Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company

I just came here to say that this tea impressed me so much that I just made a full (2oz) order despite me having spent waaay too much money on tea just a month ago. I have been fretting ever since I tasted it that this tea would get sold out and I would never get my hands on it again. So, despite my already full tea cabinet, this was one I absolutely HAD to buy more of after a sample.

Wow. This is absolutely a wow tea. I was shocked at how buttery, creamy, and smooth this tea is from the first steep onward. Like, audible noises of delight while drinking it. I think my wife and children thought me a weirdo. (Lets face it. They’ve thought that long before this little stint)

There isn’t much more to say about this. It is buttery. Feels creamy on the tongue and throat. There are some floral aspects to it but not strong. Which is great because I’m not a huge floral oolong guy. I’m kind of in love with this tea and now I understand the price tag on it. And now I’m contemplating ordering much more than just a sample of this.

Got to be harsh on them older oolongs since it’s what I want to know most about.

The leaf on this is a wonderful size. Brews quite easily and the texture comes through on the first steep. Liquid looks a bit dark and the smell has hints of old humid leaf. The taste has a nice roast to it which is about mid level. End notes of caramel mixed in with humidity which I can aay is similar to YQH oolong. Something that some will really enjoy and for others it is something that needs more time to settle.
Personally, the color of the liquid and leaf quality is wonderful but it’s the taste today that keeps me from brewing more sessions. I think this has the same potential as the liquid caremel the 1989 SLX from TU brews up. Something that won’t cost too much to invest in putting 100g away in an airtight container for a few years.

I felt like a gongfu tea session, even if it was already way past my bedtime. So I pulled this one out of the cupboard.

The dry leaf smells of black tea and something spicy—cinnamon and anise? I hate anise, so I’m a bit worried at this point. It’s also smelling honey sweet.

I’m a bit underwhelmed by the flavor coming out in this oolong. It’s pleasant, but very light. It’s sweet and spicy, just like the aroma of the dry leaves. I got honey, cinnamon , luckily no anise.

Double the leaf and up the temperature to 205. That’s better! The aroma coming off the lid is peaches, honey, and cinnamon, and it’s intense! The aroma is echoed in the flavors to a lesser degree. There’s a bit of tannin and astringency, but not much.

Here’s a pour and a shot of my new turtley setup: https://www.instagram.com/p/BM-idVah0QW/

Backlog.

A nice citrusy, light bodied oolong. There are notes of flowers, white balsamic, and lemon verbena. It’s similar in flavor to long feng xia, but with a thinner body. This is a very delicate tea, soft and relaxing. I liked it, but it’s not my favorite style of Taiwanese oolong.

One of the best black teas I’ve ever tasted, this Red Jade variety is incredibly delicious. The tea has a beautiful honeylike aroma and a woody flavor that is a fantastic combination. I rarely want to drink a tea completely straight, but for this variety I make an exception. The only unfortunate part of this tea is how expensive it is compared to many daily varieties. If only I could afford to drink it daily!

While this isn’t BTT Co’s best offering overall or in the black tea arena, it still manages to be a great example of the Assam varietal. The tea has a thick, full-bodied flavor and a mouthfeel you wouldn’t ever find in a teabag. It is especially good when temprered with a touch of milk or cream. Unfortunately I think I cannot pull all of the flavor out of this tea due to being at high elevation where water boils at 195 F.

The Ceylon White is an unusual white tea.

The leaves are long and dark, which almost remind me of a black tea. The aroma and flavor profile have that black tea quality to it, too.

There were malty rich notes throughout the session; without the astringency that black teas usually carry. However, this tea was smooth.

This sample given to me from LP a while ago, but I’m finally mowing some tea samples down, to get to the ones I’ve yet to try. Thank you again!

In the past year, I’ve had the good fortune of trying a number of competition grade bao zhongs and the experience has ruined all other bao zhongs for me. This winter BZ from BTTC has a vegetal character that puts it closer to a green tea than an oolong. There are subtle notes of butter and flowers, but lack the depth of the higher grade teas. This is a good tea for easy sipping but doesn’t quite reach the heights that better BZs do.

Really enjoyed this sample from BTTC. Its fruity flavor and lush fragrance reminds me a lot of some of the Shan Lin Xi teas I’ve had.

The tea leaves are tightly rolled into giant green nuggets and smell intensely floral and creamy. It brews up vegetal and a little tart in the beginning followed by a rich and robust pear like fruitiness, flowers, and a tangy mineral flavor.

An excellent tea for the money. I would definitely pick up some more on my next BTTC order.

