and huckleberry. The first infusion presented a similar, though somewhat more floral aroma. In the mouth, I detected delicate notes of huckleberry, vanilla, cream, and minerals underscored by an orchid-like floral character. Subsequent infusions were considerably fruitier and more floral on the nose and in the mouth. I began to note more pronounced aromas and flavors of orchid, lotus, and jasmine. I also began to note a subtle breadiness and a fairly noticeable fruitiness on the finish. The people at Verdant describe it as a “hint of tamarind,” and quite frankly, I found that to be a more or less accurate description. The minerality also began to emerge more fully at this point. The later infusions were very mineral heavy, though I could still detect subtle aromas and flavors of fresh bread, vanilla, cream, and flowers.

As mentioned earlier, this made for an extremely interesting contrast with the Mei Zhan. I was expecting an earthy, mineral heavy tea, but surprisingly, this was all sweetness and light. Despite the obvious mineral character, this did not come across like any other Wuyi oolong I have tried to this point. I very much enjoyed this tea’s floral aroma and flavor and could definitely see myself returning to this one in the near future.

Oh my goshhhh.

This is my first tasting of this tea and I am blown away. At the same time, I am also listening to alpha brainwave music that has been influenced by traditional Buddhist meditation music and the combination of these two.. really transport..me..somewhere…

Ooh zoned out nicely for a sec there.

I have no idea what aloeswood is, but my favourite thing about this oolong is definitely the aromas of incense. Warm and solemn, it brings back the memory of my time in the temples of China and Japan.

For all of the oolongs I have tried from Verdant, every one of them has been absolutely on point with their tasting notes. This one lists vanilla, jasmine, whipped cream, brioche, aloeswood incense and a hint of tamarind.

I am also unsure what tamarind is, but this oolong is every bit as beautiful as written.

Brewing this Western style as per website instructions. The other thing I love about Verdant oolongs is just how quickly the leaf seems to give flavour into the water. As in, the moment I pour the water into my glass teapot, the colour of the tea is already so pretty. And yet, the leaf keeps giving through multiple infusions.

Only really on a second steep of this one, but if it’s anything like my cherished Laoshan Roasted Oolong, these leaves will last me all day long.

This might just be my highest rated tea on Steepster…

The aroma of this tea reminds me of eating a traditional American breakfast. Pancakes, maple syrup, sausage links. The taste also has the sweet, savory, salty going on. The liquid is round and rolls appealingly across the tongue. Really a pleasure to drink.

Yet another November TotM sample from the new wuyi offerings from Verdant.

This pot is very floral and yet is still clearly a wuyi with strong roast notes.

Very unusual, I’m brewing this in a hybrid between gongfu and western, with a large English style tea pot but using a lot of leaf and pulling the basket very quickly after pouring the water. I hope to get back to this leaf with a more orthodox set up sometime soon.