Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Zhejiang Province’

Canton Tea offered up this opportunity for me to try their Superior Long Jing and I jumped at because I’ve never tried this quality of Dragon Well before.  I really appreciate and enjoy the experience that comes with every Long Jing, regardless of it’s grading, it’s always good.   This particular Long Jing is from a aged tree high up in the Weng Jia Shan Village of the Zhejiang Province. It’s a ‘Superior’ grade meaning
that it was picked in early spring (first flush).  The dry leaves are long and flat and have a strong vegetal scent to them and they are full leaves, clearly they had to have been hand-picked.  There is absolutely no dust in this tea which doesn’t surprise me, I’ve never had a tea from Canton that was dusty.

I’ve pre-warmed my teapot and boiled water to 208 degF.  Pouring the water over the leaves and the first scent I’m getting is one that is slightly sweet with a touch of grassiness.  I let the leafs steep for 5 minutes and the color went to a crystal clear, light green hue.  The taste is clean and slightly nutty.  I have resteeped this tea five times and, only now, the flavor is fading.  It really is a pleasure to be able to enjoy this quality of tea and I hope to have the opportunity to try new teas from Canton Tea.

You can purchase the Superior Dragon Well Green Tea | Traditional 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.

Having settled into a mood for tea tasting on an overcast summer day in my garden, I examined the dry leaf of the Mark T. Wendell Dragonwell Green Tea. Do others see the emerald green and blue colours in the flat dry Dragonwell leaf? After plucking and withering, these tea leaves are pressed and pan-fired (tossed in a hot wok) to stop the enzyme process. Often the smell and taste of the roasting will get into the leaves, leaving a slight smokiness. Not in this case. In fact, the roasting has been handled with the care the tea deserves. Dragonwell is a style of tea, found from the Zhejiang province of China. Dragonwell is typically made from a bud and one or two leaves. The whole leaves are distinctively emerald green and flat and as mentioned above, are pan-fired. Dragonwell 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.

As you see in the photo, I examine both the dry leaves (on the right) and the wet (on the left). Whether it is from rough-handling of the packaging, the leaves were most often broken and not very distinctive by the usually elegantly flat leaves. I looked into the centre of the package to see if the leaves were more protected there but found that the leaves were also broken. While the leaves were small attesting to their spirited youthfulness, I concluded that this tea is not the highest of qualities as it contains many single broken leaves and very little sets of a bud and a leaf or two. I was a bit disappointed that my sample was not going to be a connoisseur’s delight and had to lower my expectation to the sample which is typical of a commercially available tea. With that in mind, I prepared myself because if the tea makes it to a typically Dragonwellian taste characteristic, it is still economically viable for a mass consumer market, even if it doesn’t look pretty.

I started with 2.5 grams (0.08818 oz. or about 1 heaping dessert spoonful) of tea in about 150 ml ( 5 ounces) of water in a traditional Gaiwan, the yellow vessel that you see in the accompanying photo. The vessel was warmed first. The water temperature was 80 degrees Celsius (185 Fahrenheit). I timed at 45 seconds with a gentle stir a few seconds before steeping had finished. As evident by the leaves floating on the surface, the water had not been absorbed by the leaves. I decided to extend the timing to 1 minute, thinking that this tea may need a higher temperature at 85 degrees C. (190 F.) or more patience on my part, probably the latter. Leaves that don’t absorb the water right away tend to float on the surface. Usually this means the temperature isn’t quite right to activate the leaf. Sometimes adding a few drops of hot water to the leaves will help them wake up and will expand slightly taking on the heaviness of the water before the initial flow of water over the leaves. It’s sometimes a trade-off between more steep time or a higher temperature. Some Dragonwells can become very bitter in a longer steep. As this is a tea for the general consumer, the astringency would be low and the leaf must be able to tolerate mistakes of the server, such as very hot water and a long steep time. You still have to provide a good cup of tea at the end of the day.

The slow release of the leaf reveals that the second steeping will need to be a steep of about 30-40 seconds and a third steeping a bit longer, maybe up to 1 minute to extract the final liquor without astringency surfacing. When I checked back to the Wendell web site looking for instructions about the Dragonwell, I didn’t find any so I was left on my own to make decisions about its preparation.

I like to smell the vapours before pouring off the tea, lifting the lid of the Gaiwan near the end of the steep to smell the scented steam as it rises. The inside of the lid offers a special opportunity to get up close and personal with an initial impression. I could smell the toasted chestnuts and some vegetative high notes. I poured off some into my cup to cool down and the remainder into a small 6 oz. glass pitcher for a later refill. Before drinking, I raised the steamy wet leaves to my nose to take a good sniff, thinking how all those olfactory receptors were picking up information that would translate into tasting notes if I just let my brain function naturally. When I raised the cup of liquor to my nose, there were soft grassy notes. The colour of the liquor was typical of Dragonwell, pale lemon-yellow and an attractive green-emerald tinge.