I won a sample of this tea before it went on sale from an Instagram contest. It’s the first really high quality Taiwanese oolong I’ve gotten the opportunity to try. The dry leaf smelled green, crisp, and floral. After a rinse with boiling water, I smelled buttery/creamy floral notes with a touch of an herbal aroma in there as well. I drank the rinse off this one and it had a light and crisply sweet vegetal flavor. For the rest of the session, I allowed the water to cool to 190F.

This tea was pretty consistent throughout the session, unlike a lot of the puerh I drink more often. It had a crisp vegetal taste in the front of the sip followed by a sweet floral finish with hints of peach in the finish and aftertaste. I sometimes noted a slight cooling effect in the mouth after a sip.

The real highlight here was the texture. I could have sworn I was drinking whole milk a few times during the session. I could feel it go down my throat and plop down into my stomach. This tea actually made me feel full as I was drinking it. Very satisfying. It also had a very relaxing qi that made my body feel loose and my head a little bit swimmy.

This tea is of a quality and freshness that I likely won’t be able to experience too often, so I’m quite grateful for the opportunity to taste it now. It was a very nice and long session, going around 17 steeps. It just seemed like I could get endless infusions of sweet and thick liquor off these leaves. This tea has had me drinking more Taiwanese oolong the last couple weeks than I have in the months preceding. I wanted to reacclimate my palate to the style of tea before I tried this fine example. Now I’m finding myself getting back into Taiwanese oolong when I had kind of written it off for the last little while. My wallet weeps as my belly cries tears of joy.

I didn’t really get to properly sit down and enjoy this insisted on somewhat debating with me about something while I was trying to prepare everything and clean up other stuff around me at the same time. I got a few steeps in, but wasn’t able to focus on any of them, so all I can say at the moment is that it’s both vegetal and milky and I’m going to have to give this another go. I enjoyed it as best I could!

This was a nice one. A vegetal green taste with overtones of spice that reminds me of Christmas. Most green Taiwanese oolongs remind me of Christmas, but I’ve been told that I’m just crazy.

The flavor on this tea could have been stronger.

I don’t know if my sample got too old really fast or what but I tried brewing this up last night and it didn’t do anything for me. It was thin in color and taste. The taste reminded me of what liquid cardboard might taste like. It wasn’t gag inducing or offensive. It was just… bland and watery. Unfortunate because I really enjoyed everything else from this tea company. Just not this one.

The winter harvest of this tea is my favorite baozhong ever but I was less enthralled by the spring harvest. This one has some nice pastoral notes and light florals but lacks the heady flowers and nectary sweetness of last season’s tea. The body is heavier and on the vegetal side. It’s not a bad tea, just doesn’t really set itself apart from regular grade Baozhong .

Sometimes I wonder if I still have a little of that ornery soul most little boys grow up with where raining on everyone else’s parade is the height of wit.

Seven came before me and drank this tea, and essentially it received unanimous acclaim. So I got a sample since BTTC was good enough to show up to Midwest Tea Festival (thanks BTTC!) and today, I drank it.

With all the accolades, I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I found in my cup.

It was even better than they said.

If such notables as boychik and LP can’t capture this greatness in the limited format of mere words. far be it from me to attempt. But I echo what others have urged – try this tea if you like oolong. Try it if you haven’t had traditional processed Dong Ding, even if you’re not a fan of current style DD.

Or you know, don’t. It’ll leave more for me.

I am sitting in a very big ball of anticipation, ready to explode at any minute…because ARK!! Oh yeah, it is update day! My update is busily downloading and I am waiting for the big surprise, they will be streaming some massive announcement from PAX West in about 30 minutes (maybe the update will be done by then, it is a big one) and I am very excited to see what it is. The ‘mysterious mysteries’ teasers for the past couple of months all lead towards a desert biome, and the loading screen is what looks like dragon eggs, so yeah I am super excited.

Today’s tea is Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Farmer Changs Green Oolong, their fluffy Baozhong which is the greenest of the Oolongs, with its subtle oxidation. I love Baozhong, but often get stuck with ones that are uninspiring so I tend to overlook it for more traditional Oolongs, but when I find one that is good I get practically giddy! Before I get into the smell, just look at those fluffy emerald leaves, no amount of photography could do these beauties justice and I apologize, take my word for it though they are luminous. So, the aroma, it has a slight chestnut sweetness, which might be a first for a Baozhong, me likes! There is also a potent burst of lilacs and hyacinths, distant orchids, and the most wonderful herbaceous sage and fresh oregano note. I was really liking the tea until the herbaceous notes kicked in, then it was love! Fingers crossed that sticks around through the steeping!

