Wednesday, January 2, 2008

jin xuan oolong

hi tea friends,
i think ill start by introducing myself since i dont really know any of you (well ive met jefre once and emailed with him). my name is greg and i live in burlington, vermont. i make music for a living. i fell in love with tea about 5 years ago. i enjoy all types of tea, but i find that my favorites are usually chinese and japanese green teas. recently ive been exploring some oolong teas which im really enjoying. i also like puerh and white tea on occasion. my late night drink is often an herbal infusion of some sort. (my wife is an amateur community herbalist). ive been really enjoying tulsi (holy basil) tea alot lately. now on to the tea...

i was on tour in october along the west coast with akron/family and megafaun. we made a stop in seattle and i was with my good buddy zach and one of his friends recommended going to floating leaves tea house. zach and i stopped in but didnt have time to sit down and talk and sample tea, so i returned there a few days later with phil from megafaun. one of the owners, shiuwen, sat us down to sample several taiwanese oolong teas which was her specialty. she was very knowledgeable and had all sorts of stories to tell us and opinions about various teas as well. after the sampling, i bought some of the tea that i liked the most. a baozhong (farmer's choice) which is gone now but i remember being a less floral and less high note type of oolong, more down to earth. a very lovely tea. i also got some jin xuan that was lightly roasted in house at floating leaves. i just finished my last cups of this tea today. its a buttery, creamy type of oolong that reveals some other subtle flavors after the first infusion.


-my chawan and gaiwan-


-jin xuan closeup after first infusion-

after the first infusion, the buttery flavor subsides a bit and reveals some floral and grassy overtones. and into the third and fourth infusions, i was getting hints of cinnamon even. all around a nice tea and im sad to see it gone, but i just made an order with red blossom tea so stay tuned....


-jin xuan closeup after 4th or 5th infusion-


-music on the turntable-


-vermont snow vibes-

peace,
greg

4 comments:

Scott Goodwin said...

And funnily enough it was I who told Zach to go to Floating Leaves.

I love Floating Leaves. As a shop they have some of the best oolong in the country. Last year's First Prize Baozhang (same farmer as the Farmer's Choice) was especially excellent, although they constantly have a bunch of high quality high mountain oolongs.

I also just love the teahouse. Very different from say, the Imperial Court Chinatown teahouse, it feels more contemporary, but not in a real posh way.

All the folks there are really passionate about tea. They also sold me this really weird "behind the counter" pu-erh that was made with Yunnan leaves by a Taiwanese guy... maybe the guy who does that Ailao Fo Ji Cha? Who knows? But it is very good.

Wish I knew about it before I moved away from Seattle.

I think you'll be happy with the Red Blossom stuff too, Greg.

moc4 said...

Awesome, Greg! Nice shots of the tea there.

I love and am quite envious of your snow. I know this probably sounds weird, but I think it would be interesting to drive away from the city a bit, collect a few pots of snow and try melting it for tea water....

Alex said...

Nice, Greg!


That snow pic makes me nostalgic for VT winters. My dad grew up in Vermont and I spent a lot of time in White River Junction and Montpelier growing up. Great state!

Brett said...

Hi Greg! Just wanted to introduce myself. I've been lurking around some tea blogs (including your's obviously ;)

I'm a good friend of Shiuwen's and have the great fortune to live in (the most excellent) Seattle.

Great Blog! Great photos. let me know if/when you come back to town... I'll give you quite the tea tour!
Peace,
Brett