Vietnam 'Medium-Roast Jin Xuan' Red Oolong Tea

I was so sleepy this morning I turned on my kettle before putting the water in. How?! I started hearing a weird “clacking” noise and then a burning rubber smell, and realized what I had done. Then I had to wait a good 15 minutes to know if there was any life left in the old girl so I could make my morning cuppa.

This is from 2017, best by March 2020, but was still vacuum-sealed, so I’m hoping it has held up okay. Brewed western, 3.5g to 350ml in 205F water (if my kettle wasn’t totally borked!), steeped 3 minutes. The leaf looked nicely opened and my liquor is a slightly reddish-brown color. I’ve been a little trepidacious about any oolong boasting itself as “roasted” as I sampled a few Teavivre (through Dazzle Deer) ones and they just weren’t for me, but the aroma coming off this cup is extremely pleasant… A very chocolately scent, as well as some orange zest and a light rosey sort of floral.

Thankfully this isn’t just charcoal in a cup; it is delicious! There is a slightly earthy/mineral roasted nuts quality, with some notes of cocoa and orange zest, a bit of floral sweetness, and a slightly vegetal/woody flavor as well. Everything goes together so well in the cup and is very smooth, warm, and satisfying.

I really like this one!

Gongfu!

This is a really old sample but it’s been stored in its sample bag since I got it without ever having been opened so it’s held pretty well; I brought it with me to Saskatchewan for my vacation because I thought it would be a nice opportunity to give it a whirl!

It was my morning tea today – sipped slowly in my dad’s living room over a little bit of light music and some conversation. It’s been really nice having the time this vacation to just slowly and peacefully have long Gongfu sessions (and usually with some nice surroundings too)! I ended up completely brewing out the tea, and it was handedly a dozen infusions – though since I’m using a teacup much bigger than the pot I’m brewing in they’ve typically been stacked infusions. Two or three at a time.

I like Jin Xuan a lot, but more the greener kind – I haven’t really tried much roasted Jin Xuan, I think. I wasn’t totally sure what to expect but this was smooth, medium bodied and coating in the mouth. It had the creaminess of mouthfeel I’d expect from a greener Jin Xuan without being nearly so creamy and buttery in taste, though it was still a little bit creamy. More so I experienced warming notes of roasted mixed nuts, sweet honey notes, and hints of fruits like prunes – generally with a light woody and floral undertone. I imagine it would have been much better when fresh, but even still this was a great session!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6jDH6Hg7be/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osv71FQ0quY

Another from Kawaii433! Thanks so much! These dark oolongs are usually not my thing at all, but I’m always very thrilled to try a teaspoon or two. :D I’m intrigued by the ‘red’ in the name. There is a slight red tinge to these charcoal leaves. The bundles are very tightly wrapped. The flavor is charcoal, but not too much – very sweet and syrupy as well. Tastes very mineral and healthy. A nice lingering flavor. Very delicious for a tea that isn’t usually my thing at all. I don’t try enough of these types of teas to tell if this is the best of the best. But as usual, a very tough tea for me to describe. My tastebuds draw a blank on these types, unlike some other extravagant tea notes.
I really want to buy some of the What-cha Sticky rice oolong but I really don’t want to pay $6 shipping for just one tea. I realize they’re a tiny operation, but $6 is a lot of shipping for one tea, even if a couple others are also catching my eye.
Steep #1 // not quite 1 teaspoon for a full mug // 24 minutes after boiling // rinse // 1 1/2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 6 minutes after boiling // 1 1/2 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 3 min

This is a very nice medium to full bodied tea that combines nicely the fruity sweetness and roasted notes. Its smell is thick and sweet with notes like cherry, dark wood and molasses. The liquor is bubbly, soft, mouth-watering and gets decently thick throughout the session and also as it cools down. It has a cooling finish.

Taste is quite complex and balanced. Among the notes I found are those of toasted rice, nuts, resin, coconut skin and cedar. I also like the fruity aftertaste that lingers for a while.

I will try to get this one in my next What-Cha order.

Been drinking this throughout the week, and I am really enjoying it. I thought the sticky rice was my favorite out of this package but then I really like this one too. I feel fickle when I drink tea. My taste buds and my stomach can be fickle… Sometimes certain tea is comforting and other times, I need to get a bite to eat to continue to ease my tummy.

