Eco-Cha Artisan Teas

Ah, this is such a great daily drinker, and exactly why I love oolong tea so much. It’s green and vegetal, with a perfect level of floral notes without being sickeningly perfume-y. It’s a crisp and uplifing tea.

I like this tea. It has a nice mild flavor and a pretty golden color. The tea leaves are good too.

I’ve had this sample sitting around for a quite a while and no longer remember whose stash I acquired it from. I need to start making note of that.

Anyhow, poured the whole sample into my gaiwan, which ended up being just about 9 grams. Did a quick wash and let the leaves sit while I refilled and heated the kettle before the first steep.

Light gold liquor, light and sweet in flavor, with the characteristic creaminess coming through more in the second steep. Light florals start to push through in steep three.

All in all, this was a good one!

Light, creamy, sweet, and predominantly orchid/nectar flowers in my cup, this is a clearing and uplifting green oolong. The aroma tends to retain more of the milky creaminess than the actual taste, but there is definitely a nice milky texture for the first few steeps of this. There’s a slight bit of astringency as the tea goes on, but nothing major or off putting, it actually defines the slight corn silk and flower notes more clearly, I think. There are some nice throat coating feels and sweetness as well.

My takeaway: this is a nice non-flavored milk oolong with more fullness than most green oolongs I’ve tried. More flowery than I’m usually a fan of, but every now and again that’s quite nice.

Backlog.

When it comes to scented teas, some flowers translate into better flavor than others. I was excited to try this blend because I love the fragrance of gardenia and had never experienced it in tea form before.

I brewed 4g in a 120ml gaiwan using almost boiling water for 1 minute, adding 20s to each subsequent steep. In a heated gaiwan, the tea leaves have an alluring aroma of perfume and flowers. The taste is like jasmine and rose combined, sweet with notes of warm spice. It reminds me of a high grade jasmine green tea but lacks the clean and delicate taste of a real jasmine tea. It’s pleasant enough though not particularly remarkable. The heavenly, lustrous aroma of gardenia flowers unfortunately can’t be found in the taste.

Sipdown 26

Here I need to divulge a guilty secret: Daylon R Thomas sent me this quite some time ago and I have hoarded, read neglected, this in addition to a couple of other things still left in his original posting box. On the upside though, I am currently on a green and oolong whirl, so that’s better because I am appreciating such teas more at this time, right, right?

So here I am having the last of this now. I have had it before and loved it.

Today, I reached blindly into Daylon’s box, knowing that whatever I found would be an oolong, and pulled this one out. The context here is that yesterday I spent the day with that honey caramel sweet spice Jin Guanyin Wuyi oolong from Verdant with the sweetness continuing throughout all the steeps. I wasn’t necessarily in the mood for a something all that sweet today after that extended session, but here we are.

Yes indeed—sweet. Caramel sweet. Maple sweet. Someone mentioned chestnut. I can see that. I just had some roasted chestnuts last week and this tea shares a bit of that caramelized sweet starchiness of them. I can see the whiskey or bourbon aspect too with the richness of the roast. There’s a bit of spice and a bit of wood. Roast sweet potato with marshmallow and caramelized nuggets of walnuts or pecans perhaps.

There’s a considerable overlap in flavours with yesterday’s tea, but here the char and strong spice and woodiness is absent.

It’s interesting that the more I drink oolongs, the more sensitivity to their flavours I develop. Of course, that makes sense. Truly when I was just starting out on oolong journey and I read someone posting reviews with one tea containing twenty-five or so flavours, it seemed a bit much. I get it now. I am becoming much more familiar with how a tea can morph in flavours and how each sip can contain several. Tea journey is a fascinating thing.

To be continued.

Thanks, Daylon, for the share.

And it’s a sip down!

Steeped: 5

I am now on steep six or so. What an odd, delicious, and odd journey this oolong is! The flavours emerging for me are sour, tart, caramel, dark dank basement, peat, moss.

All caramelized brown sugar this early morning. Not enough time to go past the first two steeps at the moment. To be continued later.

Thank you for the sample, Daylon!

I think I got this one from a reddit swap or sale. I used 5g in a 100mL gaiwan with 200F water. The dry leaf, which was comprised of larger than average little nuggets, had a nice and creamy “green” aroma. Once rinsed, I smelled notes of sugarcane and popcorn.

The first steep was vegetal with a bit of sweetness – it actually reminded me a bit of broccoli. After that, I got about seven steeps of creamy, milky, floral, sometimes sugarcane flavors. The tea had a nice thick texture to it, matching with the milky flavor. It also had a bit of a throaty feeling for a couple of those steeps. Less regularly, I got nectarine aftertaste and an occasional cucumber note. I gave it three more steeps after that, but those ones were pretty flat and dead. This one wasn’t as crisp as some High Mountain oolongs I’ve had, but it was still quite nice.

Thankfully a friend sent some of this to me. ShanLinXi is my favorite type of oolong. All the feels. This one is a bit lighter in terms of thickness than some, it the size of the leaf and the feels are on point.

This is easily one that can sit in the cupboard for who cares how long or short and it will continue to brew nice. Quaility leaf with a smooth taste. Provides an enjoyable session with multiple infusions. I’ll need to try all of their SLX and see if one has the thickness and depth I want, even if this is solid… I’m getting more selective :)

I’m not normally a fan of four seasons oolong, but, for the price, I had to pick some up. This is a pleasant and affordable oolong offering. Will be picking up more during the next purchase!

I used a few more leaves this morning mid gong fu-western. First steep was 50 seconds, 2 min, 1 min so far. I still get the florals and the hyacinth, but now I get the sugar cane sweetness to it. Sugar cane is a weird note for me anyway. It’s sweet without crystals tracing into my stomach. I’d describe it more as a grassy, green sweetess-like the smell of sugar, or the air between sugar crystals in your mouth. Or how Vanilla is sweet without it being, well, straight sugar. Those are the more vivid descriptions brought to you by flowery approximate language.

