Qilan Trees

Recently finished a 50 gram box of this.

I’ll start off by saying White2Tea offered no picking or roast date on the box or website but I could probably email the vendor requesting the info.

Qilan Trees was the first yancha I ever tried (that I knew for a fact was yancha) and was what made me fall hard for highly mineral rock oolongs. After receiving the package sometime in 2017, I immediately consumed a few brews western style, allowing no resting or airing out of the material. At the time, I wasn’t aware of this style tea performing well gong fu. I remember using about a tbsp of tea to 8 oz of water just off boil. The resulting liquor, believe it or not, was amazing. It was very floral (which I now can place as orchid) and sweet with notes of light honey, graham, butterscotch, milk chocolate and small, sweet Champagne grapes. The minerality was very strong but never biting; more smooth and cool like limestone. The most striking quality of this tea was the salivation it induced. To this day, I’ve never experienced it so strongly in any other tea.

I brewed Qilan Trees a few more times western before exhausting the remaining supply over the course of a year in my 100mL jianshui gaiwan. Usually eyeballed 6-8 grams with water just under boiling. Orchid and milk chocolate were highly pronounced in both aroma and taste, but the liquor itself was never milky but rather both glassy and viscous. The cool limestone minerality and salivation remained. With this method (and maybe it had to do with the clay), I lost a lot of the nuances. I’d say I got 3 amazing steeps with the above qualities before it quickly fell off the cliff and turned into what was just a watered down floral black tea for a few more steeps. Also, over the course of a year, the dry leaves lost a lot of fragrance despite being stored in a tin in the dark. It was a crappy tin to be fair.

Overall, I have an immense soft spot for Qilan Trees. It’s hard to wrap my thoughts around so I’m avoiding rating it. Should I ever purchase more, though, I think I’ll stick with brewing it western style and of course store it it a more airtight container.

5g to 100ml, 205F, preheated with a rinse. Got this in a club box from forever ago, just now cracking into it. Starts off with an intense smell of clover honey with a little bit of something dark and juicy, whoo, smells good. Overall, the taste is also very close to clover honey, but without the sweetness and quite savory which threw my brain for a spin. It does have a bit of something I’d call dank at the start, but it quickly goes away as it opens up into some mild sweetness that matches the honey profile (although never becoming what I’d actually call sweet). As you brew it out, more mineral notes come to the fore, but surprisingly quite a subtle rock flavor for yancha.

I thought it was very enjoyable and solid, with some nice ticklish energy, but a bit short lived at around 7 steeps. Does make me wonder what Clover Patch tastes like if the Qilan tastes so much like clover, though!

yeah… i like this tea. i think of myself as not liking oolongs but some from w2t and blt have been changing my opinion lately. i know some people don’t like w2t’s oolongs much… maybe 2dog picks oolongs for pu drinkers? :P

probably gonna have to order some.

not feeling tasting notes lately, but this one is very sweet.

So I feel like, as time goes on, I grow to appreciate roasted oolongs more and more. I got this as part of December’s w2t sub box and it has been waiting to be tried. Decided to move on to this one after enjoying a session with a 95 TGY that spanned two days (and will probably keep on going) and continue winding down from the wedding earlier.

Threw 7g in the gaiwan and hit it with boiling water. First steep is super quick and the resulting liquor is roasty and sweet, with an appreciable minerality. Enjoyed relaxing with this one through the afternoon, but wish it had lasted longer!

Upon opening this bag of tea and sniffing it, I was greeted generously by a familiar aroma. I think it reminded me of a graham cracker crust or toasted coconut, like a coconut cream pie or coconut macaroon, and yet there’s more to it than that. Cocoa, wet rocks at the start of rain (petrichor), forest, basement. That’s a lot of complexity for the aroma of the dry leaf. After letting the dry leaves sit in a heated gongfu pot for a minute, I get heavy notes of hay.

After the first infusion the leaves smell pretty loamy with a definite grape aroma. The tea liquid smells fruity with camphor. The flavor of the first infusion is a subtle affair, with less flavor than I expected. It’s light and airy, delicate and floral and hinting at fruit (mostly grape). It pairs very nicely with the warmer, more resin-like scent. The end of the sip has a slightly metal taste, like sticking a stainless steel spoon on your tongue. The texture is light and smooth, quenching and silky.

The second infusion is even more fruity, mostly grape with a little hint of lychee, and maybe I’ve had one too many cups of tea at this wee hour of 3AM but if I’m not mistaken there’s a warming rush across the tongue and throat after the sip… which i could attribute to the camphor-like quality of the tea, but would almost compare to the lingering feeling after eating some Red Hots (the candy). Of course, not to that level of intensity, but more than I’ve ever noticed in a tea before.

Okay, maybe I’m not losing it, because the third infusion reminds me a lot in flavor and in heat-sensation to brewed ginger, with the fruit flavors now only sneaking up at the tail end of the sip. The texture is less slick than the first couple infusions, but not drying. For me this is definitely a warming tea and gives me a warming body sensation and qi. As the tea cools down it is more fruity overall with a lingering lychee taste.

What a great tea! I am on four infusions now and the flavor is consistent. I love how light it is, and yet juicy and a little sweet. It’s a very refreshing tea with layers of subtle complexity, still a mixture of fruity and floral flavors, with little hints of mineral and forest, and now I can’t make up my mind if it’s a warming or cooling sensation (which strengthens my camphor connotation).

I am gonna bow out on this review. I think this is a perfect tea. It reminds me of mist in a mountain valley. I love teas that can take me away. If I could change only one thing, it had just a bit of lingering dryness after the first couple infusions, despite the juicy feel during the sip. It leaves a bit of traction and grip on the tongue after a drink. I would love it if it was a bit more oily, but that’s just me. I really can’t complain because it isn’t enough to make me not love this tea. Really glad I bought this one!