There are already great reviews on this but here I go.^^ The dry leaf consists of dark little nuggets and has a nice aroma of roast, bittersweet chocolate, vegetal. The wet leaves smell like roasted nuts, chocolate, tamarind fruit. The liquor which is medium-amber smelled like malt, cocoa, roast. It’s complex, and today, the notes I tasted consisted of creamy dark cocoa, like bittersweet chocolate chips, malt, honey, sweet tamarind, roasted nuts, butter, raisins, raspberries, tart cherries.

Note: I always have salted tamarind candy and raw tamarind (not the sweet type but the sour tamarind) as an available snack at home, and there were times some of my infusions reminded me of my tamarind candy. (I just emailed steepster to suggest the tamarind fruit flavor)

Yixing gaiwan, 5g, 110ml, 200°F, 9 steeps, 25s, 35s, 45s, 55s, 1m5s, 1m15s, 1m25s, 1m35s, 1m45s

For the second review of the evening, I will be offering my thoughts on another tea I drank recently. I finished my sample pouch of this tea around the middle of last week. I found it to be a very nice roasted oolong, though I must admit I have tried way too many roasted Jin Xuan oolongs recently.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of rolled tea leaves in 4 ounces of 203 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 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, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and 7 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of cedar, vanilla, raisin, and honey. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of cocoa, char, toast, and black cherry along with a stronger vanilla aroma. The first infusion introduced subtle scents of butter and roasted almond. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered notes of cocoa, cedar, cream, and raisin that chased by impressions of toast, roasted almond, char, vanilla, and honey. Subsequent infusions saw dominant vanilla and cream aromas emerge on the nose along with hints of plum, straw, and caramel. There were stronger vanilla, roasted almond, and toast notes in the mouth, though I also noted the belated emergence of butter and black cherry flavors along with new grass, daylily shoot, mineral, straw, caramel, and plum impressions. The final infusions offered notes of minerals, cream, butter, and cocoa that were balanced by subtler straw, vanilla, cedar, and raisin notes.

An interesting and complex roasted Jin Xuan oolong with a bit of an edge, this was a very satisfying tea overall. That being said, I have tried a couple other roasted Jin Xuan oolongs that were more unique and that struck me as offering a bit more depth and complexity compared to this one. Still, this was a very good tea, and I would not caution anyone interested in Southeast Asian oolongs to avoid it.

Received as a 50g mystery tea.

Gone western. 2 tsp, 205F, 3/5/8min then 10min simmer.

Dry leaf is fragrant, smelling of cacao, caraway seed, roast, wood. Wet leaf after first steep smelled like raspberry, red cherry, roast, caraway seed and green pickle.

A stable and consistent, smooth tea brewed western. Liquor smelled of red fruit, malt, cocoa and orange? and produced a very clear light amber cup, turning to dark amber then light again. The taste had notes of nuts (closest I could get was roasted pecan, maybe brazil nut?), roast, wood, red fruit, cocoa and light mineral with a light sweetness and lingering pleasant aftertaste. The mouthfeel moved from glassy and milky (skim) to thinner and a tad drying, then thicker and slick in the third steep.

Simmering the leaves produced a brilliant and dark orange-red cup smelling of lactose, brown sugar, honey and roasted grains and/or nuts. Hard to say but I couldn’t stop sniffing it. It tasted and felt a lot like boiled milk with the addition of honey and roasted nuts, a hint of cacao and sweet citrus making an appearance in the back of the mouth. No hint of bitterness or astringency. Very comforting. Taste hung around for a long time and my tongue was left tingling. Really interesting! I’m glad I decided to experiment with simmering the leaves of a roasted jin xuan.

I’m pretty impressed with this tea! Check it out. I saw it’s on sale, too. I wish I wasn’t so stocked up at the moment with other teas (plus 2 big pu’er orders coming) or I’d buy more for the winter.

I got this tea for Christmas and I was quite surprised when I smelled the leaves, as they don’t seem to have a very strong aroma of any kind. You can kind of smell that it’s a roasted Oolong (you can mostly smell the roast), but aside of that, there isn’t a lot you can smell. The leaves after brewing have a really strong smoke-y aroma and almost smell like burnt coal a little bit. The tea’s taste is, despite my expectations, quite smooth yet also strong in flavour. It’s very wooden and charcoal-y and has some nutty flavour as well. I was personally slightly overwhelmed by the intesity of this tea, which might be because I have used too much leaf. As of now, I would personally say that I quite like this tea and if my second tea-session with this tea (and fewer leaves) turns out less overwhelming, I will adjust the score accordingly.