Review of Guangzhou Milk Oolong (Quangzhou Milk Oolong)

AromaFlavorValueTotal
8 of 104 of 54 of 580 of 100
ExcellentGoodGood Value

I should say I like this tea, but I do have a gripe about labeling. Milk oolongs aren't, in and of themselves, flavored teas. As I understand it, the name is applied to a particular oolong variety that has a milk-y flavor and aroma. However, some companies add flavor to their milk oolongs further to increase the milkyness. David's quangzhou milk oolong is almost certainly the latter kind, but it took a little googling to find this out. Information isn't forthcoming on either the product page or the packaging. The page claims that the only ingredient is "Chinese oolong tea from the Wuyi Mountains", but one of the blogs I dug up (http://www.teaviews.com/2009/02/15/review-davids-tea-quangzhou-milk-oolong/) indicated that this is (probably) not so. I wouldn't call it deceptive, exactly, in that the people at David's tea don't control the entire production process, which is apparently opaque to them, but I wish it hadn't been so hard to figure out if this was a flavored tea or not. It makes me less likely to trust their product descriptions.

Anyway, onto the tea, which, as I said, I did like. It had a potent scent, less like milk than like sweet cream cheese or cheesecake. Brewing it only brought the dessert-like tones to the aroma out further.

The taste is very smooth, with only a little bit of that oolong buzzing-tingling feeling on the tongue to nicely contrast the sweet butter and cheese flavors that dominate the brew. I found it warming and relaxing, and very, very creamy. Very appropriate for the dreary afternoons we've been having where I live lately.

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Comments:

Alex Zorach wrote:
on July 31st, 2017

Interestingly, years after you posted this review, DavidsTea has "owned up" to the flavoring: they now list "natural flavors" on the ingredient list for this tea. It's still not exactly advertised very openly, but it's fairly visible there on the webpage, I wasn't specifically looking for it and I found that bit of info while doing routine maintenance on the site.

Perhaps your review had an influence on them! I have definitely seen companies adjust and update their marketing material (and in a few cases, even their prices!) in response to reviews on this site.

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