What Green Are You Drinking
Here's what I'm drinking this morning! This is Yunnan Sourcing's Imperial (their highest grade) First Flush dragonwell. It was harvested in March and has quite a few leaf hairs (mostly conglomerated into large fuzz balls). The picking is one bud and two leaves and is very consistent. This dragonwell is definitely more lightly roasted than others I've seen and more lightly roasted than the only other dragonwell I've tried (Teavivre's award winning); however, it's still got a light/moderate nuttiness and roasted aroma/flavor! I will say that the color is a little inconsistent, with around 15% of the leaves a lime green as opposed to the pale yellow that the rest of the leaves are. I don't know if this is a product of the lighter roasting that this dragonwell has compared to others I've seen, or if it detrimentally affects the quality of this tea. Any answers to those questions would be appreciated!
Below are my tea journal notes:
My preferred brewing:
Amount: 3.5g/100mL of water; Time: 15s to start, no rinse, and add 5 seconds for each subsequent infusion (gives 5 solid infusions, and 6 if you increase the time to a couple of minutes)
Aroma: fresh, sweet, and grassy with roasted/nutty notes as well.
Flavor/Liquor: the liquor is a pale sunrise yellow with light green. It's got quite a bit of fuzz in it. Upon tasting, the tea has a medium thickness, with a light, mellow mouth feel. The prominent flavors are sweet, grassy green, creamy, and light/moderate nutty (I'd compare it to cashew nuts and pistachios) and roasted flavors. The finish is light, sweet, and green, with a pronounced creaminess and light floral note (like sweet meadow flowers, e.g. clover flowers). The brew has the barest hint of astringency and no bitterness.
Thoughts:
I really enjoy the balance of this tea, with the green-forward flavor profile and the moderate nuttiness to compliment. I thought I might not like this dragonwell as much as Teavivre’s (shortened to TV from now on), because I’m quite partial to nutty flavors and TV’s had more of that, but I found that this long jing has a more rounded flavor and is thus more enjoyable. TV’s dragonwell was more roasted-forward, but its grassy/green and creamy flavors were weaker.
Below are my tea journal notes:
My preferred brewing:
Amount: 3.5g/100mL of water; Time: 15s to start, no rinse, and add 5 seconds for each subsequent infusion (gives 5 solid infusions, and 6 if you increase the time to a couple of minutes)
Aroma: fresh, sweet, and grassy with roasted/nutty notes as well.
Flavor/Liquor: the liquor is a pale sunrise yellow with light green. It's got quite a bit of fuzz in it. Upon tasting, the tea has a medium thickness, with a light, mellow mouth feel. The prominent flavors are sweet, grassy green, creamy, and light/moderate nutty (I'd compare it to cashew nuts and pistachios) and roasted flavors. The finish is light, sweet, and green, with a pronounced creaminess and light floral note (like sweet meadow flowers, e.g. clover flowers). The brew has the barest hint of astringency and no bitterness.
Thoughts:
I really enjoy the balance of this tea, with the green-forward flavor profile and the moderate nuttiness to compliment. I thought I might not like this dragonwell as much as Teavivre’s (shortened to TV from now on), because I’m quite partial to nutty flavors and TV’s had more of that, but I found that this long jing has a more rounded flavor and is thus more enjoyable. TV’s dragonwell was more roasted-forward, but its grassy/green and creamy flavors were weaker.
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Uji Tencha Karigane, via Anmo. Simple, yet pleasant tea. One pot one cup, 1/3 of leaves barely covered with hot water. Only concession in terms of temperature was to not preheat the teapot. Straight off the boil otherwise.
Last tea before dinner…
Last tea before dinner…
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Green Tea in Autumn (Harvested and made in late August) - Hand Fry Green Tea. Cultivar: Taiwan Tea No.8 (In Taiwan we call it Assam).
Compared with early summer green - this tea is less bitterness and fluent aroma with some early autumn notes.
Compared with spring green this one is more relax
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/UJPOOjv.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/kjWy9M9.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/AFcMPe4.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/H6xXBmv.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/Grx0qmB.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/4XCCb6R.jpg)
Compared with early summer green - this tea is less bitterness and fluent aroma with some early autumn notes.
