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I steeped 1 tsp of this per package directions @ 175 degrees for 2 minutes per package directions and the resulting tea was pretty nondescript. Increasing the amount of leaf roughly 3x produced a much more robust cup.

The flavor of the liquor was smooth and vegetal with hints of savory grass. As it goes down you get a light butteriness and brothy mouthfeel. Not much sweetness here nor any bitterness for what matter.

Personally, I found this tasted like a generic green tea. Good, but nothing special. I would reach for a long jing or sencha over this any day.

This is the tea I was most looking forward to in my NaiveTea sampler pack. I love lavender in chamomile and with NaiveTea’s flair for flavored tea, I figured this would be winner. But I’m sad to say this was not one of their best.

The oolong base doesn’t taste as good as those in their other blends. The tea has a mild lavender flavor but also tastes like flat wheat and a bit stale. It lacks depth and body and isn’t very floral – something I thought would mingle nicely with the lavender.

I’ll try play with steeping variations to see if I can coax out some more flavor out of this tea. In the meantime, I’ll continue to reach for my jar of dried lavender buds for when I want some lavender flavor in my tea.

This is a nice, lightly floral green oolong with a balanced mix of sweet and vegetal. I was surprised at how dramatically different this tea tastes when alternating between western and gongfu style brewing. Steeped western style, I get a lot more vegetal notes and a slight bitterness. The florals are mostly muted and the overall flavor is more like green tea.

But this tea’s true colors really shine when steeped gong fu style. It’s flavor changes to sweet and floral, slightly fruity with a soft vegetal finish and almost thick mouthfeel. Gongfu brewing is definitely the way to go with this tea.

Overall, a very pleasant jade oolong with a nice, balanced flavor profile. Eco-Cha’s price ($7 for 75 grams) is an excellent value for such an impressive tea.

Thank you to curlygc for the sample.

I’ve been working my way through my flavored oolong sampler pack from NaiveTea and peach oolong was next in the lineup. This is a really delicious tea with lots of bright peach flavor. The base milk oolong contributes a very smooth, buttery taste of this tea and accentuates its sweetness.

As good as this tea was it wasn’t life changing. To be honest it tasted similar to many other higher quality peach flavored teas and I would say it’s only marginally better than Lupica’s Momo Oolong, another excellent peach oolong.

Like other NaiveTea flavored teas, this made a great iced tea and IMO tastes better cold-brewed.

This was an enjoyable, great quality sencha especially for the price. Full bodied and very well balanced sweetness and mild astringency. I started off steeping it at 155 F and then dropped the temperature by about 5 degrees with each subsequent steep. The tea got lighter and creamier as it progressed. On the fourth steep, I bumped up the temperature to 165 F and let it go for 2.5 mins. Still produced a tasty cup. A very refreshing sencha overall!

This one is not for me. It tastes like black tea which I really don’t like. I didn’t pick up any of the flavor notes that others described. No honey, no peach, no butterscotch, nothing except a generic black tea flavor.

Another winner from NaiveTea! The dry leaf is very sweet smelling, with the aroma of exotic tropical fruits. I steeped it according to package directions (50s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 90s, and 2m). The first steeps tasted unmistakably of succulent passionfruit. As with their lychee oolong, the passionfruit takes front and center here and complements the buttery oolong in the background. It has a similar juicy sweetness and thick mouthfeel. Nothing artificial about this tea at all. After about 6 steeps, I cold steeped the leaves in the fridge overnight for a fantastic iced tea.

The smell of the dry leaf and the taste of brewed cup are fishy, similar to bonito flakes with a deeply vegetal aftertaste. Even at the lowest brewing temperature of 140 F, there is very little sweetness and mostly bitterness. Tastes like your drinking water from a fishy lake. By far the foulest tasting Japanese green tea I’ve had yet.

Update: brewed it gongfu style and that slightly improved the taste but not by much. The real problem with this tea is it lacks depth/complexity of higher quality Taiwanese oolongs. I actually preferred the lower grade Alishan to this one.

I was excited to try this tea after seeing all the glowing reviews but after brewing it 3 different ways, I’m pretty underwhelmed so far.

I first steeped it according to the package directions – (1 tsp of tea per 8 oz of 185F water for 3 mins) and found it weak. I then upped the tea leaf to water ratio (1 tsp for 4 oz of tea) and used slightly hotter water (195 F) after an initial rinse. Still, no dice. Then I reverted to my standard oolong brewing method: 2-3 grams of tea, 4 oz of 185F water, 2 minute steep following a brief rinse. Got a slight floral note with some nuttiness and astringency. I followed with three more infusions increasing the steep time by a minute and bumping up the water temperature. These steeps opened with a vaguely floral sweetness and an astringent finish. The 3rd infusion hit the sweet spot and the flavor began fading out after the 4th. So I transferred the wet leaves – nice full leaves with stems – from my gaiwan to a teapot, covered with fresh water and left to cold steep in the fridge. Hopefully the iced tea will take away the bitterness and bring out the fresh green flavor.

I have just enough left of my sample for one gongfu session and will report back later on it.