ASPARAGUS!
It smells like it was grown with asparagus! Never have a smelled a tea that so strongly resembles this vegetable. I like asparagus if it’s done right but drinking it? I don’t know…
The wet smell is glorious. Simply heavenly. Would buy this tea just so I could smell this all day. Slightly roasted scent with hints of asparagus still lingering. Fresh like the day it was picked. In fact, if you close your eyes you can probably imagine the walking in the thick of the tea trees on the Shi Feng mountainside.
Once you pull yourself back into reality you awake with very vegetal flavors. This is presumably the most vegetal green or tea in general that I have ever had. Let me be real honest though, it’s like drinking asparagus juice.
Not quite as strong though as there are also slight mineral characteristics to mellow it out. Which I’m assuming come from the unique earth in the Shi Feng area.
It is a crisp sip with a bit of astringency. I know I probably don’t make it sound very appealing but it really is unique and should be tried!
Want to Know More About This Tea?
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Verdant Tea
Description:
The new 2019 Pre-Qingming Dragonwell is now available! This early spring tea is all about a fine and subtle sweetness, and a long, drawn out aftertaste and crisp texture. Cool spring weather produces a small harvest of truly sweet tea. This is Mrs. Li’s first picking of the season, carefully hand-finished by her husband, Shui Huamin. Her true original cultivar Dragonwell (Longjing Qunti) grows on the mountain slopes of Shi Feng and draws in sweet mountain spring water.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Organic Nonpareil She Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea from Teavivre
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green Tea
Where to Buy: Teavivre
Tea Description:
Growing area:Tiantai Mountain, Zhejiang, ChinaSeason:Spring TeaHarvest date:March 23, 2016Dry leaf:Uniform flattened tea leaves, mostly bud with unopened tiny leafAroma:Sweet floral, chestnutLiquor:Pale yellowish greenTaste:Smooth, sweet and brisk; no hint of bitterness; aftertaste of this tea is pleasant lingeringTea Tree species:Jiukeng tea tree speciesTea garden:Cangshan Organic Tea GardenCaffeine:Low caffeine (less than 10% of a cup of coffee)Storage:Store in airtight, opaque packaging; keep refrigeratedShelf Life:18 Months
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Organic Nonpareil She Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea from Teavivre is today’s tea of choice for me and it’s a good one! This is a mighty fine Dragon Well that is for sure! Organic Nonpareil She Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea from Teavivre is sweet, clean, crisp, and has a pleasant, satisfying linger and aftertaste.
Organic Nonpareil She Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea from Teavivre is delightful as a hot cuppa or a cold one. I bet this would also be a good green tea base for those who like to mix and mingle teas and flavors.
The best part? This Organic Nonpareil She Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea from Teavivre has NO bitterness what-so-ever! It’s a very forgiving green tea, too, so if you over infuse you won’t have to worry about a bitter cup! This is a great tea for those new to green teas as well as those who have loved green teas for YEARS.
Dragon Well/Long Jing from Teabook
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teabook
Tea Description:
Our green tea comes from Hunan, Zhejiang and An Hui provinces in China. In China today, most green teas are still pan fired like originally done in the Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368); this helps to dry the leaf in a way to prevent much oxidation to preserve the green color. From a health perspective, green tea is increasingly popular for its content of EGCG (epigallocatechin), an antioxidant which studies show may have a number of health benefits. Green tea flavor and aroma are often referred to as vegetal, mild, cleansing, and sometimes savory or buttery. The tannins range from bitter to sweet depending on the variety.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Teabook is an tea company with a very interesting concept. They provide consumers with individually wrapped servings of loose leaf tea. The packaging looks very similar to that of a tea bag. Each month you’ll receive a box from Teabook with that month’s tea in it individually packaged for your convenience. A very cool idea. To have loose leaf tea packaged in a way that you don’t have to re package it to make it portable makes me want to instantly run out and sign up. Right now it looks like they mainly have straight teas on the site, but I can see this being just a fantastic new way for loose leaf tea drinkers to get their tea.
This tea that I am trying from Teabook is a Dragon Well. I have tried several different types of Dragon Wells from different tea companies and was excited to try out this offering. I brewed this tea up with the water temp at about 180 per the guidelines provided on the package. I poured the contents of the package into my steeper and watched the leaves dance as the water was poured in. I let the tea steep for about 4 minutes and took my first sip.
The major flavor note that you get from this tea is a nice pleasant vegetal note that is rich and satisfying. I took my cuppa into a meeting. As the meeting was progressing, I started to notice that the pleasant vegetal note started to turn more and more into a deeper richer and dare I say darker vegetal flavor.
