Tealyra

ok, ok, so it’s an herbal— which means I have officially broken my green and oolong trend.

Also known as: Tieguanyin; Tie Kwan Yin; Iron Buddha
This is my favorite tea for gongfu cha. I brew it in my Yixing clay teapot. It is one of my favorite teas ever! It is organically grown and from the spring harvest. While I usually brew this tea gongfu cha style, it can also be brewed in a western style. It is great for steeping multiple times!
The dried leaves are dark green, and are curled/rolled. They expand to whole leaves in water. The tea liquor is light yellow/gold.
Aroma: floral (orchids and maybe rose). definitely flowery with possibly nutty or flinty.
Taste: floral, sweet, and weedy (notes of wet hay/straw). Possibly mineral/flinty and salty, and slightly vegetal. The taste is complex yet balanced.
Body: round (smooth); full, buttery

boring. this one came my way from Evol via VariaTEA. It’s kinda just a really lightly flavoured faintly strawberry oolong? Nothing strong in terms of flavour…average enough oolong – nothing to write home about but not a bad cup either. Thanks for the share ladies!

Here is another review from the backlog. I was waiting to get through a couple more sipdowns before posting anything else here on Steepster, but I may as well just go ahead and get some more reviews out of the way. I kind of forgot about this one. I finished a 25g pouch of this tea a couple weeks ago, but at the time, I was focusing on getting some green tea reviews out of the way and decided to hold off on posting a review of it until I finished them all. I then ended up moving on to other teas, posted reviews of them here, and completely ignored this one. This all reminds me that I really need to get into the habit of reviewing teas in the order I finish them.

This particular tea was a pleasant surprise, especially considering that I was not expecting much from it. I used to buy from Tealyra regularly, but after finding the customer service to be a little lacking and the freshness and quality of the teas occasionally suspect, I started buying less from them and more from other vendors. With that and the fact that Chou Shi is far from one of my favorite styles of Dancong oolong in mind, I figured this tea would provide a pretty forgettable experience at best. Boy, was I wrong! Not only did the leaf quality appear to be very high, but this was an extremely pleasant, aromatic, and flavorful tea to boot.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was chased by 13 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, I detected pronounced aromas of sweet cream, vanilla, orchid, sweet pea, honeysuckle, and gardenia coming from the dry tea leaves. After the rinse, I found an emerging scent of custard. The first proper infusion then introduced a violet scent to the tea’s bouquet. In the mouth, I found expected notes of sweet cream, vanilla, gardenia, and sweet pea as well as a note of butter. The subsequent infusions introduced butter to the nose while notes of custard, orchid, violet, and honeysuckle quickly appeared on the palate. New impressions of minerals, grass, green apple, pear, orange, and sugarcane also started to make themselves known. The last infusions displayed soft and rather muted impressions of cream, butter, vanilla, grass, and minerals balanced by fleeting gardenia, sweet pea, green apple, and violet notes.

Chou Shi Dancongs can often be temperamental little beasts. Water temperature and quality, age of the tea, and even the brewing vessel used can wreak havoc on them, perhaps even more so than many other types of oolong. Sometimes they can be wonderful despite anything and everything working against them, while other times a tea seemingly in its prime with everything going for it can come off like little more than hot, sweet grass water. That being said, this proved to be an immediately gratifying tea on a number of levels, and though I am only discussing and rating the gongfu preparation here, I tried this tea Western and iced and both preparations produced fine results. As Chou Shi Dancongs go, one could do a whole lot worse than giving this one a shot.

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Thank you Evol Ving Ness for sharing. I am finishing this up and all the chocolate bits from the bottom of the package ended up in this mug so while it is fudgey, it is also a bit flat.

I brewed up a small cup of this and it smelled amazingly chocolatey. Unfortunately, I got caught up with a bunch of things and this was left to cool completely. Cold, it is a bit like dirt tbh so I will definitely be waiting to rate this for when I try it hot. Thank you Evol Ving Ness for the share though and I look forward to trying this properly because if the smell is any indication, it has potential.

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Thank you Evol Ving Ness for sharing this. I drank it Saturday with lemon honey. It tasted a little bit like ginger, a little bit like chamomile, and a little lemony. Mostly I felt like death and my tastebuds were shot but the warmth was soothing.

