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Very light scent. Has a honey note to it, light roasted tones.

Wow, the flavor of this has a lot of honey to it. It has a light toasted flavor through the back of the mouth and throat, with the honey through the middle of the tongue and mouth.

As it cools, the toasty/roasted flavor comes out stronger but the honey stays through the finish.

The finish has a lot of burnt taste to it as it gets cooler. The honey is still in the foreground during the sip, though. I wouldn’t think this to make a good iced tea.

Nice tea.

This one doesn’t have a strong scent at all.

The taste has a slight honey sweetness in the front and middleof the throat, with a roasted flavor in the back. It has only the mildest hint of “standard oolong flavor”.

This is a very sippable tea and I think my favorite of China Cha Dao’s so far.

This has a nice scent to it. Larger than the 2011 Da Hong Pao. It has the Oolong toasty scent with a teensy tiny bit of clover sweetness.

The taste also strikes me as stronger. A dark “Oolong flavor” with a taste of charcoal on the back of the tongue. An almost unnoticeable sweetness at the tip of the tongue now and then.

While I tend to like the darker and stronger Oolongs, this one isn’t for me. Nice tasting and definitely recommendable to others, but too much charcoal for my preferences.

This time made a new batch as per instructions.

Scent is much the same except I’m getting citrus from it.

The tea actually seems a little watery this time. The apple-cinnamon is still the main flavor and on the front of the tongue. There is a tart berry-ness in the back of the mouth when swallowing. The tiniest bit of floral notes come out around the sides of the mouth mid-sip and linger in the finish.

I like it better the way I made it before.

I didn’t make this per instructions given here as I made it before I came to this page and the bag didn’t have them on it.

The scent is all the things listed together: fruity, spicy, and floral. A bit of apple-cinnamon mixed with perfume mixed with a bit of sweetness.

The taste is light to medium in body. The apple-cinnamon is the main flavor but it’s not intense at all, really very light. There’s a tartness in the middle of the tongue. It has a short finish.

This is a flavored tea where the flavor is truly in the tea, not just smelled or hinted at. It is definitely a white and the other flavors are gentle in it. I like it and look forward to future cups, not sure if it’s a buyer or not. Maybe. We’ll see how I feel after this bit of it is gone.

Second steeping is better than the first. Taste is rounder and more mouth-filling. There is a touch of charcoal in it now, roasted seed/nut flavor has come up more.

Berry and sweetness are basically gone. This steep is a darker, richer one.

Oh and as it cools the flavor changes nicely, too. It’s becoming a touch floral and the texture is more chewy seeming. It also seems a bit darker in taste, too.

The scent is a rich and deep “oolong smell”, along with a barest hint of wood to it.

The taste is nicely roasted… it has a woodstove kind of taste to it. Lightly and not overwhelming, very nice. There is a slight sweetness to this, but it is very, very, very barely there. It’s more a thought than a taste.

There’s also something very barely fruity about this on the tip of the tongue when swallowing, but I can’t place what it is… maybe raspberry or blackberry.

I like this and would have it again. I’ll have to see what I think in the next couple steepings and on a second batch altogether, but this might be a buyer.

A thank you to RachanaC for sending this sample to me in trade!

This smelled good -that Pezy lemongrass smell that’s so yummy. But, the taste wasn’t great, in my opinion. I didn’t do more than take about 3 sips and decided I didn’t want to finish it. It didn’t particularly taste like lemon or lemongrass, it had something about it that when tasting just put me off straight away.

This has a semi-strong scent that is sort of “standard oolong” -nutty/seedy with a barely-there honey tone.

Tasting it, this one’s a little weird but in a good way. It has a good sized flavor, brown (maybe walnutty) taste around the back of the tongue, a typical oolong flavor in the center of the tongue and a slight clover sweetness. It also has a strong “something” that is good but I can’t describe.

Conclusions: I like it but doubt I’d buy it. It’s good, I’m glad I got to try it, but it’s not a wow-er. I look forward to trying the other samples as this one makes me think it’s possible there’s a “buyer” in there.

Oh, and I must add the they are very generous samples. Enough for a few cups, unlike some sample-senders, which is great as it can take me a few cups to really decide on a tea. Sometimes a second or third cup will take something from “meh” to “gotta have” or vice versa. These samples are enough to really explore the tea.