Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Yezi Tea
Tea Description:
Just as many people call Wimbledon tennis’s most important Grand Slam tournament, many a tea connoisseur likes to think of Jin Xuan as the most important oolong to come out of Taiwan. Jin Xuan is grown at 7,500 feet above sea level. At this altitude, the tea leaves are worked upon by hot days and extremely cold nights. These varying climatic conditions, along with a year-round fog, lend this tea a complex and diverse palette of flavors and sensations.
Like most Taiwanese oolongs, Jin Xuan has a naturally sweet flavor. After your first sip, you might find yourself thinking of sugarcane reeds swaying and glistening in the sunshine. However, after a few more brewings of this loose-leaf tea, its accompanying floral and tangerine scents will transport your imagination to a lush green orchard. Grown in the cool, high altitudes of Hualien County, Yezi’s Jin Xuan is brought to you from local tea farmer Gao Xiu Chen and is an ideal beverage for cooling you off on a hot summer day.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I have been looking forward to my tea time with this Jin Xuan Oolong Tea from Yezi Tea all day! I drink tea daily, and I drink a LOT of tea daily. But the time that I spend with an Oolong is special for me, because I love the complexity of an Oolong. I love that I can keep steeping and steeping and explore so many different layers of flavors with an Oolong. It’s such a relaxing and wonderfully contemplative experience!
And this Jin Xuan from Yezi is top-notch! So sweet and creamy! This first cup of tea (infusions 1 and 2 following a 15 second rinse) is very smooth and has a lightness to it that I’m sure will probably be gone with subsequent infusions. The creamy texture is so delicate and really lovely. I taste notes of flower. Not sharp or perfume-y, these floral notes reside in the background at the moment, as if to let me know that they will soon be a bigger part of what I’ll be enjoying soon.
My second cup (infusions 3 and 4) is indeed creamier and richer than the first was. The floral tones are beginning to emerge now, but they remain pleasantly soft and sweet. The cup is sweet and creamy and the mouthfeel is somewhat milky.
The third cup (a combination of infusions 5 and 6) is my favorite of the three cups that I enjoyed of this tea. It is a delicious balance of silky creaminess and sweet floral tones. It still has that milky texture. And as the above description suggests, I do notice a hint of tangerine to the aroma when I inhale before a sip, and this influences the sip in a very delightful way, adding a hint of fruity finish to the sip.
A really FANTASTIC tea journey awaits you with this tea … I highly recommend it.
Wen Shan Pouchong Oolong Tea from Yezi Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Pouchong
Where to Buy: Yezi Tea
Tea Description:
This delicate oolong is so light in flavor that it frequently causes many a Chinese tea connoisseur to compare it to a green tea. Baozhong has been grown on the mountain slopes of the rural Pinglin District of Taipei since the eighteenth century. Yezi’s Baozhong is brought to you by local tea farmer Gao Xiu Chen. Needless to say, after over two hundred years of cultivating and harvesting it, the tea farmers of Pinglin do an excellent job with their Baozhong.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh, this Wen Shan Pouchong Oolong Tea from Yezi Tea is so deliciously light and delicate in flavor. But, even in it’s delicateness, it’s so full of flavor. It almost seems a contradiction to say that, but if you were to taste this tea, you might better understand what I mean.
With each sip, the palate is covered with a soft, silky, creamy texture that fills the taste buds with a subtle vegetative quality and a beautiful sweetness. The vegetative notes do not last long, they soon make way for the emergence of an exotic floral taste. Orchid. Lovely!
The description on the Yezi website suggests notes of lemon … and with the first few sips up until mid-cup, I wouldn’t have agreed with that. But, after taking a few moments in between sips, I notice a bright lemon-y note in the aftertaste. Not a sour, pucker-y lemon, more like a sweet, creamy, lemon curd type of lemon note. This note emerges more as I continue to sip now, and appears close to the finish.
This pouchong can be enjoyed through several infusions. The flavor is very soft and gentle for through the first three infusions, and then by the fourth infusion, I notice the flavors become a little stronger. By the sixth infusion, the flavors begin to subside a little bit … but it’s only a minor shift in flavor and there are still a few more infusions to be enjoyed. My personal favorite infusions were the second and the fourth … so it is definitely worth taking this tea through it’s paces to get as much out of each measurement of leaves that you can!
Yet another wonderful tea from Yezi Tea!