Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Green

Where to Buy:  What-Cha Tea

Tea Description:

A unique tightly rolled green tea with a citrus nose and well defined lemon blossom taste, a rare and unusual tea which is not to be missed.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

These leaves look very unusual, looking like the pellets of a Tie Guan Yin Oolong, but the leaves are not quite as large.  The pellets are not uniform in size, some are quite small, while others are rather large.  They have a vegetal aroma to them.

Since they looked to me like they’d be fun to watch unfurl, I decided to brew them in my glass teacup (the same one I use to watch a flowering tea bulb brew).  The first infusion proved to be rather … lacking in show, to be quite honest.  The leaves didn’t unfurl very much at all.  But they did produce a very flavorful liquid after steeping for 2 minutes in 180°F water.

Nice!  The tea is sweet, with a nice, buttery texture and a light flavor.  Notes of citrus, flower and hints of vegetation.  The citrus is especially noticeable toward the finish and this bright flavor lingers into the aftertaste.   By the time I made it to mid-cup, I started to notice more buttery flavors than citrus and flower, the flavor becomes smoother as it cools.

Since the leaves hadn’t really opened up much with that first infusion, I decided to have another infusion and see if I would get more of a tea leaf dance from the leaves that were still looking more like tightly wound pellets.

During the second infusion, the leaves didn’t do much.  Oh, they’ve unfurled quite a bit more, but they don’t really do much of a dance that I had hoped for.  But that’s alright, the flavor is well worth the lack of showmanship.  (Showteaship?  Showleafship?)  When they infused this time, it looked a lot like a seaweed garden at the bottom of the sea – not a lot of activity, just the motion of the water just barely causing the leaves to sway a little.

But as I said, the flavor is well worth what little show the leaves provide.  After steeping for 2 1/2 minutes, the flavor is sweet with notes of tangy citrus and whispers of flower.  I don’t taste as much buttery taste or texture this time, and the vegetal notes have emerged, offering a savory quality to the cup which contrasts with the aforementioned sweetness.  As the cup cools a little, the buttery flavors are more discernible, but they are still considerably lighter than with the first cup.

This cup is a little more astringent than the first too.  I didn’t notice a lot of astringency with the first cup, only the slight tangy note toward the finish that melded with the citrus-y notes that it barely seemed astringent at all.  Now, there is a distinct separation between the citrus flavors and the astringency.  This is still what I’d consider a mild to moderate astringency.

I decided to try a third infusion.  With this third infusion, the leaves are now completely unfurled.  I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes.  The flavor is amazing.  I think that this third cup is my favorite of the three!  It is soft and buttery.  The astringency I noted in the second cup has smoothed out.  The citrus tones have also become softer and sweeter, reminiscent now of a citrus curd rather than a bright splash of fruit.  The floral notes are not as sharp and the vegetative tones less focused, creating instead a very unified flavor that is very palatable.

While this Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Cannon Ball Green Tea from What-Cha Tea shares many common characteristics with other green teas, I find it to be a truly unique green tea in ways that should be experienced by the tea connoisseur to be fully appreciated.  It’s a remarkable tea, one I really enjoyed and am thrilled that I had the opportunity to try.