Today’s review is an oolong from Stone Leaf Teahouse, a tea house and online seller in Vermont. Stone Leaf Teahouse offered to send me samples and this Artist Lin Oolong caught my eye. Artist Lin Oolong is a small batch, wild looking garden, high mountain spring 2015 Taiwanese oolong.
Stone Leaf Teahouse gave me a coupon code!
luyurikyu888 for 25% off, good until November 30, 2016!
Dry Leaf
The leaf is rolled with stumpy fat stems sticking out. What stood out to me was how shiny and dark the leaf is. The scent is like huffing a stick of butter.
Steeping Instructions
Max leaf time! I also cheated using my trusty Taiwan Tea Crafts Pear Pot, which does magical things to greener oolongs. I leafed pretty hard, using 1 gram to 12ml per volume and boiling water. I did a rinse to get the tea started, then flash steeps.
Tasting of Stone Leaf Teahouse’s Artist Lin Oolong
The tea comes out a low saturated cream yellow. The scent is like nuts and steamed rice.
First, Second, and Third Infusion: Admittedly I took a sip of the rinse as I was thirsty and couldn’t wait. It was good! The first real infusion has a creamy oily lip texture with notes of fresh whole tulips and bright honey. The slick oil texture and combination of notes remind me of pine nuts… those expensive little buggers that I buy in giant bags at Costco to save some sort of money. At first I don’t taste an aftertaste, but it slips in strongly after a few moments or tulips. I love the thick texture that contrasts with the bright floral aftertaste.
Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Infusion: The flavor shifts from tulips to sweet lemon citrus. The texture is still thick but is starting to break down going slightly dry. The aftertaste is crisp, bright, citrus sweets with tulips. It is like I brushed my teeth with floral toothpaste as that flavor just sticks forever.
I was too lazy to use a filter, and at this point I lost all the little bits floating around. That colour is bright and nuclear!
Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Infusion: The flavor started to slip so I started to punish this oolong by long steeps, up to 10 mins. Interestingly, despite dancing around being dry, this tea held up and didn’t get more dry than the previous infusions. The flavor is soft and buttery. It has a bit of a breath of tulips until the last steeping was dead.
The leaf expansion was nuts. I had a hell of a time getting the leaf out. Steeped out, Artist Lin Oolong was pretty stemmy but with long perfect leaves with bright green colour.
Comments
I was very impressed with Stone Leaf Teahouse‘s Artist Lin Oolong as I enjoyed everything it had to offer – thick oily body, bright and crisp notes, fresh floral, and long aftertaste. If you love high mountain oolongs, especially for texture, buttery, and floral, give this unique Artist Lin Oolong a sample.
Also be sure to check out Stone Leaf Teahouse as they got plenty of teas that are exclusive to them, including puer. Remember the coupon code luyurikyu888 for 25% off, good until November 30, 2016! More reviews to come!
(tea provided for review)
