Tag: Oolong Tea

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Tea by C’s Tea Tasting Triad

Tea Tasting Triad by Tea by C
$52.00 USD for 3 Teas (6oz) & Accessories

Tea By C has provided me with the Tea Tasting Triad for the purposes of writing an honest review.

Tea by C’s Tea Tasting Triad is ready for the holidays and I was quite pleased when Claire asked me if I would be interested to take a look at it. This box consists of three teas (more on that soon!), a tea tasting guide and flavour wheel (the rolled up poster at the top), and a tea infuser for any cup of teapot that you might be using. It all fits quite neatly into a sturdy mailing box and makes for a good presentation if you’re going to be having this mailed to someone as a gift – I would be happy to open this up!

Also included with the box are three tasting cards about each tea: Dragonwell Green (green tea), Blue People Oolong (oolong tea), and Rose Buds (herbal tisane). They’re quite nice quality – sturdy cardstock, lots of information about each one, and there’s a bonus card about tea in general – a nice touch for those who are receiving this kit as a gift who are new to tea or don’t know a lot about it yet.

The tins are lovely, and the lids are quite tight on, which is great for maintaining freshness of the tea and preventing the leaves from going stale. I actually had the opportunity to review all three of these teas last year, and wrote full reviews for each Dragonwell Green, Blue People Oolong and Rose Buds. I enjoyed all of them, and I had a nice cup of Blue People Oolong while working on this post.

I used the metal tea strainer that was included in the kit – it’s easy to use and similar to one that I used when I first started exploring tea. The thing about these strainers is to not overfill! Tea leaves need room to expand, so you don’t want to overfill half of the ball because the leaves won’t have room to move and open up their leaves. I would fill the half sphere about half full in order to give it space.

The loveliest part of this kit for a beginner to tea is the Flavour Wheel. A flavour wheel is incredibly useful for those new to trying to decipher how to describe tea. I didn’t want to share the whole wheel, but it’s quite lovely and a full 360° of descriptions for you to consider. For example, for vegetable flavours, it includes things like spinach, bean sprouts, peas, green beans – all with their own distinctive flavours, but also provides you with a reference because if you’re unsure of what your tea tastes like but know it reminds you of something vegetal, the wheel can help you pinpoint a word.

I loved Tea By C’s Tea Tasting Triad. It has a nice combination of teas to start off (green, oolong, tisane), the inclusion of a flavour wheel and an infuser really make this a great starter kit, beginners gift box. The tasting cards are a really nice touch to help someone really learn about each tea thoroughly. I think the flavour wheel and the tasting cards really make this box a wonderful idea, because it helps someone to immerse themselves into the teas, the language, and learn how to think about tea has having the ability to have a myriad of flavours. This would be a wonderful gift for a friend or a gift to yourself if you’re new to tea. All it needs is a cute seasonal or holiday themed mug or cup and saucer set and you’ll be good to go!

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DavidsTea’s Golden Lily

Golden Lily by DavidsTea
Oolong Tea / Straight
$16.48 for 50g

First Impressions

Golden Lily is an oolong tea that was part of an online order I made with DavidsTea. This tea comes in a familiar silver bag that comes sealed and is resealable with a dark blue across the front (and yes, in certain lights I imagine that teal blue lettering with a darker blue background to be difficult to read – I really don’t think it’s very friendly for anyone with vision issues). That said, it’s familiar to me, so I’m a bit used to it by now.

Golden Lily is an organic oolong tea from Thailand, and according to the label is certified organic by the USDA and Canada Organic. The leaves are a variety of shades of green and brown, with very tightly bunched leaves. The aroma is floral with just a subtle hint of sweetness.

Preparation

DavidsTea recommends steeping Golden Lily in 90°C (195°F) water for 4-5 minutes. I opted to steep with the recommended water temperature and did a steep for 5 minutes.

First Taste

Golden Lily steeps to what I could best describe as a light golden yellow. The aroma of tea has a nice amount of floral notes, with something that reminds of butter. Drinking Golden Lily is quite pleasant as well – I found floral notes mingling along with creamy flavours, stone fruit that reminds of apricots, and just a hint of grassy freshness. The tea itself is smooth with no astringency or bitterness when steeped with the recommended steeping time and temperature of water.

A Second Cup?

I resteeped Golden Lily a total of seven times, adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. The tea became more darker in golden colour, and had a great buttery flavour that became more deep as I steeped. The flavour is really nice and stays fairly consistent with each steep.

My Overall Impression

I loved DavidsTea’s Golden Lily. While Golden Lily is not the least expensive oolong I’ve tried, I find that the ability to resteep the leaves successfully and the amount of flavour that you get from these gorgeous leaves more than makes up for it because of the quality of the leaves themselves. I would highly recommend resteeping these leaves, as you get a lot more tea out of it and more bang for your buck. The flavour of these leaves are pleasant with a great amount of floral flavour that I really enjoy and would be happy to drink this at any time of day.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.

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Sunny M’s Formosa Bloom

Formosa Bloom by Sunny M
Oolong Tea / Straight
$38.00 for 100g

Sunny M has provided me with Formosa Bloom for the purposes of writing an honest review.

First Impressions

Formosa Bloom comes in a sealed, resealable pouch from Sunny M. It features a one-way air valve to help keep your tea fresh, which is still such a neat feature to me. Quite a bit of information about the tea itself on the packaging (front and back). This particular one is from the Charm of Hearts tea estate in Taiwan. It’s hand-picked, whole leaf, the cultivar is Taiwan No. 13 and they describe the roasting technique used to create this tea.

Formosa Bloom is a tightly bunched tea – the colours vary from dark brown to brownish red. There’s a strong floral aroma that is truly enticing, it’s just got a light nuttiness to the undertone, and it just seems really inviting overall. Because the leaves are so tightly bunched, I would recommend steeping it in an gaiwan or with an infuser that really lets the leaves open up as much as possible.

Preparation

Sunny M recommends steeping Formosa Bloom in 85℃-95℃(185℉-203℉) water for 4 to 6 minutes. I opted to do an initial steep for 4 minutes with water that had been heated to 93°C (200°F).

First Taste

Formosa Bloom steeps to a really brilliant golden orange colour. There’s a strong amount of floral aroma that comes from the steeped tea. The tea itself has a lovely sweet and floral flavour to it, there’s a hint of nuttiness in the background that I believe comes from the roasting technique used. It’s very smooth with zero astringency or bitterness at the steeping temperature and time I had mentioned earlier.

A Second Cup?

Formosa Bloom was resteeped seven times (eight steeps total with the same leaves). I used the same temperature water, just adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steeps. I found the leaves stood up really well to being resteeped and that the flavour remained very close to the initial steep throughout, just getting a bit weaker at the end.

My Overall Impression

I loved Sunny M’s Formosa Bloom. I found the floral aroma from the dry leaf was inviting, and the steeped tea was just so easy to drink! This is definitely an oolong that you’ll want to resteep because it does so well and you’ll get a lot of flavour from it. Formosa Bloom would be a great tea to pair with something savoury or sweet, I just think it’d balance nicely and the flavour of the tea just really holds up well to being resteeped over and over again, so it’s a great tea to serve with a group of people because all you’ll need to do is keep the kettle going.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.