Why Jin Xuan is Called Milky Oolong

Today, while drinking ginseng, I will tell you why this tea is also called milky oolong, which is its history, and how does it taste compared with that of other Taiwan oolong teas. Hi guys, this is Gabriele from Nanoshan, where we share the pleasure of drinking and discovering genuine farm tea. If you are new here in our channel and you are also looking to expand your tea knowledge and brewing skills, then make sure to click on the subscribe button. And don't forget to give us a thumbs up, if at any point of time you enjoy watching. Today, I'm going to drink ginseng. Ginseng is a very famous, actually, Taiwan oolong tea. And while drinking this tea, I would like to give you a lot of insights about the history of the tea, why it is called like that, why it is also famous as milky oolong. This will be information from those of you that are entering the Gong Fu Cha tea war, but I believe, I'm pretty sure, that some of the information I will give in this video will be unknown for most of you. So I would stick to the screen. All right, first of all, I want to give you some information about this specific batch of ginseng. First of all, what ginseng means, it means golden day lily, so it's the name of a flower. Although, as you will learn very soon, this was not the reason why the name was given to the tea, not because it tastes or it smells like the day lily, which is, as we said, a flower. Then, the cultivar of the tea is the same name as the tea, is ginseng, so the name of the cultivar gave also the name to the tea. It comes from the Nantou County in Taiwan, and it was harvested in 2014. Now, on top of all this information, one thing that you want to know is that this tea has been stored, since the time it has been produced, in small 300 grams vacuum bags. It means that we are opening these small tiny bags, which are under vacuum, only when we have to pack the tea, so that it can keep its freshness. All right, let's have a look at the leaves, maybe, which I put here on this lotus. I will try to show them at the camera. Hope you can see. You see they are of a fairly green color. They are rolled, and they are relatively small. Sometimes, Taiwan oolong, and also other oolong, comes in beets that are a little bit larger. That are relatively, relatively small, yeah. And this tea, actually, the ginseng was, or I say, is very popular in Taiwan. In fact, it is only second to another cultivar, which is qingxin. Qingxin is the most widespread cultivar in Taiwan. Between 40 and 60 percent, depending on the sources that you are finding, of the tea plants in Taiwan are qingxin. Well, the second most widespread cultivar in Taiwan is qingxin, this tea here. And it is a tea that was developed in the 70s by the Tea Research and Extension Station of Taiwan, which is also known with its acronym TRES. And it's nothing else than the National Tea Research Institute in Taiwan, that has been developing new cultivars since about a decade. Sorry, 100 years, not a decade. More or less, it was started, it was founded at the beginning of the 20th century. All right. So, in the 70s, for over many years, actually, this cultivar, along with another very famous cultivar from Taiwan, which is zuyu, were developed. Now, you have to know that in Taiwan, also in China, but also in Taiwan, cultivars are given a number when they are developed. Then, if they get to the market, they are changing their number and they get a new number. So, this tea was known during the 70s, when it was developed, as 2027. Also, you can even find today people referring to it as simply 27, or with the new number that was given to it when it was brought to the market, I think at the very beginning of the 80s, actually, that is number 12. So, just for your information, zuyu, which is the other tea that was developed together with this one, had the code 2029 and is the number 13. All right. So, now we get to an interesting aspect of the history of this tea. You have to know that in those years, and actually for several decades, a professor, professor Wu Jianduo, was the director of the TRES, of the Tea Research, National Tea Research Institute. And when those two teas were brought to the market, he gave them the name of his grandmother and his mother. So, Jinxuan is nothing else than the name of the grandmother of Professor Wu Jianduo, and Zuyu is the name of the mother of the professor. So, you see, the names were not given because of the flower, but rather because of the relatives of Professor Wu. You know, I mean, I don't want to go here into much details about the history of Taiwan oolong and so on. So, I have actually done a blog about the recent history of Taiwan oolong. I will put the link in the description below if you're interested. There are information there that you don't find anywhere else on the web. And if you're interested more about the Taiwan cultivar that are used for oolong, I can also do a video only dedicated to Taiwan cultivars. If you're interested, just let me know in the description below, and I will go ahead and film that video for you. Today, actually, we want to focus on the taste of the tea, and for doing so, I will now go and grab Caroline that will drink together with me. Oh, she's coming, she's coming. So, Caroline, please come over because, you