What Green Are You Drinking

[Sweetestdew]

Mao Feng can be a tricky tea to get into because the flavor profile is so light. What you are really looking for in Mao Feng is the mouth feel. The best Mao Fengs are slight and refreshing but still have a deep and thick mouth feel. With out that mouth feel, I find Mao Fengs dont really have any other characterstics that really make them stand out since the flavor profile is so very light. So need to get one with a some mouth feel to really enjoy it.

Sounds like it’s the tofu of tea! All about texture and mouthfeel, but otherwise almost tasteless

Though! I recently bought some Chestnut Aroma Mao Feng! Has less of the mouth feel, but more flavor.

[Victoria]

Mao Feng can be a tricky tea to get into because the flavor profile is so light. What you are really looking for in Mao Feng is the mouth feel. The best Mao Fengs are slight and refreshing but still have a deep and thick mouth feel. With out that mouth feel, I find Mao Fengs dont really have any other characterstics that really make them stand out since the flavor profile is so very light. So need to get one with a some mouth feel to really enjoy it.

Sounds like it’s the tofu of tea! All about texture and mouthfeel, but otherwise almost tasteless

So I think I ‘got’ this tea finally, like @Sweetestdew mentioned it’s about the mouth feel, but it also has a very interesting aroma and taste. A pleasant warming vegetal aroma, sweet chestnuts, a little bread, and an interesting drying sensation around the mouth with some effervescence. Also, the mouth is coated for a long time with subtle flavors. It is light but has interesting engaging characteristics and is refreshing. Perfect for a warm Spring day.

I used 5gr/180ml/185F/6min+ waiting for leaves to drop down, in a wine decanter using a borrowed SS lid from a salt cellar. I wanted to be able to see the Mao Feng leaves slowly drop so went for the glass decanter. @Ethan Kurland earlier reminded me to get creative with lids and vessels.

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[luchayi]

A really special Liu An Gua Pian from Bianfudong...

[swordofmytriumph]

ITS OUT FOR DELIVERY!!

[Victoria]

ITS OUT FOR DELIVERY!!

Haha, Shincha in da house. I chased after my postal clerk to make sure I got it today. Now to rest a day, open and breath a little for another day. Or maybe I’ll try [mention]Chip[/mention]’s method of pre-weighing the night before and placing in a canister for the following morning.

[Victoria]

Interesting, this morning I decided to steep side by side O-Cha’s Kagoshima Sencha Sae Midori (2016 in refrigerator till 2019/04) and Kirishima Organic Asamushi Sencha. They complimented each other nicely, both tasted better side by side. The now 3 year old Sae Midori was much less bitter because I switched from Emu’s wall filter kyusu to Gyokuryu (Mr. Umehara Jiro) sesame filter kyusu. The sesame filter pours like a Ferrari, with the very fine Sae Midori needles being pushed aside by the billowing convex finely meshed ceramic filter and liquor passes through fast. With Emu’s wall filter the pour was much too slow resulting in bitterness, basically that filter doesn’t work well with fine needles. The shigaraki clay Masaki Tachi kyusu with a ball filter works well with the slightly larger leaf of Asamushi sencha. Shigaraki clay also seems to smooth out this Asamushi. Happy these too sencha are now expressing themselves better.

[LuckyMe]

My first batch of spring greens arrived yesterday from Yunnan Sourcing. Tonight I had some Anji Bai Cha and Laoshan green teas, both of which were amazing. I love the creaminess of Anji Bai Cha...my first time having this tea. Next up on the docket are Tai Ping Hou Kui and Competition Grade First Flush Laoshan green tea.

I'm going to have to pace myself so I don't blow through my greens too quickly from excitement

[swordofmytriumph]

My first batch of spring greens arrived yesterday from Yunnan Sourcing. Tonight I had some Anji Bai Cha and Laoshan green teas, both of which were amazing. I love the creaminess of Anji Bai Cha...my first time having this tea. Next up on the docket are Tai Ping Hou Kui and Competition Grade First Flush Laoshan green tea.

I'm going to have to pace myself so I don't blow through my greens too quickly from excitement

Let us know how their Tai Ping is, I was eyeing it the other day.

[LuckyMe]

My first batch of spring greens arrived yesterday from Yunnan Sourcing. Tonight I had some Anji Bai Cha and Laoshan green teas, both of which were amazing. I love the creaminess of Anji Bai Cha...my first time having this tea. Next up on the docket are Tai Ping Hou Kui and Competition Grade First Flush Laoshan green tea.

I'm going to have to pace myself so I don't blow through my greens too quickly from excitement

Let us know how their Tai Ping is, I was eyeing it the other day.

