Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! I’m back today after a brief break to just take care of my health and I was in a hell of of a lot of pain which meant that I couldn’t really work much and thought it was best for me just to take care of myself, rest, reset and come back when I was completely ready. Today I’m going to be reviewing Western Immortals – Tie Kuan Yin (oolong). I’ve never tried anything from this company before but a few of my tea friends have tried some teas from them has I’ve heard good feedback, so when they approached me and asked if I wanted to try one of their teas, I thought why not give them a go and see what they had to offer. As I’ve always made it my aim here on the blog to highlight smaller businesses and shine a spot light on them and the work they are doing.

Here’s what Western Immortals have to say about this tea over on their website: “Origin: Fujian province, China | Temp: 195-212 F / 90-100 C | Taste: Strong and mellow taste, with a sweet aftertaste, and a lingering floral fragrance reminiscent of orchids”

“Ti Kuan Yin translates into “Iron Goddess of Mercy” and is one of the most popular teas in China. Ti Kuan Yin comes from Anxi County in Fujian, which has a history of tea production dating over 200 years.”

Tea Tasting Notes

For this tasting session I prepared this oolong gong fu style, I used my 250ml porcelain gaiwan, 90°C water (filtered), and 6g of the loose leaf tea. I did 4 hot steeps gongfu style and then ended my session with cold brewing my leaves which I then did multiple times over a few days. I do prepare some oolongs western style but for the most part I like to enjoy them gongfu style and really get the most out of them. Ideally I deffinelty would have loved to done a few more hot steep during this session but I was hit with a horrible migraine attack meaning I had to cut it short.

Steep 1 | Smooth and somewhat creamy texture, light vegetal, light floral, floral notes linger long after you finish the cup. sweet nectar notes. It was a really nice first steep and a great way to start of this tasting session. It had a lot of the notes I would usually expect from a greener oolong like this but was a little less creamy than the Tie Kuan Yin’s I am used to. Greener oolongs like this are not usually my favourite, but this was delightful.

Steep 2 | Slightly bitter, stronger vegetals, flroals still present but little overpowered by the vegetals in the taste, however they were much more noticeable in the aftertaste and again seemed to linger. I felt like I could tell even just from this steep that this wasn’t going to be the best Tie Kuan Yin I ever had. However its still better than others I’ve tried over the last few years so wins some points there. This one just doesn’t seem to have as much of a complex and deep flavour profile as others I’ve had and love.

Steep 3 | Much similar to the previous steep but there seemed to be a bit more balance and hit of roasted nuts to this. Stand out note still the vegetals but the flroals got bit more space to come through and again lingered long after I finished the cup. Not as smooth in texture as the last two Steeps

Steep 4 | the creamy texture was present but it was nowhere near as smooth as the steps before and did seem a little more drying, light vegetal, light floral, floral notes linger long after you finish the cup. The sweet nectar notes however were not at all present in this steep and I really would have expected them to last a little bit longer. This was a very light tea in general and I deffinelty enjoyed that aspect of it, however because the sweet notes were to easy to pick out and pervious steeps I would have expected them to stick around longer than just four steeps. Th

I had to stop my gongfucha tasting session here due to a migraine attack but I did go on to cold steep the leaves afterwards which resulted in some delicious lightly vegetal, somewhat sweet and floral cold brew tea which was perfect for the somewhat warmer spring days here recently.

Overall Thoughts – This was a tasty oolong and I did enjoy my overall experience with it even thought it did end up being a shorter gongfu session than I would have ideally liked it to be. Was it the best Tie Kuan Yin I’ve ever had ..no it wasn’t but it deffinelty wasn’t the worst that I have ever had either. Like I said earlier in the post it’s not because its a lo quality tea like some teas I’ve had the displeasure of trying but because it just didn’t have as complex of a flavour profile as I would usually expect from an oolong like me and at this point in my tea journey it’s impossible not to comair it to other oolongs like this that I love. I’ll deffinelty do more session with this tea an experiment with brewing so I can see if over time i can get more of of this tea. It’s not the first Tie Kuan Yin I would recommend but it’s a decent one and I would recommend this one to people who are new to this kind of oolong.

Overall Teacup Rating: 4.5/5

If you want to try this tea for yourself and learn more about Western Immortals Tea, you do both here. As always if you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley

*the tea featured in this post was gifted to me for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own and have not been paid for*