When I steeped this up, I expected exactly the same thing as what DTs delivers, or used to deliver. And nope. I don’t know how much of this is due to whatever is going on with my tastebuds and this flu-like thing that I have developed. I am not getting that beautiful tart berry thing accompanied by a bit of creaminess, but rather a kind of generic red herbal. It’s ok, but very whatever.

Strawberry oolong. Sort of berry. Sort of floral. And ultimately just not a whole lot of anything. It tastes nice enough but it’s nothing special. Nonetheless it was fun to try so thank you Evol Ving Ness for sharing :)

Predictable and delightful, if you like the combination of pure hibiscus and rosehips, which I do.

I’m been falling back alot on these lately, just because I have a bag at hand, and really, it’s a staple, I should just move it to a tin next time I restock. I usually don’t feel the need to review jasmine teas, they’re so normal, and this one is just about as run of the mill as most of the others. I like watching these unfurl in my steeper, and I usually resteep these a minimum of three times, for me that’s just about when they open up fully.

Today I did 1.5 tsp/16oz rather than my normal 1 tsp/16oz because I was feeling generous. The addition makes it more green tea tasting, rather than letting the floral jasmine carry the tea. It’s nice on the occasion, but the jasmine tealyra uses is nice. Its floral, but more on the sweet side of floral rather than perfume-y.

It amuses me that the package says 1tsp/8oz, the effect of that much tea/water is a bit too much for the depth of this tea, I would rather underleaf this than overleaf.

Thank you Evol Ving Ness for the share! I tried this iced and though it was enjoyable enough and had a nice dessert vibe to it, I don’t know if I got pie and I definitely got far less tartness than I expected from a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie tea.

Check out my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/10/12/strawberry-rhubarb-pie-from-tealyra/

When it comes to Taiwanese oolongs, I sometimes get the impression that unflavored Jin Xuan oolongs may get a little overlooked. I just don’t see them as frequently as I see their flavored counterparts. Of the four Jin Xuan oolongs I have tried from Tealyra in the last year, this is the only one that was unflavored. I found it to be a light, approachable oolong that would work well as an introduction to unflavored Jin Xuan.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 8 seconds. This infusion was chased by 12 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced mild aromas of spinach, grass, seaweed, and cream. After the rinse, I found new aromas of butter, vanilla, and sugarcane backed by a hint of orchid. The first infusion introduced a hint of citrus on the nose. In the mouth, the liquor offered mild notes of seaweed, cream, butter, spinach, and grass underscored by ghostly impressions of vanilla and orchid. Subsequent infusions brought out stronger vanilla and orchid notes as well as impressions of Asian pear, lettuce, daylily blossoms, orange zest, daylily shoots, and minerals. The sugarcane also showed up in the mouth around this time. The later infusions were heavy on mineral and cream notes, though traces of daylily, lettuce, seaweed, spinach, and butter were still detectable.

Overall, this tea was not bad. It was more vegetal than expected, but honestly, there was not much of anything that struck me as being off or out-of-place. I would not call this the best unflavored Jin Xuan in the world, but one could do far worse than reaching for this when one is in the mood for such a tea. I wouldn’t make it a regular or anything like that, but I wouldn’t caution others to avoid it either. Try this tea if you are looking for an accessible and affordable unflavored Jin Xuan.

Really tasty white tea. If you have had a good moonlight white tea before, you know what you are going to be getting with this tea. A little earthy, a little sweetness. Solid overall.

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Chocolate on chocolate. This did not need to be made as a chocolate milk latte since there is clearly a great deal of chocolate here. Alas there is also licorice root here and it is quite cloying. Still this was fun to try so thank you Evol Ving Ness for the share!

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Thank you for sharing Evol Ving Ness but it seems I was not destined to enjoy this tea. I iced it twice and the first time it got left in the fridge and forgotten until someone dumped it and the second time I chugged it while drowning in work and deadlines. I remember hibiscus and not much else. Sorry this sample was wasted on me.

I’m still plowing through some of the oolongs I acquired earlier in the year and toward the end of last year. This was one of them and I have to say that to this point in my life, this was the absolute worst oolong of this type I have tried. Normally, Four Season oolongs are very floral, sweet, smooth, and pleasant, but this one was thin and watery with an uneven mix of flavors and little staying power.