So I dove into the Tai Ping Hou Kui today. It's a beautiful looking tea, nice long pristine leaves. Smelled a little pungent to me though, like seaweed salad or maybe kelp mixed with okra. I grandpa steeped it and it was a pretty mellow tea with light grassy notes.

I'll need to play around some more with the brewing parameters, but first impressions are that it's good but I remember last year's Teavivre Tai Ping being a little better.

[swordofmytriumph]

Thanks @LuckyMe, good to know. I’ve been waffling on where to get my tai ping so this helps narrow the selection.

[Elise]

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Today a great session about Longjing. From top to bottom of the infused leaves:
Xihu Longjing from Shifeng, Qunti cultivar.
Xihu Longjing from Songyang (Hangzhou area), Wuniuzao cultivar.
Zhejiang Longjing, cultivar ?

[Sweetestdew]

Mao Feng can be a tricky tea to get into because the flavor profile is so light. What you are really looking for in Mao Feng is the mouth feel. The best Mao Fengs are slight and refreshing but still have a deep and thick mouth feel. With out that mouth feel, I find Mao Fengs dont really have any other characterstics that really make them stand out since the flavor profile is so very light. So need to get one with a some mouth feel to really enjoy it.

Sounds like it’s the tofu of tea! All about texture and mouthfeel, but otherwise almost tasteless

So I think I ‘got’ this tea finally, like Sweetestdew mentioned it’s about the mouth feel, but it also has a very interesting aroma and taste. A pleasant warming vegetal aroma, sweet chestnuts, a little bread, and an interesting drying sensation around the mouth with some effervescence. Also, the mouth is coated for a long time with subtle flavors. It is light but has interesting engaging characteristics and is refreshing. Perfect for a warm Spring day.

I used 5gr/180ml/185F/6min+ waiting for leaves to drop down, in a wine decanter using a borrowed SS lid from a salt cellar. I wanted to be able to see the Mao Feng leaves slowly drop so went for the glass decanter. Ethan Kurland earlier reminded me to get creative with lids and vessels.

Exactly, especially the part about the "perfect for a warm spring day".

I think Mao Feng is a really unique tea because of the mouthfeel and once you understand this mouthfeel you will really begin to see the levels of quality in Mao Fengs.

[d.manuk]

I'm drinking kukicha sencha from Kettl, and it's made from about 50% stems and 50% leaves that are made into sencha. The taste is overall less bitter than a sencha, less aromatic, but has a wider flavor profile instead of being so narrowly concentrated. The smell of the wet leaves is rather nutty, but the taste has some hints of fruit and is easier to drink than a typical sencha in my opinion. For this tea, the package says the leaves were picked in February 2019. I was wondering if this was true or if it means that it was packaged in February? Considering now is shincha season I thought leaves wouldn't be available to be picked in Japan until around this time, since February is a weird time between winter and spring.

[nasalfrog]

I'm having a second go this afternoon on the Uji sencha Jubuzan sample I received from Hojo. On the first try I followed his recommended 194F 1.5g/75ml method and found it too light for my tastes. This time I went with the recommended method from Thés du Japon, 4g/70ml, which has yielded me good results in the past.

It definitely turned up the flavor, but also a lot of bitterness and astringency, almost beyond my limits, at a temp of 185F. Despite that, I am really enjoying it this time. A lot! It may be because it's a 2017 sample, but it reminds me a bit of this green oolong tea that sparked my tea obsession. Very floral, much like the smell of honeysuckles in my backyard. It's making me reconsider my upcoming shincha order with Yuuki-Cha, and, instead, trying the senchas from Hojo.

[Victoria]

I'm having a second go this afternoon on the Uji sencha Jubuzan sample I received from Hojo. On the first try I followed his recommended 194F 1.5g/75ml method and found it too light for my tastes. This time I went with the recommended method from Thés du Japon, 4g/70ml, which has yielded me good results in the past.

It definitely turned up the flavor, but also a lot of bitterness and astringency, almost beyond my limits, at a temp of 185F. Despite that, I am really enjoying it this time. A lot! It may be because it's a 2017 sample, but it reminds me a bit of this green oolong tea that sparked my tea obsession. Very floral, much like the smell of honeysuckles in my backyard. It's making me reconsider my upcoming shincha order with Yuuki-Cha, and, instead, trying the senchas from Hojo.

I tried Hojo’s Jubuzan at 5.6gr/90ml /176f (80c)/50sec., it was more flavorful than Akira’s recommendation. Unfortunately, I only had a sample so couldn’t play around much with it.