Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘dragon well’

I am a big fan of Canton Teas, so it was with anticipation that I opened the packet of Superior Long Jing.  And at once, I got the green bean aroma and the visual of the large flat leaves.  Ah, Lovely.  I tried brewing this two ways.  The first way was with approximately a teaspoon of leaf per cup, brewed at about 165 for 2 minutes.  This resulted in a nutty, buttery brew; quite enjoyable and a pleasure to drink.  Then, after review the company web site, I tried brewing it with a lot of leaf at a very low temperature.  This resulted in a more vegetal brew, very light yellow in color.  It tastes less buttery and more like green beans.  Very clean tasting, and also quite drinkable.

Of the two, I preferred the less leaf / higher temp steep.  But either way, it’s a nice light, lovely green tea.  A great example of this type of tea.

You can purchase the Superior Dragon Well (Long Jing) directly from the Canton Tea Co. website.

The Premium Dragon Well tea from the Grand tea Company is exquisitely light. I was intrigued by the sample, seeing the perfectly flat green leaves characteristic of Dragon Well tea through the stiff plastic sleeve. The leaves were whole and not broken. I knew the sample was small and I’d really have only one quick shot at capturing the essence of this tea from the Grand Tea Company of Hong Kong. The label was vague, identifying the sample only as Premium Dragon Well. I wondered what rated this tea as a premium tea.

I looked up the Grand Tea web site for this tea and found that the full name for this tea was 2010 First Harvest (Pre-Qingming) Xi Hu Dragon Well. I was delighted to have a first flush tea from this year. Now I really had some sleuthing to do as had no idea what Pre-Qingming meant. A quick look up in Wikipedia revealed that the Pre-Qingming tea is plucked 10 days before the Qingming Festival on April 5 each year. Only the youngest shoots are hand-picked by experienced hands and then processed. “Premium” not only refers to the quality of the tea, but also to its price. The leaves picked after the festival are called Yu Qian Longjin and are less expensive. “Longjing” means Dragon Well by the way, and Xi Hu is the name for West Lake in Zhejiang Province where the region’s earns its Dragon Well designation.

When I opened the packet, the most alluring scent of light grapefruit came through. I thought I was crazy because I had never come across grapefruit scent in a tea. Sure enough, even the next day I was sticking my nose into the packet for a deep inhalation. Even a few days later, I could still smell this amazing scent. I wondered if it would carry over to the taste. When I took the tea out the sleeve, I knew I had something special.

There are lots of preferred characteristics that I look for in a tea depending on its type, starting from the leaf and how it has been handled right down to how the tea finishes a few minutes after the final drunk drop! I really enjoyed seeing the pluck of the leaf and will use other teas to compare to the sample as you’ll soon see below.

Dragon Well is typically made from a bud and one or two leaves. The whole leaves are distinctively emerald green and flat and are pan-fired. Dragon Well tea liquor has a pale greeny-yellow liquor with the scent of fresh-cut grass and toasted chestnuts. It leans towards the savory, with a unique sweet and slightly bitter quality that invites one to drink more of this mellow brew.

The tea sample showed me a small delicate leaf that was light emerald green in colour. The surface of the leaves were even and there was a slight polish. The perfectly flat leaves were slippery against each other the presentation bowl . This showed there had been a lot of care and attention during the pan-firing to ensure consistency of finish. I could easily see that there was a bud and a leaf on most of the sample and for the most part were unbroken sets. Adding water would open the leaves for further inspection.

I weighed the sample in at 2.8 grams and used a glass teapot with about 150 ml of water at 85 degrees Celsius . By the way, on the Grand Tea web site there is a link to a youtube video showing the proper way to steep a quality Dragon Well tea in a tall glass. I appreciated the instruction but prefer my wider glass teapot so I can see more the action of the leaves with the water. Maybe I’m a bit of an amateur in that respect. The recommended steep from Grand Tea is 85 degrees Celsius for 1-2 minutes. I timed at 1 minute, The liquor was a light lemon-green colour and smelled lightly grassy. After allowing the tea to cool down slightly, I took my much anticipated sip. The natural sweetness came through with low astringency and suprizingly, no grapefruit taste. I received a toasty almost caramel note that left me with a smile on my face. It was a bit short on lingering flavours so I decided I want sightly more intensity on the second steep. For that, I decided to use a little less water but would keep to the 1 minute timing.

For the 2nd steep, I was rewarded with a more robust flavours, with more biscuit tastes rather than toasty. The liquor was more astringent now but fully round in the mouth and I found the flow of chi going to my heart and head. I went for the 3rd steep to see how much this young tea would hold up under pressure. Again I gave a 1 minute steep. The colour was more pale now, washed out but the flavour still held in there without losing its profile. I think if I were to have this tea again, I’d use a 2.5 or a full 3 grams and steep a bit longer for the 1st steep, maybe 1 ½ minutes. There is no point in increasing the water temperature with such a delicate tea. Just play with the timing and you will be rewarded. By the way, the price for this premium tea at $5.60 USD per 25 grams is excellent.

