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A beautifully done oolong! Thanks so much to Geoff and Max for the sample of this, direct from Taiwan. As noted in the description, it is an oolong on the darker side with a complex profile. I get some sweet clover, some wheat, a bit of earthiness — there’s more, but it’s hard for me to pinpoint. The flavor’s very smooth and balanced. The rolled leaves are very dark and crinkly when unfurled, and smell quite woodsy. Excellent!

This is the last of the goji pop :( It’s my favorite herbal tea to date. Sure it has hibiscus, but the hibiscus doesn’t go around dominating all other lifeforms the way it does in most herbals. Thank God David’s spring collection comes out tomorrow so I can start planning my next order.

Had what is becoming my customary cup of earl grey creme for breakfast, and somehow I was still craving earl grey, so I steeped this. I was kind of disappointed in this one the first time I tried it, but now that I don’t have so many expectations for it, I like it pretty well. It has that malty breakfast tea undertone, and today (I think I oversteeped it a bit; people were talking to me and I got distracted) it tastes quite buttery. As far as the chocolate and the bergamot, I don’t think this tea delivers, but if you can accept it as a dark breakfast tea with interesting unidentifiable side notes, it’s pretty good.

I’m resigned to this tea. There’s nothing wrong with it, the blend is balanced, now that I’m over the initial shock I can see what other people like about it. But there is candy in this tea — a LOT of candy — and I’m just not a candy tea person. There’s so much nonsense in this tea that there’s hardly room for the tea leaves, though I guess that’s not a total negative. It’s a black tea that I’m safely drinking at midnight, because not much leaf means not much caffeine.

This and the Shan Valley Mountain Roasted tea are like sisters, with the latter being the older, stronger sister, but whatever, they’ve still got the same genes. I like them both and it really just depends on my mood which I prefer, this (the slightly milder, mellower version) or t’other.

Trying this a second time, and it seems more balanced now. I may have oversteeped it before without realizing it. Still not a favorite of it mine, but if you are into plain whites, this one is worth a try, as it does have an interesting flavor profile.

Getting a bit of mineral flavor, which I think is an effect of the roasting. I agree with Sonofabrat there’s something oolong-ish about this tea; it’s on the darker side for a green tea and tastes quite robust, with the vegetal notes at a minimum. If I’m going to drink plain green, this is the style I like, so I am very happy with this sample. Shan Valley’s other green samples were quite good too, but I think they planned them with the idea that this one would be the strongest and most toasted, the first flush would be the greenest (as in most raw and most vegetal) and the valley tea would be the middle ground between the two.

So far the formosa oolongs I’ve tried are notable for what they have in common — that sweet roasted floral-fruit taste — rather than their differences, which have been extremely slight. This is a good-quality tea, but no revelation. Like Upton’s formosa fine grade, the leaves are chopped (the other formosa oolongs had rolled leaves, but the taste hardly varied, so I’m unclear how they decide on the style or what effect it’s supposed to have) and good for multiple steepings. I was a bit surprised that H&S’s instructions for the tea were to use boiling water and steep it for 5 minutes, but I tried it and it was fine.

Trying this for the first time, and it seems very reminiscent of H&S’s Paris, but not quite as strong in flavor. I have a feeling that my tastebuds are not at their best today though — this weather system has parked itself over me for days and I’ve just been feeling slightly off — so I’ll do a fuller review after another tasting.

I got a small sample of this to see how it compared to the Bangkok tea; I think I was expecting pina colada for some reason, but there’s no coconut — it is distinctly a pineapple tea. For me it falls slightly short just because I find blends with several flavors, like Bangkok or Lime Gelato, to be more interesting. I feel about this tea the same way I feel about pineapple — it’s delicious from time to time, but not something I want every day. It’s good to have some variety in the cupboard though, and I bet this tea would pair beautifully with zucchini bread.