Nonpareil Anxi Yun Xiang TieGuanYin Oolong Tea from Teavivre

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Oolong

Where to Buy:  Teavivre

Tea Description:

Yun Xiang (韵香) means roasted. Roasting is the key for Yunxiang Tie Guan Yin’s feature: sweet and mellow flavor, very bright liquid. Usually, people who want to drink Tie Guan Yin will start with Qingxiang Tie Guan Yin, which is the base of Yunxiang tea. By roasting the Qingxiang tea, we can get the Yunxiang tea. Yunxiang tea has long-lasting aroma, but requires 120% more skill and patience for the makers, especially hand-made tea. During the roasting process, the tea will be roasted for 3 or 4 times, for over 8 hours of each time. The maker must control the temperature carefully, and judge the tea’s quality with his experience. We may say that fine roasted oolong tea is made under a strict “fire” trial.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

I enjoy a good TieGuanYin Oolong.  And I think I like them even better when they’ve been roasted like this Nonpareil Anxi Yun Xiang TieGuanYin from Teavivre!

The tea becomes sweeter with the roasting process.  The vegetal notes become morph into a nutty flavor.  The floral notes become sweeter.  Sometimes, I notice a “sharp edge” to the floral notes in a TieGuanYin, but with a roasted TieGuanYin, the flavor is soft and toasty and the texture is smooth and creamy without feeling heavy on the palate.

To brew this tea, I grabbed my gaiwan and “eyeballed” about a bamboo scoop’s worth of the tea into the bowl of the gaiwan.  I heated the water to 180°F and I performed a 15 second rinse.  Then I strained the liquid and discarded it.  The first steep was 45 seconds, and with each subsequent infusion, I added 15 seconds.  My cute little ceramic “Oolong” teacup holds 2 infusions, so I combined the first two infusions for the first cup of tea.

And the first cup has a really lovely, full flavor.  The roasty-toasty flavor is delightful.  Warm and comforting, this is just the kind of tea you want to enjoy on a chilly autumn afternoon.  The flavor that the roasting imparts evokes thoughts of falling leaves.  I taste a strong, roasted nutty flavor with hints of orchid in the background.  TieGuanYin Oolong teas can sometimes taste (and feel) buttery, this has more of a toasty, browned butter type of flavor.  Notes of honey are also presence as well as a hint of orchid.

My second cup was even lovelier than the first, I think, because I started to pick up on some caramel-y notes this time.  Sweet, luscious caramel mingling with the honeyed notes to create a delightful taste.  The nutty flavors are starting to meld with these sweet honey caramel notes, the flavors are becoming seamless.  I’m noticing a slight astringency toward the tail, but it’s very slight and only really obvious when I am trying to find it.  The aftertaste is sweet with hints of fruit.  Roasted peach, anyone?

Later infusions became smoother and more unified.  The third cup was deliciously toasty and caramel-ish.  Delicious nutty tones.  The creamy notes have subsided, but the flavor is so smooth and mellow.

A really wonderful Oolong – a perfect autumn drink.

GIFT CARD GIVEAWAY!

PLEASE NOTE:  Sorry, this giveaway is now over.  Please keep watching our blog for more giveaways to come!

Teavivre has been so kind to offer us a number of $5. gift cards to give away to readers of our blog!  Yay!  And I’m going to give away FIVE $5.00 gift cards right now!  Well, not right now, as in right now as I type this, but right now as you read this, you can register to add your name to the pot and be part of the drawing for one of the $5.00 gift cards from Teavivre.  Here’s the fine print on the gift cards:  

• It can be used to purchase any teas or teawares on the Teavivre website. 
• By using this particular gift card, the customer can also get an extra sampler pack which includes 2 kinds of our premium grade flower teas.
• The card can also be used to pay the shipping fee.
• One gift card per order, please.
• It can be applied on international. 
• No minimum purchase required.

By now you’re wondering, COOL!  What do I have to do to enter?  Am I right?

Well, we like to make things easy around here, so, you can earn your first entry by simply commenting on this review/contest announcement post.  Just post a comment and be sure to include a way to contact you if you’ve won.  If you’re already registered with TeaTra.de – cool!  I can contact you via PM on TeaTra.de  If you prefer a Steepster PM, that’s fine too, just tell me who you are on Steepster.  If you prefer a private email contact, then you need to register when you comment and be sure to include your email with the registration and tell us that’s how you want us to contact you.  

Well, that’s the first entry, but, how about bonus entries?  You can earn them too!  Here are a few easy ways to earn more entries:

• Like Teavivre on Facebook.  
• Follow Teavivre on Twitter.
• Post the contest information on Facebook *Be sure to give us a link!*
• Tweet about this contest!  *Be sure to give us the link of the tweet!*

See that?  That’s five easy ways to get a cool five bucks off your next purchase from Teavivre!  How awesome is that?  

This contest will run through November 19th.  I’ll be contacting the winner on November 20th.  And another contest will be starting shortly thereafter!  Woo hoo!