Taking a first sip, I found the tea to be bright and warm over the tongue. There was a distinctive feeling of the tea bringing its fullness in the mouth. The tea stimulated some secretions of saliva, making me think that this tea would be good to accompany a meal as it would provide some ease to digestion. There was a slight citrus finish but the taste washed out quickly. This would be a good afternoon sipper because of its low astringency and low complexity so it would not compete with food so could be served with fish, seafood, or cucumber or egg tea sandwiches . There was no doubt I had a physical response to the tea. I breathed in and out like I was letting go of some busy-ness of the day. My shoulders started to relax and I nestled into my garden chair. I seemed to melt into the air and let the tea provide its healing. Any tea that does that has achieved its purpose, in my books.

This tea is not as robust or complex as I’d like to see for a Dragonwell. The tea retained its colour well through 3 steepings. The 4th washed out the taste and the colour weakened. The Wendell Dragonwell is pretty typical of a commercial tea and no doubt is a mid-range, standard loose tea that can be handled successfully by many different preferences and through different preparations. Now if it only looked better as a whole tea, I’d be happier.

You can purchase the Dragonwell Green directly from the Mark T. Wendall Tea Company website.

If there is one single tea China is known for it is the green teas produced around the Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. (Just south of Shanghai.) These teas from gardens in the Xi Hu (West Lake),Mi Jia Wu (Mi Family Valley), Long Jing (Dragon Well), and Shi Feng (Lion Peak) districts are what most westerners know as ‘green tea’. Today, cousins of these greens are grown in various parts of china, but the best are from this region.

This is the everyday tea of most Chinese households – it comes in many different grades from most common (cheap) to Imperial Tribute (extremely rare and expensive). It is consumed in great quantities by the masses, and is found in virtually every home and tea house.  Long Jing (sometimes Long Ching or Lung Ching) is a great entry into green chinese teas. Picked in the early spring, these leaves are hand shaped and tend to have a spear head or “sparrows tongue” shape.  The traditional characteristics of the style are the leaf shape, a bright green liquor in the cup, a fresh taste with a little dryness in the after, and a delicate flowery nose.

This specific tea is a Special Grade Long Jing Ten Ren Teas (the less unbroken leaves the better the grade – this one has very little broken leaf.) It is equivalent to a better tea served in a better tea house in China. It is a vivid spectrum of green and jade, and the leaf is long and uniform. Unsteeped it has a very earthy vegetative smell.

Brewed in my green xing teapot, 2 tsp (3g) of tea, infused in 6oz of water at 160F for 2 minutes. ( If you are brewing this in a normal tea pot, 2 tsp tea per 8oz of water, plus 1 extra tsp “for the pot”.) Bright light Jade in the cup, with a green fresh vegetation nose. Taste of chestnuts, with a touch of astringency and a good mouthfeel. The great thing about this green, and most greens is they can be re steeped multiple times – I use a little hotter water – 165f and add about 15-20 seconds, and got 4 more decent steeps. The aromas fade and the flavors as well with each, but it is still a nuanced cup. This is an all day every day good drinking tea – and if you are new to greens, I would recommend trying some.

You can purchase the directly from the Ten Ren website.

Had to order a sample of this tisane because the name and the ingredients intrigued me. Teafrog description: “A delightfully refreshing non-caffeinated tea with and aroma both sweet and subtle. A subtle fruity taste leads to a nutty finish in this unique flavored blend”.

Now their description is accurate but this tea is so much more than that. It truly is ‘love’ flavored, like holding hands and dancing in the rain (thanks for that moment, Vittorio). Yes, I’m a romantic but hear me out. This blend let me escape for a few minutes just like you do when you get a hug. Not the kind of hug you give your aunt to thank her for the amazing socks she got you for your birthday, the kind of hug that you get from your partner when you’re having a ‘meh’ day. When there are no words spoken, no ‘tell me why you feel ‘meh”, just a look then that hug. (Yes, I know that ‘meh’ isn’t in the Oxford dictionary – yet – but it’s more descriptive to me than ‘blah’). Anyway the tea, the love, the soft flowery scent, the warmth of the rooibos, it truly is an experience.

I know you may be thinking that’s it’s impossible to have instant (seven minutes brewing – close to instant) love in a bag (just add water) but I promise you that, if you just close your eyes while you sip and think about that hug, you will feel it.

You can purchase the Rooibos Love directly from the TeaFrog website.