know, when I drink with someone else, we can merge the opinion of both of us. Let me do some space for you. Hi, Caroline. Hi. And because, actually, this tea, we have to say, was also sponsored by Caroline. It is an Anoshan bag. I have it here. It is one of our old bags that were completely written by hand. In this case, it was Michaela writing it. And do you remember if you bought this tea? Of course, I bought it. Yeah, of course, you bought it. And now, since he's stuck at home, he's raiding all my tea inventory. Most of those teas were actually a present from me. Maybe this one, you bought it. I don't remember. I cannot tell. Of course, I bought it. Of course, you bought it. Anyway, it is an Anoshan tea that maybe Caroline bought, or maybe she got it as a present. And I have put here already four grams of the tea. I will so I already weighted it. Caroline, if you want to have a look at the leaves, they are here. As I was saying before, this tea was, we keep it packed in 300 grams vacuum bags. And we open the bags only when we put them in smaller pouches. Let's warm a little bit up the water. And while the water is boiling, we want to make one point here. I told you before, this is also called milky oolong. We will now, when we taste it, we will find out why. But one thing is important. This is not a flavored milky oolong. I have to say that a lot of milky oolong there on the market are artificially flavored with milky aroma. They are sprayed. The leaves are sprayed with that aroma. You can recognize because as soon as you smell the leaves, they smell extremely intense and very artificial. Did you have the chance of smelling one? I don't think so. No. It's awful. Even the color of the leaves is not so green. It has like a small whitish patina to it. And it doesn't taste natural at all. So what we are drinking here is only tea leaves without any additives, no matter if natural or artificial aromas. So here we go. In this beautiful gaiwan actually, that Caroline bought last year in Jingdezhen, with a Fo Shou here as a button. This is a Fo Shou, which means Buddha's hand, but is in Chinese also the name of a citrus fruit. In fact, this is actually the citrus fruit. But even here, like it's also, you can buy it in certain stores. It's also called Buddha's hand in the shops. Oh really? Yeah. But probably you need to go to Chinatown or something. I didn't know that. And it's fairly large. Yeah, it's fairly large. Probably this size. Here we go. So for those from Italy listening, this is similar to cedro. I put it here so that it's inside. I want to rinse it. I want to rinse it. I want just that we drink it, you know, just to change a little bit. And I did a very quick rinse if you want. So just that we get into the taste. Do you want to smell it first? It's very hot. Yeah. So you see the color is still very pale. It means it wasn't oxidized very much. And there is also not a lot of aging in there. As I told you, it is a vacuum pack. And we will get soon to the taste of this tea. Because you have to know in Taiwan, there are different cultivars. I told you before, Qin Xin, Jin Xuan. The third most famous cultivar is Cuyu. And they have slightly different taste indeed. Cheers. Cheers. Extremely light. Yeah. I think I will actually throw this away. Because we have to do it a stronger tea for the next. But it's good to get into the taste. And also to warm up all our teaware. So the leaves start opening up. So it smells very vegetal from my perspective. If you smell the lid. So it's, yeah, it's really like a vegetable broth nearly. This is the way it smells at least. I sourced this tea through a friend from the Fuzhou University. So when I visited the Agricultural University in Fuzhou. Because I was brought in contact with a Tieguanyin professor. They even have professor only for Tieguanyin. And we drank tea together. And one of her students, actually it was a couple. We're running at that time, you know, a small university shop. They were students at that time. But, you know, Fujian is very close to Taiwan. Of course, Taiwan oolong tea manufacturing comes originally from, came originally from Fujian. And so they have very good relationship. And I tried this tea in their little tea house. I liked it a lot. The price was good. And I just didn't think it twice actually. And I bought it. Yaowen is her name. And now, of course, she finished university. She lives in Guangzhou. Do you remember? It's this city close to the city in Fuzhou where we went before going to Pinghe. And she still continues doing tea. She does tea with her husband. And I haven't visited her for a while. But recently we exchanged some WeChat text messages. So maybe one of the next trip I will visit her. So, Caroline, the color is getting, yeah, it's a different tone of yellow. It's relatively thick. You still see a lot of particle in despite the fact that I'm using a strainer. So it's quite golden. Yeah, very golden. Yeah, very spring, summer colors, summer color. Actually, it's a good match to our saucer actually. Look, it looks the same color as the saucer. It's too hot? It's still very hot. Yeah, I'll wait a little bit to let it a little bit cool down and see where it comes out. So, as I told you, we have these three cultivars. There is actually a fourth one that you want to