Like the description says on the website, it’s more like fresh greens than anything else with a cleansing aftertaste. It still reminds me of a Tie Guan Yin. But getting that much out of 20 grams of tea for $2 is awesome.

Now it’s time for the teas demographic: a little description I haven’t included in a while. I would recommend this to a newer drinker as something to try just to know how complex, light, and subtle this tea varietal can be. In essence, it would be an educating tea to say “Jin Xuan’s can be flowery and light, but they taste like buttery fresh greens usually. This is a great example of it. Get more if you like it, or make only a few more stops with other teas if you don’t .”

As for more experienced drinkers, I would think this is more for someone who likes their oolongs, and their Jin Xuans light. Or someone who likes delicate teas. After going through MANY Jin Xuans, this is probably one of the better flavored ones. I am biased to the florals, which is another thing that might deter or welcome drinkers.

I’m curious if the winter crop is any creamier or sweeter, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is more floral overall.

Important note: it is a spring crop from 2016.

I need to try this tea again. I attempted gong fu, but I did not use enough leaves for that session. What I’ll write is very similar to what Luckyme described.

I tried 45 seconds, and I get a very light creamy floral-something that reminds me of lilac, or more accurately hyacinth. I hesitated hoping it wasn’t leftover soap staining my vessel.

So I switched out vessels, and I get more of the same florals after three minutes. Still incredibly light, but lightly buttery and lightly vegetal. I do get a little bit of a savory vegetable taste, yet they are softer compared to the florals. It does remind me something of a Tie Guan Yin, or even closer, Mandala’s Unflavored Jin Xuan, but lighter like the Tie Guan Yin.

The next time after 4 and half minutes, there was some sweetness coming out, but floral sweetness. Vanilla popped in my head, but more as an after tone of the hyacinth.

The next at five minutes was a little bit more vegetal savory, but light and floral as ever.

I need to try this again. I’m pretty impressed that the hyacinth floral was the strongest aspect of this, but I have hopes that I could get this tea to brew sweeter. All this $2 for 20g, then $12 for 150g…that is a bargain.

Upon the correction later, starting at 3 minutes Western at 180 F, I get more of a fruity note in the middle of tasting it. Maybe something close to a pineapple skin. I do not quite get as much hyacinth, but a strong floral character remains with a lightly buttered vegetable background.

I was turned off from trying Jin Xuans for a while because I don’t care for the heavy butter taste that most of them have but this one was a real winner. It’s wonderfully floral and has a sugarcane like sweetness that complements the hint of milky flavor. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot of milkiness to this tea, which suits me just fine. This and Shan Lin Xi are my favorites of the Eco-Cha teas I’ve sampled so far.

This is a step above most generic four seasons oolong teas. The flavor profile is a little difficult to pin down as it changes every time. Sometimes it reminds me of TGY. It has the same sweet floral essence but not in your face. Thinner body and more delicate. Using more leaf accentuates its fruitiness and nectar especially when brewed in a yixing teapot.

Though I enjoyed this tea, it pales in comparison to BTT’s four seasons oolong which has a far more complex and memorable flavor.

Bought from a reddit tea sale. Used 3g in a 60mL gaiwan with 185 degree water.

Got a lot of floral and some vegetal flavors with a nice creamy texture – not super thick, but noticeable mouth feel. Pretty sweet tasting as well. Leaves seem like they’re pretty high quality, good vibrant green color and not too beat up or anything. In the later steeps I started getting a bit of a crisp, almost fruity note – may be what some have referred to as apple. This is my first Eco-Cha tea – may have to make an order with them at some point.

I didin’t use any specific steeping times with this since they lack suggestions for gongfu brewing. So I went with feeling and what seemed right, it turned out pretty good actually.

Nuggets are emerald green with light brown stems. They are small and even size. As a winter batch the leaves are quite small. Opened leaves are vegetal green.

Clear light green brew, latter steeps turn more orange/yellow hue. Mild scent. Full-bodied taste with notes of cream, vanilla, milk, fruit, osmanthus and some burnt sugar with woodsy notes. Terrific with really nice silky, thick and creamy mouthfeel. I can already say after couple steeps that this is the best Jin Xuan oolong that I’ve tasted. Others have been too milky or not milky at all, but this is in perfect balance. I’m definitely buying more after I’ve emptied my stash a bit.

Not what I expected. I should have realized that this four season was a high mountain tea and not the usual Tie Guan Yin. I’ve never had a fruitier four seasons tea that yielded so many cups gong fu. I’d guess eight or nine.

Perfume, asian pear, apple, cinnamon, flowers, and honey were the kind of things I tasted. The fruity taste also had a tropical character which I loved. The cinnamon is a bit of an exaggeration, but there was an odd spiciness that I could at least approximate as cinnamon. Like the Shan Lin Xi, I particularly enjoyed this and would get some more Eco-Cha myself.

And this was all thanks to LuckyMe.

Quick note: used this in my new tumbler, and I used too many leaves for grandpa style. I brewed it western and it was impressive. I gotta say that this 2018 harvest is a major comeback considering the new notes of violet and strawberry I’ve been getting with the typical ripe green and floral ones.

I got a sample from the club order, and I missed this baby. The 2018 harvest also is delivering some great fruit notes in the first steep, like mango topped with hyacinth in a honeysuckle finish. You can expect me to write more about this soon, among others in this crazy hiatus.

Sip down. Brewed it right this time. Pineapple and grass notes were well balanced in floral creaminess. I need to remind myself that less leaf and time means less grassy.