Nepal Jun Chiyabari 'Winter Special' Oolong Tea

March Sipdown Prompt – a single origin tea

I discovered this pouch in my “finer teas” box – a box of teas I will only drink when I have time to pay attention to them. I am sure this must be a gift from derk, and I am sorry it didn’t get sampled much sooner, because it deserved better treatment than this.

I think I have enjoyed every tea from What-Cha I have tried, and the teas from Nepal have pretty predictably been winners. No exception here.

First impression was that this tea has that taste I find hard to describe, but that was prominent in Wild Forest Oolong. It is giving me the same vibe on the swallow – a lovely, rising sweetness and then a mineral aftertaste.

Although this is a fairly light tea, it packs a lot of complexity and flavor. The medium gold color of the liquor doesn’t foretell what you will taste.

I could have kicked myself for taking a bite of food before sipping, but this is where the tea surprised me. It was just brisk enough to say, “Look at me!” despite the heavy breakfast fare. I made sure to leave enough to get a thorough taste after the meal.

I agree with derk entirely on the notes for this one. When my cupboard gets lower I would definitely be in the market for some Nepalese oolongs.

Thank you, derk! I am sorry it took so long to get to this one!

I think Derk/White Antlers may have given me a sample of this tea, but I also bought a bag of the 2018 harvest, which is what I’m drinking. I steeped 4 g of leaf in a 355 ml mug at 195F for 5 and 8 minutes.

The dry aroma is of hay, chocolate, roses, and stonefruit. The aroma from the cup was so enticing that I sipped this while it was still really hot and now have a slightly burned tongue. The dark chocolate is very prominent, followed, in order of detection, by peach, apricot, nectarine, honey, tangy dried fruit, citrus, rose, cannabis, herbs, wood, smoke, orange blossom, hay, malt, minerals, tannin, cream, and roasted almond. As it cools, the muscatel, stonefruit, and citrus notes become more apparent in the tea and in the aftertaste. I also see how people are getting cherry from this. The second steep is almost as good, featuring fewer of the fruit and chocolate notes and more of the malt/tannins/hay. I get autumn leaves and more astringency.

I was blown away by this tea as soon as I tried it, burned tongue notwithstanding. I immediately tried to find it on the website, only to learn it was out of stock. This is one of the best Nepalese teas I’ve had and one of the highlights of 2020.

[Winter 2018 harvest]

I have recently tried two Korean Balhyocha teas (which certainly doesn’t cover such a varied category at all), and this tea reminds me of them, at least when sniffing the dry leaves. However, Winter Special soon shows that it is indeed special. The pronounced and complex profile blends floral, fruity, spicy, and woody aspects into a delightful mix. It is a very fragrant and full bodied tea. In fact, I am tempted to say that it’s the best one from Jun Chiyabari I have tried to date, although with the consistently high quality they produce, it doesn’t have weak competition. One thing is for sure though, I will be bringing this tea out for special occasions.

Dry leaves smell of cocoa, peach pits, cloves, and flowers, while the wet leaves have a very interesting aroma involving notes of pollen, nectarine, chrysanthemum, ammonia, yuzu, and wet rocks.

The liquor has a good bitterness and mild astringency, but a soothing mouthfeel. The texture is thick, bubbly and very active. As I pointed out already, there is an explosion of flavours, from star anise, rose, and orange blossom, all the way to grapefruit zest, cherry, and brown sugar. Aftertaste is incredibly long and fragrant with a colling sensation in the throat, even though the tea is warming the whole body.

Words can’t do this tea justice at all, try it for yourself!

Hihi. Moving through my oolong stash. Another one I prefer brewed gongfu. This one does do well with shorter and longer steeps.

I didn’t look at the reviews for this Nov 2017 harvest until I did a few sessions. Given eastkyteaguy’s thorough review, I don’t think there’s anything to add in terms of aromas and tastes. My general overview: this is a very chocolate-dried fruit fragrant tea with similar, complex tastes. If it just had more texture and body for my preferences, I’d buy this again with no hesitation. But if those aren’t things you specifically look for in tea and you like some light bitterness and slight astringency that produces tongue tingles, I’d say go for it, you won’t be disappointed in its complexity! It really does have a great flavor profile and offers a delayed returning sweetness like a dark muscovado sugar. It’s a very mellowing tea when had first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, and in the evening, I’ve fallen asleep within an hour of a session.