Compared with spring green this one is more relax
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/UJPOOjv.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/kjWy9M9.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/AFcMPe4.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/H6xXBmv.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/Grx0qmB.jpg)
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/4XCCb6R.jpg)
Some Uji Tencha via Anmo… something to finish off an evening of tea. Funnily I often feel like something green after a row of more oxidised and roasted teas.
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- Location: Seattle, USA
Getting back to tea after a long hiatus. Today I’m drinking some maofeng from Seven Cups, also some Mending Ganlu from the same place. Continuing my foray into Chinese green teas with these, I haven’t had either of these types until this week.
The Mending I’m trying for the first time today and I love it. In one of those rare cases where I nailed the perfect leaf ratio, temp, and steep time without feeling like I need to change something next time, I got a lovely cup of something sweet and fresh tasting for several infusions, with that fleeting savory broth flavor I’ve started to associate with Chinese greens in the first 2 infusions. Even the astringency in the later infusions was welcome, not too over the top. 1.5g/30ml/180F/10s to start plus 10 each steep.
The Moafeng I think is too light/delicate for my personal tastes. I’ve tried raising the temp, lowering the temp, steeping longer and shorter, and increasing the leaf ratio and combinations of all the above. The one I liked best was around 1g per 40ml at 175F or so and the flavor was nice but too light for me. I tried increasing the leaf ratio but this led to too much astringency after the first steep. I hear this is something of a hallmark of maofeng though so I’m just gonna assume it’s me![🤷🏻♀️](//twemoji.maxcdn.com/2/svg/1f937-1f3fb-200d-2640-fe0f.svg)
I want to try playing around with different water types for the maofeng next. I’ve moved since I last posted and my water isn’t nearly as good as my old place, and I think that my current water my be causing the maofeng to taste a bit flat as well (separate from the “flavor not strong enough” issue above).
The Mending I’m trying for the first time today and I love it. In one of those rare cases where I nailed the perfect leaf ratio, temp, and steep time without feeling like I need to change something next time, I got a lovely cup of something sweet and fresh tasting for several infusions, with that fleeting savory broth flavor I’ve started to associate with Chinese greens in the first 2 infusions. Even the astringency in the later infusions was welcome, not too over the top. 1.5g/30ml/180F/10s to start plus 10 each steep.
The Moafeng I think is too light/delicate for my personal tastes. I’ve tried raising the temp, lowering the temp, steeping longer and shorter, and increasing the leaf ratio and combinations of all the above. The one I liked best was around 1g per 40ml at 175F or so and the flavor was nice but too light for me. I tried increasing the leaf ratio but this led to too much astringency after the first steep. I hear this is something of a hallmark of maofeng though so I’m just gonna assume it’s me
I want to try playing around with different water types for the maofeng next. I’ve moved since I last posted and my water isn’t nearly as good as my old place, and I think that my current water my be causing the maofeng to taste a bit flat as well (separate from the “flavor not strong enough” issue above).
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Drinking more Maofeng from Seven Cups. I decided to try it grandpa style, and the results were much better. Much stronger flavor, very little astringency, and not nearly as bitter, especially compared to what it was before. I used 5g in my 350ml glass and the water was was 170F. Gonna mess around with temps a bit more, see if I can reduce the bitterness even more.
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Fi Ci Mao Jian, spring 2021, from Wistaria Tea House--a sample included with a recent order.
The leaves smell wonderful, sweet and floral, and they are tiny and curly.
5 grams of leaf into my 250 mL Shouryu tokoname kyusu, flashed with 180 degree water to to 'wake' the leaves, results in a delicate light hardly-there liquor.
160 degrees--60 seconds, long enough to flavor the water--too much like cooked green peas, should have done it shorter. Diluted with cool water--it's a hot afternoon anyway--and now I'm getting what I want--delicate vegetal and almost floral notes.
More infusions passing--up to 4--and I got distracted again so can't detail the infusions--but this is a very nice green tea.
Check out these tiny leaves!
The leaves smell wonderful, sweet and floral, and they are tiny and curly.
5 grams of leaf into my 250 mL Shouryu tokoname kyusu, flashed with 180 degree water to to 'wake' the leaves, results in a delicate light hardly-there liquor.
160 degrees--60 seconds, long enough to flavor the water--too much like cooked green peas, should have done it shorter. Diluted with cool water--it's a hot afternoon anyway--and now I'm getting what I want--delicate vegetal and almost floral notes.
