During the 2018 Northwest Tea Festival in Seattle, I sampled Floating Leaves Tea’s 2018 Old School Baozhong and it stuck in my mind well after. It was a good tea and I needed to have it again. At that time I was told it was their least popular tea. A few weeks later I went to the shop and purchased 2oz to play with.
Old School Baozhong is a 2018 spring harvest tea. This oolong is from Nangang instead of more modernly being from Pinglin. Nangang apparently has a more mineral concentrated soil.
Leaf and Steeping Method
The tea smells like sweet White Rabbit candy, thus a milky sweet and floral tea. I am surprised it isn’t grassy or super floral like other Baozhongs.
I used 1 gram of leaf per 15ml of vessel size, gongfu steeped in boiling water.
Tasting of Floating Leaves Tea’s Old School Baozhong
First and Second Infusion: Old School Baozhong sips in crisp, smooth, and floral. The notes are creamy milk, sweet tulips, and carnations. The texture is ultra creamy and slick feeling, and it sips like drinking oil. Of course, this is a reminder when I saw oily in a tea it is the feeling of it, it is not actually greasy tea. The aftertaste is sweet and a bit more floral, but gives a slight cooling sensation to milk and crisp grass.
Steep two was the hands down best as it was ultra thick dense with a perfect balance of sweet, creamy, floral, and crisp grass. It was also the thickest infusion with that oil can drinking.
Third and Fourth Infusion: With each steep, Old School Baozhong gets more grassy vegetal. It tastes soft still, so like an echo of snow peas vegetal clouded in thick cream and milk candy. With each steep there is a threat of bitterness and astringency, giving off a slight abrasive stewed green note and dryness to the tip of the tongue.
Fifth and Sixth Infusion: These last infusions are on the drier side, leaving my tongue feeling crunchy. Old School Baozhong’s flavour has shifted to a strong bite of concentrated snow peas and green peppers, with a bitter finish. The tea still feels really slick, but the creamy sweetness is gone.
The leaves here are interesting. They feel thin and delicate, not the fat stemmy thick leaves of say a high mountain oolong. Nor are they massive monsters. Some are big, but some are cute little whole leaves.
Comments
Floating Leaves Tea’s Old School Baozhong is quite a different Baozhong that one commonly finds these days. Baozhong, to me, is an ultra floral monster of an oolong. I do love Baozhong in the spring, fresh as possible, as it is just so crisp and floral. I find the creaminess and dense body of Old School Baozhong appealing to drink in the cooler months. It just has a satisfying comfort food feel too. Usually cold months I bench my greener oolongs and go harder on roasted, but this 2oz bag of Baozhong is not going to last long.
The Old School Baozhong is all texture and body. This is one of the oiliest creamy teas I’ve had in recent memory. If you want to experience this texture, this is the tea and you will not forget it. It is a well-balanced tea so many would like this, especially if you prefer High Mountain oolongs or you simply drink milk oolongs and want a true buttery creamy tea of better quality. Of course, Old School Baozhong appeals to the tea nerds as it is a classic, yet uncommon find.
