China Fujian Anxi 'Jin Xuan' Milk Oolong Tea

Reordered this not too long ago. Though I’ve been appreciating darker oolongs most of the time lately, this is still my go to milk oolong.

Softly textured as it coats the mouth, this unscented Jin Xuan delivers with its clear note of sweet, fresh milk and a considerably subtler hint of mango that fades into a vegetal butteriness.

This tea was exceedingly light compared to the Taiwan Milk Oolong last night. I definitely got the mango in taste, texture, and smell with thick mouth feel and a transparent light quality. I was not sure what else I missed.

So I brew it up again, and more or less the same thing, only the creamy quality was sweeter. Like a sugar cane sweetness-maybe cotton candy-but sweetness is one of those subjective notes to me.

I do gotta say this is better Western in the short steep of one minute with one tea spoon than gong fu with two. More leaves makes this tea significantly more vegetal, while western brings out the more creamy and light qualities this tea has. Which is not that usual considering that Gong Fu brings out creamier and more floral qualities of an oolong for me.

Oddly enough, it was not that vegetable to me compared to the many other Jin Xuans I’ve had. It did have a light grassiness to it along with a thick, and again, creamy body, but not as buttery as other flavored milk oolong. Coconut oil is the closest fat that I can really parallel this to. This may or may not appeal to people who have a hard time with buttery and spinachy jin xuans, especially flavored. I personally quite enjoy it for the light simplicity.

Dry leaf smells creamy and fruity. 188F 5g ish 150ml gaiwan.

10s- fruity, creamy, thick. 20, 30, 40s – mango-y, thick and creamy. The taste lingers after finishing for several minutes. I liked it. 83

I was so pleasantly surprised with this tea. The aroma of the leaves is an overpowering mango scent, but when I brewed this tea I found the creamy, fruity flavors smoothly dancing around my mouth. Very excellent tea. Very light.

What-Cha’s Fujian Milk Oolong

This is a very unique Milk Oolong, which isn’t much of a surprised as I am always pleasantly surprised by What-Cha’s teas distinctiveness; this is a flavored Milk Oolong which is a little off putting to a lot of people. I’d probably have skipped this if it wasn’t from What-Cha, I’ll admit it I am a little prejudiced against flavored Jin Xuans, especially flavored ones from China, but I decided to take a risk and purchase it.

And I am glad that I took the risk. This is the best flavored Milk Oolong I have ever had, ok that bar isn’t set very high, but this along with the Golden Lily Oolong is my favorite Jin Xuan that I have tried this year. There are a lot of different tastes in this. If this was from that Tea Company that everyone knows it would probably be called something like “Majestic Tropical Milk Flowery Oolong”, ok probably something more ridiculous then that. The major flavors in this is Mango, Toasted Coconut, Butterscotch, and Orchid; while some of the minor notes are milk, pineapple and a little vegetal. While I don’t drink a lot of flavored teas, but from what I understand most flavored teas cannot be steeped more than once without a significance loss in flavor; I got four long (three minutes first steeping, four minutes second steeping, six minutes third steeping and seven minutes for my fourth) before the leaves started to feel completely used up.

(“Breath Taking” photography at: http://rah-tea.blogspot.com/2014/11/what-chas-fujian-milk-oolong-jin-xuan.html)

Very buttery and sweet to the nose when dry. Slight seaweed notes when smelling the wet leaves. The brewed tea liquor was straw yellow. The unfurled leaves were whole, not CTC.

A very pleasant velvety seaweed/vegetable notes. I fully enjoyed it and wish I had more than 10 grams to try (I had to share it — only was able to enjoy 8oz of it).

Happy lunar new year!

This cup has been a long time in the making. I prepped it in my travel mug to take with me for apartment cleaning, and then forgot it in my car. It froze solid and stayed in my car for a few days, then I finally remembered to bring it in. Once it thawed enough to dump out of the travel mug, I put the whole thing in some more water in the fridge to continue cold steeping.

Surprisingly, this is still pretty excellent. The buttery flavour is much stronger than previous cups I’ve had, and the complexity isn’t as apparent, but it’s still flavourful, thick and smooth, with floral and grassy notes backing up the butter.