Jin Guan Yin Anxi Oolong Tea

(Gongfu style, 2017 Winter Harvest, temp 95-100C) I have held off on reviewing this one until I had the perfect words to describe it, but I don’t think they are ever going to come. Beautifully milky to start, but not buttery like a jin xuan/milk oolong. Fragrant from start to finish. I wanted to avoid reviewing this for a while too because there’s more for me if you don’t order it…
Steep 1: osmanthus nose maybe slightly nutty, fragrant milky taste and texture. Opposite of mouth drying (wetness?), this is beautiful.
2: delicate milk taste and “wetness” continuing.
3-5: sweetness starts to emerge even more, the leaves are fully unfurled.
6-9: just…perfume. Delicious and you taste it mostly in your nose and sweet in the back of your throat afterwards
10: time to switch minutes-long power steeping. The last one I admittedly forgot about, and came back 5 minutes later and surprised to find a brew that tasted of my mom’s lemongrass tea. A great way to wrap up the session.

This is a cross between Tie Guan Yin and Huang Jing gui, the latter of which I dont have any experience with. Apparently yellow and reminiscent of osmanthus , this TGY is grafted onto these trees and Jin Guan Yin is born!

Its delightful, has a more dark green leaf flavour than other TGY, perhaps, but very slight. Its not bitterness, but reminds me of holly for some reason. Not that ive ever eaten holly.

Spinach, kale, and something else (osmanthus?) i dont recognise is in there. Tastes a bit ‘short’, and tiny amount less creamy or thick as others, but this is a very slight amount – Im having the premium TGY now as a comparison and I cant really tell much of a difference, maybe the TGY is a bit more like wet greens, perhaps some fruit in there, but it isnt much of a difference.

As to which i prefer, not sure really, im going to have to be really discerning to choose – these are both good TGY-type and its such a wondrous flavour i wouldnt throw either out of bed. Apparently the JGY can be steeped for longer so I will try that next, I drank these back-to-back to see if there was a big flavour difference, this is the second time ive done that and there really isnt much in it. – both delicious, this might just nip the TGY by one point!

From the EU TTB

I think I’ve got this in the right place – what I’m drinking is described as “Autumn 2014 Premium Jin Guan Yin AA Grade Anxi Oolong”. I think I’ve probably known it for a while, but this is the tea that finally made me realise that I prefer green oolong to roasted. That struck me as odd at first, considering that black tea is such a favourite of mine, but it appears to be the case. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 185 degrees. The leaves are rolled, but they unfurl easily and it’s kind of calming to stand and watch. Just what I need, this week. The resulting liquor is a pale, clear green.

This one is quite thickly floral, and tastes primarily of orchids to me. Underlying that it a mild, buttery vegetal flavour, a little like spinach, and underlying that is a touch of something mineral, like wet rock. It’s so smooth, and so full flavoured – even though typically I shy away from floral-tasting teas, I actually kind of like it here. Oolong will never be my absolute favourite, but I definitely have less against it than I used to. It’s teas like this one that have really shown me that there are things to like about it, and I’d happily drink this one again.