Tag: Oolong Tea

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Teavana’s S’mores Oolong Tea

S’mores Oolong Tea by Teavana
Oolong Tea & Yerba Mate / Flavoured
$9.98 for 2oz

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First Impressions

I am going to preface this review with the fact that I, perhaps unfairly, have high expectations for this tea. I love s’mores. I love camping, and roasting marshmallows, and the ooey-gooey marshmallows with graham crackers and slightly melted chocolate. The smell of the dry tea is interesting – the only smells that I can pick out are chocolate and cinnamon, with perhaps a touch of vanilla. There’s a whole host of other ingredients that I’m not getting.

The ingredients for S’ores Oolong are: cocoa kernals, white chocolate pieces, carob pieces, cinnamon, chocolate flakes, chicory root, marshmallow, oolong tea, roasted maté, artificial flavouring, bourbon vanilla pieces, and marigold petals. I wasn’t able to make out the tea bases at all, the aroma of the chocolate and cinnamon definitely overpower the oolong and maté

Preparation

Teavana recommends steeping S’mores Oolong in 195°F (91°C) water for 3 minutes. I steeped mine for 3 minutes.

First Taste

When S’mores Oolong is steeping, it has a heavy chicory root and cinnamon smell, surprisingly I can’t make out the chocolate at all. I would recommend that you use a filter bag instead of a stainless steel filter basket, unless the mesh of your basket is very fine – I wound up with a lot of small bits in my tea. The tea is quite cloudy, and smells strongly of chicory root and cinnamon, it smells sweet and has an oily film from the melted chocolate floating on the top.

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S’mores Oolong smells of cinnamon and chicory. It’s a cup of watery cinnamon and chicory root, with a little taste of chocolate, but it isn’t overwhelming in terms of flavour. There’s a bit of sweetness (from either the chocolate or the marshmallows), but I can’t taste either base (oolong or maté). It doesn’t taste very good to the point where I did not finish my cup because it just does not taste good (or taste like any kind of tea or beverage that I’d want to finish). I looked into the steeping basket after I had poured out a cup and realized that there was actually very little tea in the tea itself – the majority of what was left was just all the ingredients that show up before the oolong (aside from the marshmallow, that melted away).

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A Second Cup?

I did not steep S’mores Oolong a second time.

My Overall Impression

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I didn’t like Teavana’s S’mores Oolong Tea. It does not remind me of s’mores at all, the chocolate doesn’t come out as strongly as I expected from the dry tea. The overall flavour is underwhelming because the chicory root and cinnamon are strong and I can’t taste the base at all. If I were to try this tea again (and that is a very big if), I would probably add more tea to steep, in hopes of getting more flavour, but it isn’t a very promising tea at all. I wouldn’t recommend S’mores Oolong.

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DavidsTea’s Guangzhou Milk Oolong

Guangzhou Milk Oolong by DavidsTea
Oolong Tea / Flavoured
$12.98 for 50g

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First Impressions

Guangzhou Milk Oolong has this very distinct milk/cream aroma to the dry tea. There’s some mild floral notes to the tea itself, which is various shades of green. The oolong tea is tiny rolled and smells inviting. I love milk tea, although I’ve never tried a milk oolong before. The pricing is moderate, at least by DavidsTea’s standards.

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The ingredients for Guangzhou Milk Oolong are: Chinese oolong from the Fujian province, and natural flavouring. I can only assume that the natural flavouring might be the milk part of the tea because it smells like cream and milk so much.

Preparation

The label that my bag of tea came with says to steep in 85°C (185°F) water for 4-7 minutes. DavidsTea has updated their website since, and now recommends 75-80°C (167-176°F) for 4-7 minutes. I steeped my pot of tea in water that was about 80°C for 4 minutes.