Steeping the leaves, the aroma after the first steep, well there is a little bit of fresh spinach, some mellow sweet chestnuts…oh yea, and a small explosion flowers, it is like summer burst out of my gaiwan and become a sentient cloud wafting around the tea desk. There are notes of peony, lilacs, hyacinth, orchids, and a tiny bit of apple blossom. Luckily the herbaceous notes of oregano and sage survived after the cloud of flower dissipated a bit. The liquid is very sweet, with notes of lily, lilacs, peony, and hyacinth with a tiny touch of spinach and fresh oregano at the finish. I am loving those herbaceous notes, it kinda makes me want to pair this tea with a salad or something.

The first steep is light in both taste and mouth, a delicate airy mouthfeel which goes well with the light first impression. The tasting notes present are gentle hyacinth and lilac with an undertone of orchid, like one that has just opened and not really turned into a floral explosion yet. Towards the middle a lettuce and cucumber note pop up with a lingering chestnut and lilac aftertaste.

Where the first steep was light, buds just beginning to open in the morning, this steep was a heady afternoon hothouse! Holy wow, I feel like I was hit by a wave of flowers, it makes for some comical mental images, just removing the lid of the gaiwan and swoosh flower wave! The taste is wonderful, for all its heady floral notes it is not perfumed, it is like drinking flower nectar…I have become a hummingbird. Lilacs, peony, hyacinth and finally orchid dance throughout the entire sipping experience with bursts of oregano blossoms, fresh sage and cucumber adding a depth to the flowery notes. The aftertaste is honeysuckle, it came out of nowhere and I am ok with that.

One thing that really surprised me with this tea is how thoroughly and quickly it got me tea drunk, I was pleasantly loopy by the third steep and getting a bit poetic in my notebook (and no, I am not sharing my tea drunk poetry or handwriting, both are awful.) I will however share that this tea is still delightful! The flowery notes have calmed down a little, or the spinach, cucumber, sage, and oregano notes became stronger…not really sure, but it really works! At the time of writing this I can safely say this is my favorite Baozhong to date!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/09/beautiful-taiwan-tea-company-farmer.html

The dry leaves and the brewed tea smelled absolutely wonderful. I brewed this deliberately on the lighter side and it showed in the taste but even so needed a touch of sugar to overcome the tannins. I think that brewed stronger this would be a very bold pick-me-up for a morning tea.

Sweet, candy like milk aroma, it tastes much like it smells, but with a surprisingly sturdy body and oolong base that reminds me of a stronger tieguanyin, but with some of the floral character of a high mountain oolong.

I I leafed this quite hard as I received a sample from a teafriend and was too lazy to measure it and so just dumped the whole bag in, probably about 6-8 grams. Was surprisingly solid even once the milk flavoring had faded, although the next day had a weird plastic taste to it that I assume was stale flavoring. Overall was quite pleasant though, looking forward to trying the others!

Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company stated everything accurately in their notes regarding this tea, but there may have been some attempt to “bury the lead” regarding the degree of storage flavor onboard.

Now, I’ll be perfectly honest here. I don’t have the most experience with the traditional or “wet” storage teas, so perhaps I’m a bit oversensitive. But if I had opened the pot lid after a few steeps and a kappa, a naiad, and a water elemental sprung out, the only surprising thing would have been the culture clash.

The early steeps, insofar as I could detect any other flavors, tasted like a smoothie made of turnips and a bit of raw radish. I’ve never had such a smoothie, so you may be wondering about the aptness of this comparison. Well, so am I. If you try the tea and have a better one, please do drop me a line, I’ll be curious to read it.

I have read in various locales that bought some aged oolongs and some wetter stored teas may have durability issues. This tea laughs at such reports, as I can say to my palate the storage taste was finally mostly off after a rinse and a mere ten steeps, but continued to produce reasonably thick and incredibly smooth brews for some time thereafter. The tale of a long, smooth steep out the website claimed was not exaggerated.

I’d say this is a tremendous educational tea, as it exhibits something I would call “clean wet storage”, which to some folks probably makes less sense a tall midget or a caring politician. I also found it a deeply soothing tea to drink, once it had progressed past the point of me wondering if swamp water was safe to ingest.

I intend to air the remainder out for some time. If the storage clears, I suspect this is a bargain at the price. If not, then those with a taste for such things should still enjoy it. I found my enjoyment increasing the more I drank, but whether that is relative to accustimization to the flavor profile or merely its lessening will require at least one more session to determine.

However, in what is perhaps a final telling arbiter in my overall thoughts, I look forward to that session.