As much as I love my green teas, I have to say this one may just not be for me. As the tea cools, that seaweed like flavor becomes more and more pronounced. It reminded me of a rich black tea that you allow to cool for way too long and it has become too astringent for you. Similar situation here.
I’m still not sure how I feel about this particular offering yet. I think this would be one to try again later on but I still love the idea of Teabook and plan on checking into it. Such a great concept!
Organic Dragon Well Green Tea from Canton Tea Co.
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Tea Description:
This delicious organic Dragon Well is grown in the hills of Zhejiang Province near Long Jing, the village where this famous tea originated. The green tea leaves are picked young and taken back to the village where the skilled tea masters use their bare hands to press them flat in a hot, dry wok in the traditional way. This arrests the oxidation process and ensures the liquor carries the notes of freshly cut grass, rounded off by a soft, nutty flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Dragon Well has become, to my surprise, one of my favourite green tea varieties. I used to think I didn’t like green tea, but I’ve been persuaded over time by some those I’ve been fortunate enough to have tried. The leaves of this particular Dragon Well have been folded and pressed flat. They’re around 1cm in length on average, although some are longer and some are a little shorter. The overall tone is variegated, running from the dark green of pine needles to the lighter green of spring grass, some with a yellow mottling. The scent is quite heavily vegetal. I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 170 degrees. Once unfurled, it’s clear that the leaves are mostly partial, although there are some almost whole leaves complete with stems. The resulting liquor is a medium yellow green, the scent remaining vegetal.
To taste, this tea strikes a pleasant balance between grass, green beans, and chestnuts. The initial sip is almost sweet, in the way of freshly shelled peas, but this quickly deepens to a more vegetal intensity. I’m reminded very much of freshly cooked green beans – still retaining some sweetness, but with an overriding savoury flavour. There’s a grassiness in the mid sip that continues the sweet theme, and which helps to brightens up the heavier notes of green bean. The end of the sip is mildly nutty, with a slight roastiness, putting me firmly in mind of chestnuts at Christmas. I’m usually the kind of person that drinks green tea more in spring/summer, but this one seems particularly well suited to autumn. It’s a relatively complex green tea with multiple layers of flavour, but they’re all complementary and work well together to create a beautifully flavourful cup that still possesses some subtlety. Nothing here is overpowering. I also feel I should commend this tea for its smoothness and lack of astringency. It’s almost buttery in terms of mouthfeel – silky and decadent.
I really enjoyed this cup, and I’d definitely look at Canton Tea Co. for green tea again in the future. This is a beautiful example of a Dragon Well, and I’d like to think it could please connoisseurs, while also converting those less certain about green tea in general. This tea is a green tea everyone should try.
Shi Feng Supreme Dragon Well Green Tea from Grand Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Grand Tea
Tea Description:
Dragon Well is a most celebrated green tea in China, the name comes from the town Lung Ching which means Dragon Well in direct translation. In recently research shows that fresh green tea, particularly in young buds contains high levels of antioxidants, and is very good for the skin and has anti-cancer properties. EGCG and theanine exist in the highest concentration in these young tea buds.
Typical for Shi Feng Dragon Well is the yellowish green leafs, sweet with a hint of chestnuts like fragrance and refreshing aftertaste. GrandTea’s Xi Feng Dragon Well is still hand-picked and hand-roasted the traditional way.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Oh, wow, I’m loving this Shi Feng Supreme Dragon Well Green Tea from Grand Tea! It’s so delightfully sweet and nutty.
To brew it, I used my Kati tumbler and rather than measuring these long leaves in a bamboo scoop, I simply pinched out an amount that looked to me like a scoop. (I call this my eyeball pinch method.) Then I heated the kettle to 180°F and added 12 ounces of hot water to the tumbler and let the tea steep for 2 minutes.
Now, Dragon Well tea is one of those teas that you can actually leave the leaves in the cup. I’m told that it’s one of those teas that you don’t need to strain the leaves – you can just keep on infusing, adding more water as you drink the tea. But, I’ve not tried it that way. I remember the very first time I tried Dragon Well tea, I either oversteeped it or steeped it at too high a temperature. Either way, the tea was just not something I wanted to drink. So since that time, I’m careful with how I brew a Dragon Well.
I’m quite satisfied with the way this cuppa turned out!
It’s sweet, buttery, lightly vegetal and deliciously nutty with a flavor reminiscent of freshly roasted chestnuts. It also has a really pleasant, creamy texture.
And while I’m not one to keep the leaves in my cup and keep adding hot water to the cup – I’m all about the resteep! I resteeped these leaves three times with no real significant loss in flavor!
This is indeed a superb Dragon Well! I highly recommend it.