mention. That is Sijiequan. Sijiequan is not a developed cultivar. It's a naturally developed cultivar that I think is unclear where it comes from. Someone says that is a cross between Tieguanyin and Qingxin. It's a little bit unclear. And all these four have their own taste. You want really to use Qingxin as a reference. And let's see how it is Jingxuan. It's thicker now, yeah. So, despite we didn't steep it very long and we have four grams in, it starts developing a little bit of body. I don't know what you think about it. For me, it's a little bit buttery. Yes, yes. Yeah, with slight floral notes, but it's very light. I think it's not an in-your-face tea. It's very subtle. So, it's probably similar to drinking milk tea with slight flavor, but really... It is, yes. It feels very natural. So, it's not milk tea with aromas or something like that. It is like for me, I point out, first of all, the texture rather than the taste. So, it is a tea where you want to... If you want practice recognizing different texture of tea, that's a good exercise. Because, as you say, the floral taste is there, but it is there as a backbone. Yeah, it's not in the upfront. In the upfront, you have this relatively thick, buttery, maybe even oily texture. Consistency, maybe. What about the vegetal notes that you had in the first cup? So, the tea smells vegetal, but I have the feeling it's slightly more floral when you drink it. There might be slight vegetable notes, but anyway, it's quite light. So, it's not like you would feel it at the back of your mouth. So, it's very... Yeah, if you enjoy really light teas, this is a good option. It's a light aroma with a thick texture, if you want. Yeah, I can put it this way. And in the aftertaste, a little bit also in the texture, but also in the aftertaste, you start having this milky feeling, this buttery that I was meaning. But in particular, I would say what remains in your mouth as an aftertaste, as a huigan maybe, is to me also when I drank a cup of hot milk, the feeling that I have afterwards in my mouth. Yeah, with a bit of floralness. Yeah. There's also a bit... So, the aftertaste, the huigan is slightly floral. So, it's just nice. Light or strong? It's not super strong, but it's... Yeah. How do you want it? Light or strong? You can try both. Both is difficult. I do like this. Well, it's... You know, you see the color is quite intense. I'm not steeping for very long here. I mean, I'm not using a timer either, but it's... Yeah, it's relatively amber color. So, it is a low oxidation tea. Let's see if I can get some leaves from you out of here. So, you see it's fairly green. Yeah, but you see, I mean, these small leaves, you see really some sign of oxidation as well. I tried to bring it close to the camera and I hope it will focus on that and not on us. I mean, I don't know if that works, but here we have three small leaves, actually. They are not too large. That's why also the beads are relatively small. And it's really very little oxidized, yeah. Put it here. And also, so you have these two milky aspects, if you want. You have on one side, the aftertaste that is milky. And on the other side, you have the texture. So, when you drink milk, regardless of the taste of the milk, it has a different consistency, a different texture in your mouth than water. And this is a little bit what I associate this tea with. So, now the tea has changed a bit. So, the florality has gone a bit. So, you have a flor... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, now it's all about texture, I would say. It's all about texture. And in fact, actually, it is a peculiarity of ginseng being so thick. Yeah, if you take tsuyu, tsuyu is not that thick. And even qingxin, it is more complex in a way, yeah. But it's not that thick in your mouth. Of the four main Taiwan oolong cultivars, ginseng is the one that is thicker in your mouth and more buttery, as we say. There is one more thing I wanted to tell you about. Let me think. What was that? I had it on the tip of my tongue and now I forgot. So, now it tastes more, you feel more the butter taste than the floral taste. Like smashed butter. Yeah, yeah. All right, it is not sour. So, if you think about Tieguanyin that have this clear sour note to it, a little bit tart. This is not. I wouldn't say it's bitter either. No, it stays really at the top of your mouth. So, this is not some super full body thing that is like really strong. It's really something that stays like at the top of your mouth. And there are other cultivars in Taiwan that have a little bit more of this sour note. And Sijicun is an example. Sometimes it's taken as being a little bit relative of Tieguanyin for that very reason. Because it has this sour nuance to it that is not to be found in Jinchuan. And while we drink this, I feel like I should add a little bit more into what I told you before about Professor Wu and the history of Taiwan Oolong. Because I know that this will be very interesting for some of you. And I say this information now is not something that you can easily find. But as a matter of fact, Professor Wu was really the godfather of Taiwan Oolong. He contributed immensely to the development of new cultivars. And not only to that, but also to widespread in Taiwan proper manufacturing of Oolong. So after basically the