Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teavivre
Tea Description:
Produced in Tianmu Mountain(天目山), Lin’an County, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang, China
Harvest time: March 8 – March 10, 2013
One bud with one or two leaves
Dry tea is shaped straight and pretty
Soup presents tender a yellowish green color, tastes sweet and brisk; aroma lasts long in the middle and back part of the tongue.
Fresh aroma with chestnut flavor
Low caffeine (less than 10% of a cup of coffee)
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
When I received my samples of the new spring teas my first tasting selection to sample was Organic Nonpareil Ming Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green from Teavivre. The aroma is strong, awakening, and as fresh as a tea can smell. The dry leaf is so pretty and bright green. The flavors range through various steepings from nutty, buttery, vegetal, and salty, but every single steep brings forth the freshest flavors you could imagine.
When steeped properly there is absolutely no astringency and of course no bitterness. There is also a lovely light sweetness to the flavor that can be detected at different levels through the various steeps. The color is very light so do not be tempted to over steep this lovely tea. Take your time with it and let the flavors be gently caressed out of the leaf with shorter steep times which will provide you a longer and more relaxing brewing session. Green teas like this one from Teavivre are deserving of your time and focus. I do not recommend a tea like this for an out the door on the go tea. You can do that if you wish, but I feel it is cheating the tea from providing all that it has to offer and really just cheating yourself.
Some teas are great for an on the go pick me up and get me going for my day ahead tea. This Long Jing however is a relaxing, meditative, sip and consider type of tea that will rock your world in a totally different way if you give it time and allow it to. I find that while this tea is refreshing, and so lightly fresh, it has a brothy mouthfeel, verging on creamy in some steeps. I love it when a tea can bring out both feelings, light and fresh, yet thicker in the mouthfeel, as it is an unusual combination.
Teavivre brings us so excellent offerings in their new spring line, and I am really amped up to try them all but today I shall sit with this tea, looking forward to many steeps to come. It is absolutely lovely. See all of Teavivre’s Spring Teas here and learn how you can get samples of all of them for free!
Strawberries and Cream Green Tea from Della Terra Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Della Terra Teas
Tea Description:
Strawberries and cream. So creamy, so fruity, filled with berry deliciousness! Just like the classic dessert, this green tea will cover your tastebuds in all the classic flavor you know… Delicious!
Ingredients: Green tea, Lung Ching, Pai Mu Tan, strawberry flavor and bits, cream flavor
Suggested brewing tips:
Serving Size: 1 level tsp./6oz serving
Water Temp: 158-167°F
Steep Time: 1-3 minutes
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The aroma of this Strawberries and Cream Green Tea from Della Terra Teas is best described as Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Both in the steeped and dry form the smell is nothing short of perfection. Not only the strawberry and the cream scents, but the tea leaves themselves smell amazing!
Now I already knew going in that Della Terra has some of the best flavored teas on the market. For me they are right up top with Butiki Teas, and a handful of other places. This tea, is just indulgent, lovely, delightful, and about another twenty or so adjectives all adding up to bliss!
To be honest, I really am not even focusing on this review right now, this cup is that good! I keep getting sidetracked by the cup, sitting back inhaling in the sweet creamy aromas, enjoying the aroma of the tea leaves caressing my senses with their delicate, but attention grabbing nature. If they made a perfume that smelled like this I wold wear it. People may say I am too old to wear a scent that smells like a carnival, but put me in a pink tutu and parade me around the ring, I am all in with this tea! It reminds me of the fair, or a circus, and all of the sticky sweet smells that go along with it from spun sugar cotton candy, to kids blowing giant bubble gum bubbles, or the smell of funnel cake filling the air. Yet, it is not really all that sweet at all! The flavor of this tea is nothing close to sticky sweet! Its so natural, so pleasing with the grassy buttery tones of the tea, that while I may be taken into this sweet intoxicating world in my imagination, I am not putting that junk into my body! What could be better!?
Sorry I must end my review here and really sit back and lavish in the rest of my cup.
Taiwanese Dong Ding Oolong from Verdant Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Tea Description:
This Dong Ding exemplifies the union of sweet and savory flavors that are a hallmark of Taiwanese oolong craftsmanship.
Taiwanese oolong is an incredible and worthwhile counterpoint to the Tieguanyin growing cross the straights in Anxi. While mainland oolongs tend to be more floral, Taiwanese oolongs edge towards savory. In love with the unique taste, we are pleased to have found this standout example despite difficult growing conditions in Taiwan this past year.
The wet leaf aroma is like being in a small bakery with rising whole wheat walnut currant bread in the oven and redwood bark’s warm smell wafting though an open window. The first steepings start with a bright raspberry tartness followed by a darker note of flax and spicy green peppercorn. These initial flavors swell and then diminish leaving a sweet whipped cream pound cake aftertaste.
Later steepings expand upon the spicy flavor with the sweetness of red bell peppers and the savory satisfying taste of fried cactus paddle. The aftertaste moves towards sweet corn bread and lingers long after the tea is gone.