More infusions passing--up to 4--and I got distracted again so can't detail the infusions--but this is a very nice green tea.
Check out these tiny leaves!
I ran out of my usual Sencha and Gyokuro recently, and was drinking other green teas in the morning. It was refreshing, but I just got my regular Obubu shipment and am back in the cozy embrace of their "Heavenly drop" gyokuro. So delicate, sweet, fresh raw peas with just a hint of umami. Delightful.
Enjoying a hon yama gyokuro from Hojo. This is from "Hebizuka", a higher elevation terroir and the processing includes a long withering step. The maker is a Mr Namakura.
The tea is from 2019 and it has been sitting in the fridge since then.
Brewed the tea like sencha: 5g in 180 mL at 80-85 C starting at 40s. After abstaining from Japanese greens for months, the complex layers of aromatics, sweetness and toasted seaweed umami were like euphoria.
As the steeps progressed, a very nice creaminess developed, touched by a floral aroma.
I also tried 4g/180 mL with off boiling water - 20s/flash/25s/1 min etc. Works surprisingly well.
Also tried 6g/45 mL with 50 C water: 1min 20s, 50s, 2 min
- like sipping on olive oil!
The tea is from 2019 and it has been sitting in the fridge since then.
Brewed the tea like sencha: 5g in 180 mL at 80-85 C starting at 40s. After abstaining from Japanese greens for months, the complex layers of aromatics, sweetness and toasted seaweed umami were like euphoria.
As the steeps progressed, a very nice creaminess developed, touched by a floral aroma.
I also tried 4g/180 mL with off boiling water - 20s/flash/25s/1 min etc. Works surprisingly well.
Also tried 6g/45 mL with 50 C water: 1min 20s, 50s, 2 min
- like sipping on olive oil!
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Last edited by LeoFox on Thu Oct 21, 2021 10:24 pm, edited 4 times in total.
A wonderful 16g sample, Wild Taiwanese Sencha:
Cultivar: Taiwan #8 (Assam?)
From: Taoyuan
Looks similar to Tai Ping Hou Kui and has the similar orchid aroma but the taste is a bit different. I used Leo's sencha brewing times with success.
First steep: Perfect level of umami for me, floral but with some oolong characteristics. The thickness of the tea was a bit less than most sencha. Slight bitterness on the end but is not found after the second steep.
Second steep: The orchids come out with some very enjoyable oolong type sweetness. There was some faint nuttiness that was hard to pick up. To me this blurred the lines between a Japanese sencha and a very lightly oxidized oolong. The ebb and flow between the sencha notes and oolong sweetness was a delicious dance that I really liked.
Third steep: I stopped trying to analyze the tea and just enjoy it. In my samples I also saw some Taiwanese bilouchun so I look forward to that too.
I have much tea to enjoy at the moment and some how I dipped into the samples
Cultivar: Taiwan #8 (Assam?)
From: Taoyuan
Looks similar to Tai Ping Hou Kui and has the similar orchid aroma but the taste is a bit different. I used Leo's sencha brewing times with success.
First steep: Perfect level of umami for me, floral but with some oolong characteristics. The thickness of the tea was a bit less than most sencha. Slight bitterness on the end but is not found after the second steep.
Second steep: The orchids come out with some very enjoyable oolong type sweetness. There was some faint nuttiness that was hard to pick up. To me this blurred the lines between a Japanese sencha and a very lightly oxidized oolong. The ebb and flow between the sencha notes and oolong sweetness was a delicious dance that I really liked.
Third steep: I stopped trying to analyze the tea and just enjoy it. In my samples I also saw some Taiwanese bilouchun so I look forward to that too.
I have much tea to enjoy at the moment and some how I dipped into the samples
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
Chip and I have daily morning TeaSessions since 2008. This morning we enjoyed a Chip's blend of Kabusecha and Asa Giri , both teas from O-Cha, our go to vendor. 11 grams in a Kobewaku kyusu by Junzo. Tea imparted qualities of both selections, some blends just work and this was one.
I rarely deliberately mix or blend teas like this, but I will fairly often mix that last cold overnight infusion of the previous day’s sencha, gyokuro, or oolong with the morning’s first infusion of sencha.
Sometimes these blends of convenience are serendipitously delightful.
Sometimes these blends of convenience are serendipitously delightful.
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@klepto, where are you getting these tasty looking Taiwanese greens? Trying to find the website!