First Taste

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Guangzhou Milk Oolong initially steeps to a very pale yellow. There’s some subtle cream flavours in the tea that reminds me a lot of butter in both aroma and flavour. It’s very rich tasting, with that flavour profile that reminds me of buttery cream. It’s quite tasty though. There’s a natural sweetness to this tea that doesn’t require additional sweetener, in my opinion. That isn’t to say that you couldn’t added more sweetener to it, if needed, but I don’t think it necessarily requires it. The tea leaves expand so much – this is definitely a tea that you don’t want to put into a filter bag because there would not be enough space of the leaves to expand sufficiently. As it is, I almost feel like my tea pot’s basket isn’t large enough.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Guangzhou Milk Oolong an additional four times with an additional 30 seconds or so for each subsequent steeping. This tea steeps to a deeper yellow every single time. The flavour of butter in this tea gets deeper and richer. It doesn’t get that much sweeter though, which is okay by me. The creaminess of the tea is just more pronounced, but it doesn’t feel like I’m biting into a stick of butter, so it’s fine by me. The tea leaves were fully expanded by the end of steep two, and are (for the most part) full leaves.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved DavidsTea’s Guangzhou Milk Oolong. It has such an interesting flavour profile that I really enjoyed the creaminess of the tea. Because it resteeps so well, I would recommend having this tea on a day when you can take the time to enjoy a cup of tea and resteep at your leisure. The ability of this tea to withstand one more steep after steep makes the price worth it, in my opinion. The great creamy flavour makes this tea interesting, and the flavour just gets better and better every time you steep the tea leaves.

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Tea Ave’s Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong

Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong by Tea Ave
Oolong Tea / Straight
$12.50 for 25g

I received this sample of Tea Ave’s Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong for free, a review of the tea was not requested by the company.

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First Impressions

As with my other reviews so far of Tea Ave‘s oolongs, I greatly appreciate the simple but informative packaging that they package their samples in. Alishan Jin Xuan is, according to the lovely robin’s egg blue packaging, a tea that is “grown on the foggy Alishan Mountains” and it mentions how that oolong teas from this region (and this region alone) “produce the creamy, milky qualities found in the Alishan Jin Xuan”. This tea comes from 1100-1600 metres up the mountains, and the tea itself consists of only Jin Xuan oolong.

This sample came in a tea bag format, but I was curious this time so I ripped the bag open to see the tea inside. There’s a lot of tea in these tea bags, as evidenced by my Perfect Spoon being quite filled. I decided this would be a great opportunity to put the oolong into the steeping basket of my tea pot, which allows it room to expand. The tea itself has this deep grassy and earthy smell to it, with sweet floral notes as well. It is a very intriguing combination that I’m curious to try.

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Preparation

Tea Ave recommends using boiling water (100°C/212°F) and steeping for 1-3 minutes if you’re using it in a tea bag – resteeping up to 3 times. I followed the tea pot instructions, which said to use water that is 95-100°C (203-212°F) for 1 minute and to resteep up to 5 times.

Tea Ave mentions that you should add an extra 30 seconds to 1 minute per resteep, which is a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. Because I was using a tea bag’s quantity of tea in a tea pot, I didn’t fill it up too much as I didn’t want to dilute the tea.

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First Taste

Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong steeps to a nice pale golden yellow which has a lovely light floral scent to it with some grassy undertones. I found the tea itself has an enjoyable buttery cream quality to it – it almost has a pleasant oily mouthfeel to it but without the oil. It has a very smooth texture to the tea. What I found very interesting as I sipped this tea is that it has an almost salty quality to it that isn’t off-putting at all, this is due to this great floral taste that lingers in my mouth after having a sip.

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A Second Cup?

Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong resteeps amazingly well. I resteeped it for a total of five additional times and it had the same complex combination of flavours every single time. It resteeps so well, and it was nice to just have multiple cups of this tea because it’s so enjoyable. The flavours become a little stronger for steeps 2 and 3, and then wanes a little bit and tastes pretty good for steep six.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved Tea Ave’s Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong. The intriguing smell of the tea before it steeps, coupled with the amazingly complex taste of the tea after it steeps makes this a winner in my book. I think it would be a great oolong to try because it is so complex in terms of the different levels of flavours that the tea has. The intricate nature of the taste makes it an enjoyable cup of tea, I would really recommend resteeping this tea if you have the time to do so, it just makes for a great tasting experience and helps you get more value out of your oolong.

This is the last of my sample reviews for Tea Ave. I’ve greatly enjoyed trying their teas and I’m very grateful that Tea Ave was able to send me some teas to try. If you missed my previous Tea Ave reviews, I reviewed the follow oolong teas previously: Oriental Beauty, Dong Ding Oolong, Osmanthus Oolong, and Magnolia Oolong.

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