Nai Xiang Wulong

Nai Xiang Wulong — milky oolong — is the most recognisable of flavoured teas, and one most often misunderstood. The name covers two things. The first is the natural article: the Taiwanese Jin Xuan cultivar, bred in the 1980s, carries a genuine but very faint creamy note all its own — no milk, no flavouring, just the leaf. The second is the mass-market version, where that note is amplified with a food flavouring.

The natural Jin Xuan is subtle: many drinkers used to the flavoured kind do not recognise it as “milky” at all, so wide is the gap. The flavoured version is frankly sweet — cream, caramel and vanilla, soft and forgiving — which is exactly why it has become, especially across Russia and the wider region, a favourite first oolong. (A common myth that the bushes are watered with milk is just that, a myth.)

In the cup

Brew it gongfu or simply, just off the boil. The natural Jin Xuan rewards close attention to find its quiet cream behind the floral leaf; the flavoured kind asks nothing and gives a soft, sweet cup. With a flavoured tea, the scent fading fast across steeps is the tell.