I gongfued this tea. After a flash rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was followed by 12 additional infusions that I had to more or less force myself to get through. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves produced subtle aromas of sugarcane, violet, and orchid. After the rinse, new aromas of cream, butter, vanilla, and grass were revealed. The first proper infusion more fully brought out the floral character on the nose. In the mouth, the liquor offered hints of grass and spinach on the entry before giving way to subtler hints of cream, butter, vanilla, sugarcane, and orchid. Subsequent infusions brought out vanilla and spinach on the nose and violet in the mouth. I also discovered notes of green apple, Asian pear, lettuce, lily, lilac, seaweed, and minerals. There was a slight graininess to these middle infusions as well. It seemed more than a bit out of place in a tea like this. I noted that the floral aromas had a tendency of turning pungent before suddenly fading, leaving me with a thin, uneven, and unpleasant mix of savory, fruity, and vegetal characteristics coupled with something of a gritty graininess. The later infusions were buttery, though mineral, grass, seaweed, and lettuce notes remained in play. I could detect no lingering fruity or floral sweetness.

I may be being a bit harsh here, but I found this tea to be nothing short of a disaster. I kind of think this was a bad tea to begin with, but I also think it had started to fade by the time I got to it. I even noticed that the leaves looked a bit weird when I first opened the pouch, as the dry leaves were an unusually bright, dusty green. In terms of aroma and flavor, there was surprising complexity, but none of it ever came together and there was little depth. A horribly uneven drinking experience and also a flat-out bad one, I would recommend that curious drinkers pass on this tea. There are plenty of better Four Season oolongs on the market. In my opinion, What-Cha, Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company, Taiwan Tea Crafts, and Floating Leaves Tea all offer much better examples of this type of tea.

I have to start cleaning out the backlog again. Fortunately, it’s not nearly as bad as it was in September and the first part of the month. I was starting to make good progress on it, but being out of state and also not having consistent internet access for a couple days put me a little behind schedule. Anyway, I purchased this tea shortly before Tealyra discontinued it. I know virtually nothing about it. I don’t know what the leaf grade was supposed to be and I have no clue what the date of harvest was. I went into this one not knowing what to expect. I found it to be oddly mild for an Assam. I could not determine whether it was due to the tea being a bit stale or it just being naturally mild.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped one teaspoon of loose tea leaves in approximately 8 ounces of 205 F water for 5 minutes. No additional infusions were attempted.

Prior to infusion, the dry leaves emitted mild aromas of prunes, figs, red apples, and spices. After infusion, I picked up on stronger red apple and prune scents as well as emerging aromas of malt and wood. On the palate, I noted somewhat muted flavors of cream, malt, oatmeal, wood, toast, caramel, anise, nutmeg, prune, fig, clove, red apple, and molasses. The finish was short, smooth, creamy, and malty. There were some lingering red apple and spice flavors once the cream and malt notes began to recede.

I’m not certain this tea was all that stale. I figure that it was a bit on the old side, but it seemed to have a little too much life left in it to be all that stale. Maybe this was a very mild Assam. I’m still not entirely sure. I enjoyed the aromas and flavors the tea offered, but they just came across as being weak and somewhat flat. Overall, I suppose this was not really a bad tea, just a somewhat boring, overly timid one that was not representative of most Assam black teas.

Picked this up from a Steepster stash sale and it turned out to be a good one. Being a flavored milk oolong, the milkiness is definitely assertive but not cloying or fake. The tea has a pleasant aroma of cream and dairy. Taste matches the aroma exactly. A soothing, creamy milk flavor that lasts through many steeps. Eventually the milkiness fades into the background and the tea becomes fruity and sweet.

The milk flavor is natural and doesn’t clash with tea’s own flavor. Not much else left to say except this a simple yet incredibly smooth and delicious tea.

The brewed fragrance is a strong orange oil (maybe even tangerine oil) scent. The brewed tea is a rich orange brown – a pretty color I don’t usually see. The very hot brew is kind of a one-note, but as it cools a bit, I pick up more flavors and they are better balanced. Slightly bitter but not astringent; definitely more of an orange peel than a juicy orange taste; jasmine is definitely present, and there is a nice underlying tea flavor. IIt leaves a very clean taste in my mouth, too. think I like this one, although it won’t be a repurchase. (I think it’s probably a very good tea, I just tend to like other ones better.)

