Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Arbor Teas
Tea Description:
Our organic Shui Xian Oolong hails from the Wuyi mountains in China’s Fujian province. This exquisite oolong is produced using the top three to four leaves on the branch. After wilting and bruising the leaves, they are hand-rolled into their final shape. When brewed, these dark green-brown leaves create an amber infusion with an exquisite floral fragrance that complements the tea’s sweetness (in fact, Shui Xian translates directly into “narcissus”). The taste is smooth and lightly sweet, with a subtle dryness reminding of pear skin, followed by a lightly baked aftertaste. As with most oolongs of this type it is moderately oxidized, ranging from 40% to 60%. Like other fine oolong teas, our Shui Xian Oolong may be infused a number of times, with each infusion revealing a new nuance of this tea’s complex flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This tea offers a very fruity flavor and is quite juicy. The roasted woody flavor is one of my favorite notes in oolong but it is so well complimented by the lighter plum flavors. I get far more plum in this cup than peach but regardless I do enjoy the juiciness of this tea. I actually almost choked on my first sip because the juiciness exploded like biting into a ripe plum! I was not expecting this out of such a darkly roasted oolong.
The aroma is lovely with nutty and earth notes working their way up to my senses. There is something in this aroma of must notes and forest floor.
The after taste lends toward the drier notes but it never quite gets so dry that it leaves your throat parched – the juiciness of the tea keeps that from happening.
I love roasty toasty oolong teas especially when they have that backed good flavor in them. The light and subtle sweetness does bring about a bakery essence to the taste.
Of course you have your rock mineral notes in here that are lovely and I do love mineral notes in tea. It comes over as quite refreshing along with the juicy plum flavors and reminds me of sitting along side a fresh running steam watching the water run over the rocks and pebbles within it.
A pleasing tea and from a company that also cares about the environment – can’t get better than that!
Organic Shui Xian Oolong Tea from Arbor Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Arbor Teas
Tea Description:
Our organic Shui Xian Oolong hails from the Wuyi mountains in China’s Fujian province. This exquisite oolong is produced using the top three to four leaves on the branch. After wilting and bruising the leaves, they are hand-rolled into their final shape. When brewed, these dark green-brown leaves create an amber infusion with an exquisite floral fragrance that complements the tea’s sweetness (in fact, Shui Xian translates directly into “narcissus”). The taste is smooth and lightly sweet, with a subtle dryness reminding of pear skin, followed by a lightly baked aftertaste. As with most oolongs of this type it is moderately oxidized, ranging from 40% to 60%. Like other fine oolong teas, our Shui Xian Oolong may be infused a number of times, with each infusion revealing a new nuance of this tea’s complex flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Arbor Teas is one of my favorite companies. I realize that may not seem very special to you if you’ve read many of my articles as I do have quite a few “favorites.” It’s true, I do have a number of favorite teas … and each are my favorite for a different reason. Arbor Teas is one of my favorites because they are dedicated to protecting the environment while promoting fair and ethical business practices within the tea trade. Their teas are organic, fair trade, and packaged in 100% compostable packaging to help minimize their carbon footprint. I really respect that about this company.
Furthermore … their teas are remarkably good! And when it comes right down to it, that’s what really matters. If you had a company that was environmentally sound and dedicated to fair practices, that would certainly be a couple of steps in the right direction, but, it wouldn’t mean much if the tea wasn’t of high quality and excellent taste.
Well, Arbor Teas brings it all to you. Great tasting, high quality, organic teas that are fairly traded and are packaged in compostable packaging. Arbor Teas is a whole package kind of company!
This Shui Xian is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. This tastes really awesome! The overall flavor is sort of woodsy, with lovely fruit notes and a delectable honey-esque tone. In fact, had I not prepared this cup myself … if someone else had brought it to me, I would have sworn that they added honey to the cup. It is so deliciously sweet, and the honey notes meld so deliciously with the toasted nut top note.
The tea is remarkably smooth. There is no bitterness and very little astringency. Just excellent taste!
Mi Lan Dan Cong Tea from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
Dan Cong is the champagne of oolongs: ripe with intense fruit and sweetness. This high grade example comes from a plantation on the lower slopes of Wu Dong Mountain, Chao Zhou. The leaves are thoroughly fermented and baked to produce a rich liquor with unique flowery and honeyed notes that can be enjoyed through multiple infusions.
Our Buyer’s notes:
“This tea is more heavily baked than the Song Zhong Dan Cong to allow the tea to produce its unique honey and lychee flavours.”
Taster’s Review:
Ooooooh-Long! This tea definitely puts the Oooooh into Oolong. It is truly wonderful.
The aroma of the brewed liquor is delightful. It has this amazing sort of “outdoorsy” kind of scent, like the fragrance you might experience if you were walking through the woods on a quiet spring morning. It is smells of earth and damp wood, as well as newly blossoming flowers and hints of fruit, and even a clean, crisp air-like scent. This is a tea that you need to inhale deeply – taking in this extraordinary aroma – before taking a sip, to truly experience it in its entirety.
And then, of course, there is the flavor. And … put simply, this has a flavor that keeps you sipping. That is to say, my cup is now empty and I need to infuse the leaves again in order to compose the right words to describe this tea. It is so good that I finished the cup before I could start writing about it.
Now as I sip my second cup (the result of my third and fourth infusions combined), I can tell you a little more about this tea. The flavor is intense. It has a honey-esque tone to it … not just the sweetness of honey, but also the unique floral taste of honey. It is sweet with the subtlest tone of sharpness in the background, such an enchanting, piquant kind of taste.
And as the description from Canton Tea Co. suggests, there is a lychee kind of flavor to this too. It is so very similar to the unique flavor of lychee, in fact, that I had to double check on this tea to make sure it wasn’t a lychee flavored or scented tea. But no: these interesting flavors are achieved naturally through the baking process of the tea leaves, and not through a flavoring process.
I was able to infuse this tea a total of six times with no loss of flavor, making this not only a delicious tea, but also a good value for your money too. This is the kind of Oolong I would recommend to a tea enthusiast who finds some Oolong teas to be too delicate for their taste. The flavor of this is so intense, they’re sure to change their mind about Oolong!