This was the first of current month’s sipdowns. I wanted to start February off with something a little different, so I went through my What-Cha hoard, found this tea, decided that it had been far too long since I had reviewed an oolong from Nepal, and then immediately tore into it. I found it to be a near excellent Nepalese oolong, though I found the body and texture to be lacking at times.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After the rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 16 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 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 produced aromas of hay, malt, chocolate, roasted almond, raisin, and prune. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of roasted peanut, wood, brown sugar, and blackberry that were accompanied by subtle touches of tobacco and cannabis. The first infusion introduced aromas of anise, violet, candied orange, Muscatel, and honey. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented me with notes of honey, malt, roasted almond, cream, prune, raisin, and wood that were chased by hints of brown sugar, tobacco, chocolate, Muscatel, and butter. The subsequent infusions brought out aromas of rose, cherry, celery, plum, orange blossom, butter, cream, and vanilla that were accompanied by some smoky accents. Hints of hay, cannabis, roasted peanut, blueberry, and anise came out in the mouth along with belatedly emerging notes of candied orange and violet. I also picked up some hints of smoke, black raspberry, and popcorn as well as more dominant impressions of minerals, nutmeg, rose, vanilla, orange blossom, cinnamon, cherry, plum, and celery. As the liquor faded, I primarily detected notes of minerals, malt, wood, cream, roasted almond, and vanilla as well as stronger roasted peanut and hay impressions. There were also some fleeting hints of Muscatel, tobacco, cherry, plum, black raspberry, raisin, popcorn, nutmeg, and butter lingering in the background.

This was a strong and incredibly complex Nepalese oolong with a gorgeous mix of aroma and flavor components. I just wish that the body had not struck me as being so thin and the texture of the tea liquor had not seemed so lifeless in many places. One of the greatest things about Nepalese teas is the little bit of sharpness their liquors display, but I did not get much of that with this tea, and quite frankly, I found myself missing it greatly. I, however, did not miss that characteristic enough to score this tea less than 90. It was still a fascinating tea with a tremendous amount to offer, so I could not justify abstaining from giving it a high rating. If you are looking for an incredibly complex and satisfying Nepalese oolong and do not mind a couple slight imperfections, then this would be a tea for you to try.

Good frick easteaguy, we would probably restock the same selection of teas if we were to ever swap because you added this one first.

Well, this oolong is certainly special. Although I would easily re-order all of the teas I got in this recent order, and I am staving off drinking them down to keep them as long as possible, this one has a special place out of most of them so far. I expected this tea be something similar to a Darjeeling or an Oriental Beauty, but there is more to the tea than stonefruit notes, muscatel red grape notes, and slight woodiness.

First off, the dry leaf scent is amazing. Autumn leaves, honey, fruit flowers, fried rice, and butter was what I got. Drinking it, this tea had the nectarine-peach-apricot note that I’m used to from Nepal teas, but it also was brimming with the scent and the taste of bee pollen mid-sip, and ever lingering in the honeyed thick aftertaste. They combine so well with a slight and pleasant dryness in the mid sip to be finished off by honey sweetness. The color was amber, and so that was the color of its energy….whoah…shades of gold displayed naturally …Again, that bee pollen note makes me think I’m drinking a sunset on an orchard in the spring, or even a sunset in the fall with the trees aging and the fruit ready for harvest. This really should be a fall tea because of its autumn leaf qualities, and it is the kinda tea that you read a book near an ornate fireplace, but the bee pollen note….it’s so good.

If only this were not one of the pricier ones. Obviously, this tea ranks as a good one if it gave me synesthesiatic visions. A part of me preferred this to the Bouquet because I could drink it any time of year with its sunny bee-pollen notes, but the Himalayan Bouquet did have some of my favorite notes in a greener oolong without the grassines… Anyway, I deeply enjoyed this one, and I recommend it more for tea snobs, or for someone that you can see turning into one because it is that seductive.