Second World War, when the Japanese colonization was over, he took over the lead of the TRES, of the Tea Research and Extension Station, which now at that time was called in a different way, I don't know how. And brought Taiwan basically to develop so much in Oolong. And from whom did he learn? He's actually, or was, because he passed away. He was a Chinese, so from mainland China. And he had learned tea from another very famous, even more famous master. Like Hu Zhenduo. You don't find him on Wikipedia. But Zhang Tianfu you find on Wikipedia. Because Zhang Tianfu, which also passed away, was the reference, the most knowledgeable person in China for Oolong tea. He did so much for the development. Including passing his knowledge over to one of his scholars, Professor Hu. That then moved over to Taiwan and kept on widespread Oolong practice. And you know what? Professor Hu is called professor not just by chance. He was professor at university where he taught tea. And also he taught tea in different tea schools in Taiwan. And one of his scholars is a person that some of you know. And it is Master Chen Huantang. Master Chen Huantang is known here in the Western world with the nickname of Atom. And was one of the best scholars of Professor Hu. I don't know if... Not many of you, I'm sure, did know about that. And if you don't know who is Professor Hu, if you don't know who is Atom, never mind. It's not so important. But for those that know it, actually the vast majority of the Taiwan Oolong that are right now on the Nanoshan shop were actually made by Atom. All right. I will warm it up. Let's do one more steep. And then we find out... Because we have done how many now? Three or four? Three or four steeps? I don't know. So two proper and the first one was stand up the water. And you see how much, actually, four grams of leaves fill the gaiwan. Look, at the beginning there was just a tiny layer on the bottom of the gaiwan. It could even be that they have shaken this tea because you see that some of the leaves have lost a portion of the... Well, it still needs to be Oolong. So it still needs to have a bit of oxidation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it does. But it seems they have removed most of the oxidated leaf. In some of them I still see it. And it is a great everyday tea for me, you know. It's the fact that it doesn't have this very present aromatic to it, but it's really all about texture, makes it for me a greater tea to go along the day when you are in the office, when you're sitting on the table doing something else on your computer, just to bring your company. And also to experiment. Like we have a lot of these cultivars in our store and also in other, of course. So you can try to find the differences in taste between the different cultivars. There is another aspect. And Karin, do you know if this tea can also be made as a high mountain Oolong? I don't think so. I think it's one of the cultivars that doesn't grow at... Well, it doesn't... Yeah, it was a tricky question. Because Ginseng can be made also high mountain, but it is a kind of in between. So the most famous and most important cultivar for high mountain Oolong in Taiwan is Qingqing. Qingqing is very resistant to cold temperature. And can grow even at 2000 meters of altitude. Ginseng is also relatively resistant, but it cannot be grown at very, very high altitude. So I've read, I've heard about up to 1600 meters, and above that is too cold. But the great advantage of Ginseng is that the yield, the crop is much larger. Like 20 to 40% more leaves out of the bush. And the cultivar that you were thinking about, the one that really cannot grow is Cuyu. Cuyu is resistant towards diseases, but due to the water content in the leaves, it's not suitable for growing at an altitude. So if you buy Cuyu, it will definitely be a tea that has been grown in the lowlands. Ginseng, you can have both high mountain or fairly high mountain and lowlands. Although usually premium high mountain Oolong tea is made with Qingqing. That doesn't mean that you cannot have also very good high mountain Ginseng. You can have for sure. But yeah, since it cannot grow at very high altitude, and you have very high mountain, you have tea gardens in Taiwan up to 2600 meters or so. And those are certainly Qingqing. So now I completely agree with the florality is gone. Yeah. And it's just a very, very round. I didn't say this word before, but to me, not extreme aroma is not bitter. It's not sour. It's not tart. It's round. Yeah, smooth, smooth. Try yourself. Experiment and see between the different cultivars. Maybe if you have it at home, try it also. Let us know if you also feel that thick texture and that milky aftertaste. Let's exchange that. It's good to drink with Karin. We are two of us exchanging opinions, but you have a lot of you that are just behind the camera and they can do the same experience with us. If we all share our feelings about the tea in the description below, everyone can gain a little bit more tea knowledge, I would say. Saying that, thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to give us a thumbs up and go ahead, subscribe to our channel if you haven't done it yet to stay tuned for more and more videos like this. Thanks a lot and we will see you in the next video. Bye-bye.