Silver Mountain Water Oolong Tea from Octavia Tea

Silver-Mountain-WaterTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Oolong

Where to Buy:  Octavia Tea

Tea Description:

This is a characteristic green oolong that is calmingly sweet and fresh. The first steep is light and hints at what’s to come in successive infusions. Give it a second steep and you’ll discover more depth – with floral & fruit notes, vegetal flavours and a stronger minerality that works perfectly.

Learn more about this tea here.

Learn more about subscribing to Amoda’s Monthly Tea Tasting Box here.

Taster’s Review:

The dry leaf aroma of this Silver Mountain Water Oolong Tea from Octavia Tea is vegetative with very soft notes of flower.  The tea leaves have been tightly wound into tiny pellets and the color is a deep, forest green.

My first cup of this tea (a combination of infusions 1 & 2 following a quick 15 second rinse) was a very pale greenish-yellow liquid with very little fragrance.  I take note of the texture – it is soft and silky – like a wispy cloud that floats over the palate.  The flavor is as soft as the color and almost as subtle as the fragrance (but not quite!)  But even with the delicate flavor, I notice complexity.  I taste notes of vegetative tones and a distant note of flower that beckons me to taste more of it by infusing these leaves yet again.  So I shall!

The second cup (infusions 3 & 4) is when I notice more flavors starting to emerge.  There is more color to the cup as well … the tea is a deeper color of greenish-yellow, still a light shade but not as pale as the first.  I taste a hint of fruit that evokes thoughts of a crisp apple.  The floral tones are more obvious now.  The vegetative notes are also more apparent, but they aren’t as dominate as the flowery notes.

The third cup (infusions 5 & 6) is where I begin to appreciate the sweetness of this tea.  The description from Octavia Tea suggests a fig-like flavor with a raisin-y sweetness, but I am not tasting that so much.  This is more like a honey-like taste to me.  Somewhere between the sweetness of pollen and the honey that is produced from it.  The floral notes are still present, but, I’ve noticed that the vegetative tones are beginning to wane somewhat.

The third cup was also noticeably creamier than the first two cups.  This cup is very Milk Oolong-ish!  Sweet and creamy and luscious!  And because I loved this third cup so much, I decided to go for one more cup (infusions 7 & 8).

Cup four was not quite as sweet and creamy as the third.  The third was absolutely my favorite of the four cups that I had of this tea.  The fourth cup was still quite tasty though … sweet and of the four cups, this one offered the most floral notes and more fruit notes than the first three cups too.  I taste very little vegetal flavor now, and the astringency has definitely begun to subside. The second cup was the most astringent, but even then, it was what I’d call a mild astringency.

A very enjoyable Oolong experience, I’m really that my Amoda Tea Box offered me this opportunity to try this tea!

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