This sounded so good! Chai and oolong, two of my favorite flavors! And my favorite chai “flavor” is usually cardamom, which is listed 3rd in the ingredients, so I should be happy, right? Nope. This has a light chai scent, and it tastes like boiled water. There is a faint, faint cinnamon taste if I try to find it, and an almost green tea flavor (equally faint). I brewed according to directions, and used twice as much tea than it called for, but nope.

Sometimes I buy a tea just because I think there is something up with the way it is marketed. When I saw this tea on Tealyra’s website, I was immediately confused and intrigued. Huang Shan is located in China’s Anhui Province, but this oolong was marketed as being produced in Taiwan. I figured I was either missing something or that something did not quite add up, so I bought the tea and set about doing a little research. It turns out that there is an area in Taitung County, Taiwan popularly referred to as “Little Huang Shan,” or more properly as Xiao Huang Shan, just outside of Beinan Township. Further exploration revealed the presence of the Jia Fang Tea Plantation nearby. Apparently, it is pretty popular with tourists to the area and is mostly known for a lightly oxidized strip style oolong similar to the more familiar Wenshan Baozhong. If you search for images of Jia Fang products, you will most likely immediately stumble upon the same image I found-a very green loose leaf oolong packaged in a green box with a cartoonish smiling person on the side. I would be surprised if this were not the same tea.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a very quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 7 seconds. This infusion was chased by 12 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves offered gentle aromas of cream, custard, honeysuckle, and hyacinth. After the rinse, I found new aromas of gardenia, butter, vanilla, violet, and lilac. The first proper infusion offered slightly stronger butter and cream aromas coupled with an emerging sugarcane presence. In the mouth, I found barely perceptible notes of wood and grass which quickly gave way to cream, butter, vanilla, and floral notes. Subsequent infusions brought out the grass and wood on the nose. I also began to pick up stronger floral flavors and emerging magnolia, pear, green apple, mineral, spinach, leaf lettuce, and honeydew impressions. Notes of sugarcane also showed up on the palate. The later infusions were heavy on mineral notes, though I could also detect touches of grass, spinach, cream, and butter, sometimes with distant background notes of green apple and flowers.

This was a very light, delicate oolong with a nice mix of savory, vegetal, floral, and fruity characteristics in the mouth. It did a reasonably good job of approximating the character of a traditional Wenshan Baozhong, though it was missing a little of the depth I tend to get from really good examples of that type of tea. Fans of lighter, greener oolongs would undoubtedly be satisfied with this tea, especially considering that the cost is more than reasonable. All in all, this was a very solid, enjoyable drinking experience. I doubt I would turn to this over a respectable Wenshan Baozhong, but it was a nice tea nonetheless.

Until I tried this tea, this was a type of green tea on which I had slept. Hailing from the Emei Shan region of Sichuan Province, Zhu Ye Qing is a Chinese high mountain green tea known for its sweet, nutty, vegetal, and often bamboo-like aromas and flavors. Zhu Ye Qing is also produced elsewhere in China, often in Yunnan Province. This particular Zhu Ye Qing is from Emei Shan in Sichuan Province. Having never tried this type of tea before, I was impressed by the strength of its aromas and flavors as well as its versatility.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 175 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 13 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to infusion, I noted that the dry tea leaves produced aromas of malt, wood, hay, and bamboo. Aromas of grilled corn and roasted chestnuts emerged after infusion. Mild, subtle flavors of malt, roasted chestnut, wood, grass, hay, and bamboo were present in the mouth. Subsequent infusions brought out aromas and flavors of minerals, grilled lemon, honey, smoke, and straw with hints of hazelnut, leaf lettuce, and seaweed in the background. I also noted the emergence of grilled corn notes on the palate. The later infusions mostly offered impressions of minerals, grass, lettuce, malt, and nuts.

This was a very nice green tea that made for a wonderful introduction to Zhu Ye Qing. At another point in time, I prepared this as an iced tea and it was fantastic. I would definitely recommend this tea to anyone looking for a flavorful, refreshing green tea.