After the tea was consumed, I grabbed an inexpensive Dragon Well tea that cost $10 CND for 100 grams, no doubt it was last year’s post-Qingming. See the photo to the left. The leaves on the left are the Premium Dragon Well from Grand Tea. See how small and tight they are with a vibrant green set of 1 leaf and a bud. The picker was very careful to pick only at the base of the bud and leaf set. The Dragon Well on the right is large, bulky and in some cases clearly shows a bud and two leaves. The picker grabbed a lot of twig as well. I prefer to pay a premium price for tea that is well picked and processed rather than by the weight of twigs and branches. So, I will recommend the Premium Dragon Well Tea from the Grand Tea Company as indeed a premium tea that is good to present and to steep. I will be reviewing the Grand Tea’s Bi lo Chun and hope to report that it too, is premium.

You can purchase the Xi Hu Premium Dragon Well directly from the Grand Tea website.

I am just finishing my fourth infusion of this elegant Dragon Well green tea and it is going strong. I have worked a bit at learning how to prepare green teas properly. A little bit of attention to detail–water quality, water temperature, steeping time–repays itself abundantly. The dry leaf does not give away an enormous amount of aroma but seems slightly fragrant and nutty. The leaves are firm and a bit tippy. The wet leaf, as is typical, provides a fresh and vegetal fragrance and resembles broad bright green pine needles.

The vivid tea is a pleasing pale yellow color–the relative pale color testifies to the youthfulness of the leaf. The taste is fresh, light, and buttery–almost like a sweet pea that has some delicately inserted wild rice grains. The taste develops a floral overtone that could be described as “orchid-like”. It’s not at all astringent or bitter.

I think that this tea is youthful and light yet it can sustain multiple infusions. It’s got an extremely fresh and natural taste and the hints of orchid, rice, corn, and vegetable are delightful flirtatious. This is a tea to ponder over and to enjoy. I would not use sweeteners at all with a nicely delicate and bright tea like this one.

I most certainly plan to try more teas form Grandtea.com. Visit their website athttp://www.grandtea.com/. Based in Hong Kong, they specialize in Chinese and Japanese teas of high quality and ship inexpensively to the USA and the rest of the world.

You can purchase the Xi Hu Premium Dragon Well directly from the Grand Tea website.

I’ve been dipping my toe into the waters of the world of green teas and discovering the results can be sensational.  I’ve only tested and tasted Japanese green teas, so I’ve been eager to try more Chinese green tea.  Knowing that Dragon Well (Lung Ching) has a reputation for being the champagne of Chinese green teas and that it’s known as being a fairly light tea, I thought that this was the ideal time for me to try this tea from Tea Frog.

The dry leaf is long, pretty and fairly flat. It’s green but not the neon green of some Japanese greens. It smells a bit nutty with hints at complexity that will arise with steeping. Brewed at approximately 175 degrees, the results are very pleasing. The brew is mid-yellow in color and the aroma is both vegetal and nutty. It is not ostentatiously sweet but it is fresh, mellow, and not the least bit bitter although one cduld argue that there’s a natural bitter-sweetness to this Dragon Well.   I use the “bitter-sweet” as a word of tribute, not a word of warning.   Tea Frog has done a beautiful job of presenting a Dragon Well that balances toasty roasty goodness with some natural sweetness.

Drinking this tea is a great adventure in unfolding layers of nuttiness and some vegetation—not so much that you can call it a “spinach” or an “artichoke” tea but enough so that the vegetal taste plays a strong third fiddle to the primary taste of roasted or toasted nuts.  I detect roasted walnuts more than other kinds of nuts although I taste a strong complementary chestnut overtone.   This tea is  very satisfying and would make a great accompaniment to a meal or as an after-dinner tea. It would also be a great afternoon tea.  I can see it as a great accompaniment to solitary study as well as a great social tea.   It’s versatility is impressive.  So many teas pigeon-hole themselves as “reading teas” or “wake-up teas”.  Tea Frog’s Dragon Well (Lung Ching) has variable facets like a beautiful gemstone and is a great tea option for many occasions.

SECOND infusion: Tea Frog’s Dragon Well has not lost any potency but has gained perhaps more of a nutty focus. I added a few sugar crystals and the added sweetness was nice, but did not open up any new vistas.   The tea stands well on its own. I will serve this to myself without the sugar but would offer some sugar to guests who might like it.

The rich toasty nuttiness and the deep flavor make this tea well-worth trying. I think it will become a staple at my house.  I would also say that any green tea aficionado should start to learn the primary green teas of China,  which has a longer green tea producing history than does Japan.    Dragon Well justly deserves its reputation as one of the star teas of China and Tree Frog’s Dragon Well is a spectacular introduction to a tea that I immediately came to admire and then love.   I am off to a third infusion, confident that the tea will stand up and not lose any potency.

You can purchase the Dragon Well – Lung Ching directly from the TeaFrog website.

Dragon Well is one of the first green teas I tasted and one of the flavors that won me over from my coffee addiction. It’s been difficult for me to find a Dragon Well that I truly enjoy because I find the flavor of green tea to be a bit overwhelming for me but this is a fine grade.

The green flavor comes through at just the right level, not grassy or bitter, just really balanced, nutty and fresh. It is forgiving (over steeped it once and it was still sweet) and the quality stayed true through all three brews on my next attempt with it. This is a very aromatic green that is truly easy to enjoy.

You can purchase the Dragon Well Lung Ching directly from the TeaFrog website.