NOTES: pound cake, raspberry, peppercorn, corn bread, flax, cactus
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
A tea like Taiwanese Dong Ding Oolong from Verdant Tea must be experienced over several steeps, otherwise you will miss out on so much flavor and complexity. I won’t say that this is my all time favorite tea from Verdant Tea, but it is very nice and should be experienced.
I will start by saying I am a little disappointed that I never got those pound cake notes, corn bread notes, or even really any raspberry notes, but what I did get was flavorful, and delicious.
Early steeps give off a nice light flavor, white floral notes, a dash of a pepper note, but only very slight, and a wonderful earthy note like well nourished soil, not to be confused with dirt. This Taiwanese Dong Ding by Verdant has a perfectly sweet flavor, not too sweet, but just right. To me this resonates most as a floral milk oolong.
It is slightly vegetal, with some nutty goodness, and in later steeps becomes even more milky and creamy with a full mouth feel. It is weighty, buttery, slightly astringent, and really quite good. I still am looking for some of those dessert notes, but sadly not finding them.
Toward steep four and five I am still getting a wonderfully flavorful cup which becomes even more creamy, maybe this is where the cake note comes in – through all the creaminess, but for me I wish it had a little more because while it is creamy, it never quite develops into a full on cream like flavor, rather teases and hints at it. Perhaps if I were finding that raspberry note I would enjoy it more. This is not to imply I am unhappy with the cup, but I would have been more happy had I not seen those yummy notes that I am missing out on.
This is a really nice flavorful cup with key notes on my palate being floral, creamy, milky, and vegetal. Its not nearly as strong as other Dong Ding I have had, and I do love Dong Ding Oolong. Of course this is a lighter roast but even still it is lacking many of the qualities I am used to in Dong Ding. Again that is not to say I don’t like it. I like it a lot, but I am confused a little by this tea. I plan to work with it more to see if I can uncover more of what it has to offer.
Chiran Sencha from O5 Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Amoda
Tea Description:
Sweet, thick and full-bodied. A grassy and vegetal green tea with
refreshing astringency and light cream aroma.From grower Furuichi Shoji. It is grown in the old Samurai town Chiran, in Kagoshima prefecture, Japan. Here, the climate is ideal for tea – warm air mixed with cool breezes from the Bay of Kagoshima.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Chiran Sencha from O5 Tea brings us something slightly different in a sencha. My SororiTea Sister Anne reviewd this tea here.
The reason I am pointing out her review is so that you can understand this is in fact a really good sencha, but I am not as in love with it as my sister is. Its good, its very grassy, but for me, I always appreciate the buttery note that is lacking in this one. I suppose I’m stuck in my ways but I say “bring on the butter” okay confession time… I’m a butter addict. I love butter, I’d eat a whole stick of the stuff if I knew it would not be terrible for me, but I digress, the only think truly lacking in this sencha is the butter note. So with that said, this is a really great sencha! It is in fact one of the greenest, freshest tasting sencha I have ever tried with the longest lingering after taste.
I will say this however, for those of you like myself who want that buttery sensation, wait for it. Really, wait for it, the buttery comes out when this tea gets to be around room temperature, depending on how cool you keep your home anyway. This would be a lovely iced sencha and I typically do not like sencha iced!
Be sure you have a really fine strainer when brewing this as I had quite a bit of bits in the bottom of my cup, but I really do need to invest in a new strainer. The color of the liquor is really pretty, a light almost limey colored green. It is not murky at all though even with the particles laying on the bottom of the cup, I can see them all. Hummm this is inspiring of a tea leaf reading when the tea is gone!
Turkish Green Apple from Red Leaf Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Red Leaf Tea
Tea Description:
This Turkish version of green tea, though delicate, features cured apple pieces and safflowers into a delicious tea blend. Our growers are able to customize the curing of their harvests and add a wide variety of flavors to their stronger blends. For tea lovers, blends such as Turkish Green Apple Tea is full of great tea taste from the first sip to the very last.
Green tea, apple pieces, and safflowers with apple flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Turkish Green Apple from Red Leaf Tea is a very light flavored tea with apples being only a slight flavor in the overall profile. It tastes more of buttered spinach and has a slight salty taste as well. The apples taste to be semi fermented in a sense, as they taste in a hard apple cider yet in this blend very delicate and only a slight bit tart.
This is a soothing tea that is very delicate in its nature, calming and relaxing. I would not want this in the morning but is a wonderful tea to sip while laying in bed decompressing and reading a favorite novel.
If you want that more robust flavor be sure to wait and allow the tea to cool more before sipping as this tea tends to take on its stronger characteristics as it becomes more room temperature, even the mouthfeel becomes heavier as it cools a bit.
There is a creaminess to the mouthfeel, and even a slight cream flavor. Buttery, creamed, spinach with an apple appeal. Haha, get it?