Floating Leaves Tea Home ---Shiuwen's Blog!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

New ShanLinXi and Lishan

Christmas has been busy. Thank you all for supporting my business, either ordering from the website or coming in for the new teas. I hope you have all had a chance to try out the new winter teas and enjoy them.

It had been so busy for me that I actually haven't had much time to enjoy these new teas myself. Yesterday, I finally had some quiet moments at the shop and the sun was out! I felt so happy to sit at the tea table and enjoy the new teas with the warm sun on my face.


I started with the new winter ShanLinXi. A customer showed up to taste the tea with me. We had five great infusions of this tea. It has a wonderful citrus note blended with a sweet, floral bouquet. There is a tartness in the tea that is balanced by the citrus note and sweetness. On the fifth infusion, the tea still tasted strong. I couldn't stop smelling the wet leaves while I drank the tea, they smelled so good!

Then we moved on to the Lishan. Many customers and I have been very satisfied with this tea. It's a solid high mountain tea with a smooth and strong body. The aftertaste of this tea lingers for quite a while. We made six good infusions out of this tea and decided to take a break. I sat there and enjoy the wonderful bouquet lingering in my mouth with a very nice Hui Gan (a sweetness that attaches in the throat area after one swallows the tea).

In the afternoon, two tea friends showed up, and I was very excited to tell them that I had a great tea session today with the ShanLinXi (I have had great tea sessions with Lishan). One of them is a big ShanLinXi fan and he told me he noticed when the weather is drier, ShanLinXi tastes better. Well, it was the first day of sunshine after who knows how many days of rain. Or, is it that my feelings of ease and peace helped me to better enjoy the tea?

Anyway, I will share more of my tasting notes for the new winter Oolongs in the next couple of posts. Thank you again for all of your support this year. I look forward to sharing more tasty teas with you in the coming year. Enjoy your teas and have a great 2011!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

New Winter Oolong Just Arrived!

It's always very exciting to see boxes of new tea get delivered to the tea shop! Our Pinglin Baozhongs, Lishan, Alishan, DaYuLing, and ShanLinXi have arrived!

I have had fun tasting teas these past couple of days, but have noticed that some of the teas haven't opened up all the way yet. Throughout the years of importing tea from Taiwan, I have noticed some tea takes a couple of weeks to open up and some tea will go through changes of flavor for about a month before they settle.

These past two days feel like so long for me because I am so impatient with some of the teas! I want them to open up right away! I know some of you have been waiting for the new season's tea to show up and I simply can't wait to share them with you. The good news is that our tea buyer had very good things to say about the high mountain teas, which makes me want to experience these teas at their best even more.

Some customers came by the shop and had the chance to taste some of the new teas with me. They all said that the tea tasted very good. One customer who has been very into high mountain oolongs for years told me that this is possibly the best season over the past several seasons.
I have updated new teas on the website. If you can make it to the shop, please come taste some of the teas with me.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

New Winter Oolong Will Arrive Soon!

I have been praying for a good winter Oolong harvest since October. Due to the changing climate, there were typhoons in Taiwan in October!

In early November, I talked to our tea buyer in Taiwan and he said the tea was not good. It was too watery and did not have enough substance. Every time I heard bad news like this, my heart sank. He said we should wait and see if better teas would show up later in the month.


I guess my patience paid off this time. We talked again last week and he was very excited to tell me that he had found some good High Mountain Oolongs. He took some of the teas he purchased for us and tried them at home. He wrote me an email this morning and stated that the tea tastes very good!

The High Mountain Oolong is on its way to Seattle. This season, we will have Alishan, Lishan, ShanLinXi and DaYuLing to share with you. I know many of you have been waiting a few seasons for us to get a good ShanLinXi and DaYuLing and I think you will be happy with what we have to offer this season. It's estimated to arrive in the middle of December and I can hardly wait to taste the teas with you! I will post more news and tasting notes shortly after the new teas arrive.