What a beautiful day it is, so sunny and warm, and yet with all its warmth I have a very clingy cat. Espeon has been practically stuck to me today, which has made painting…interesting. I should consider myself lucky that she just wants to sit in my lap instead of playing with the brushes, but one wrong move of her tail means disaster. Or at the very least an inconvenient smudge or mispaint.

Today we are looking at a Yancha from White2Tea, their Qilan Trees! This tea was part of the tea club to go in tandem with their Qilan Fire, two rock Oolongs made by the same farmer, but processed differently. Namely Qilan Fire has a heavier roast and Qilan Trees is more gentle and in theory more tree themed. The aroma of the long curly and very dark green leaves (they are truly quite pretty) has a gentle bit of char, you can tell this is a Yancha, but the char is super delicate, good news for those who dislike the empyreumatic tinge to Rock Oolongs. Of course there is more going on then just faint char, there are gentle notes of wood (hello trees) distant flowers, mangosteen, cocoa, and honey. This is a very sweet smelling Yancha, which I like.

The Yancha pot hungers for leaves, so I load it up with its much wanted leafy friends and go to town steeping. The aroma of the soggy leaves is gentle in the char department again, like a distant pile of coals rather than wet coals or a burning fire. There is also notes cocoa and distant flowers with a subtle spice, like a spicy cooked quince and sweet mangosteen. Well this tea is winning on the exotic fruit department. The liquid is gentle in char again, with accompanying notes of mangosteen and cocoa, at the very end is a gentle wilted orchid aroma giving the distant floral note a name.

Ooh, that mouthfeel is silky! Usually I find most Rock Oolongs have a robust and at times sharp mouthfeel, but this one is like silk, it is so smooth. The flavor on this first steep is pretty light, starting with a gentle blend of mineral and distant char which pretty immediately moves to sweetness that stays for the entire sip. Blending spice and fruit, specifically quince and mangosteen (not a combo I ever expected) with a woody almost reed like finish.

The aroma of the second steep brings out more of a woody note, reminding me a bit of bamboo or some more reed like wood, combine that with cocoa and very sweet mangosteen and it is safe to say it smells quite good. The mouthfeel has moved from silky to almost creamy, which is quite fun, but it does move back to silky at the finish. Tasting the tea it starts with sweet cocoa and quince, moving to mangosteen and gentle mineral, and the finish is a blend of char and bamboo making for a woody finish, since it is the taste of older dry bamboo rather than the bright green shoots.

Third steep time, and the aroma is quite sweet, a light blend of bamboo wood, mangosteen, cocoa, and a touch of wet slate and char at the finish. The taste has a bit more char and mineral this time around, like a blend of limestone and wet slate and distant charcoal, specifically bamboo charcoal. The one thing that really struck me with this steep is how the gentle char, mineral, and a sweet honey and quince taste blended for a really light and almost airy flavor, something I generally don’t associate with Yancha. Sadly my plans of tasting this one along side with Qilan Fire did not go as planned because when I finished with this steep my kettle died! Luckily it has since been replaced, but I have not had the opportunity to get back to the pair of Qilans, I think when I do I will coerce the Tea Barbarian to join me and I will do both in my gaiwan, meaning my Yancha pot will get cranky, but it can deal with it.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/12/white2tea-qilan-trees-wuyi-oolong-tea.html

Thank-you Christina for sending me this sample!

I am not a big fan of roasted oolongs. There are a few I like but it’s mostly the roasting that seems to dominate the tea experience for me.

I could pick up honey and stone fruit along with the roasted flavour. Later steeps were better for me when the roasted flavour died down and the other notes came out.

Overall, not my favourite tea but still glad I got to try it!

This is a really lovely tea. I found it to be fruity and somewhat floral. I agree with the other reviews, enough said. Great stuff.

The first time I had this tea, I drank it gongfu style side by side with Qilan Fire. I have since had the opportunity to brew both of these teas using my preferred oolong method, which is in my yixing pot. My pot is quite large, nearly 300ml, so I brew for a longer time using only 3g of leaf. So I let this one steep for 3 minutes, and I have to say that I am completely in love with this tea. I was quite fond of it before, but now we’re talking about a serious, deep and abiding forever kind of love. A love I haven’t experienced since my first Tie Guan Yin. That’s really all I have to say. Other than a big thank you to Paul and to the wonderful tea master/alchemist who created these magical leaves.

This is everything you want in a light roast oolong. The dry leaf consists of long beautiful strands of a dark green tea. They carry a lingering sweet and tangy aroma. I placed a good amount in a warmed gaiwan (barely fit) and gave it a shake. The scent could not be contained in the gaiwan. I could smell a warm wood, grape, and fruit scent wafting from my gaiwan, and I haven’t even lifted the lid. I knew that this would be a treat. I washed the leaves once and prepared for brewing. The scent began sweet and herbal. It gave off the feeling of juice and thirst quencing. The brew was a tarnished bronze, and it refracted the light quite well. The taste was spectacular. It was smooth and ever changing in the mouth. It combined well with the different aromas. The flavor reminds me of a spring TGY mixed with Baozhong. It was a delicious remedy. The aroma then deepened and spread out with more mineral and stone fruits. The flavor followed. The taste became subtle yet stern. This brew was more earthy, like shale and nickel, yet it was covered with a forest tone. The tea kept consistently dark and flavored well throughout steeping. I was able to pull at least 8 or 9 steeping sessions, which is a lot for a roasted oolong. The end of the session left my teacup with a slight golden liquor that tasted of mineral and nectar. This was a wonderful tea, and I’m happy to have more to share.

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