Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Foxfire Teas
Tea Description:
The most famous Chinese green tea; herbaceous with slight cocoa notes | ORGANIC
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Dragon Well tea is one of those teas that I don’t drink very often, but, when I do get one to try – I can’t help but wonder why I don’t drink it more often! I love Dragon Well, and this is a really good Dragon Well.
The answer to the above quandary is that I have a lot of tea to drink. It’s hard to be dedicated to one particular tea when one reviews tea like I do, because there are a lot of teas out there, and even after writing a couple of thousand reviews, I’ve hardly scratched the surface on all the teas out there for me to try! However, if I were not writing reviews as often as I do, and I were looking for that one special Dragon Well to keep stocked in my cupboard, this one would certainly be a contender!
Yes, it’s that good!
On Steepster, I described this Dragon Well as a “slow developing” Dragon Well. That is to say, the flavors don’t jump right out and onto the palate with the first or second sip. It takes a few sips to really notice the complexity in this cup. And even after that, I notice more flavors, the more I sip!
After the first few sips, I start to notice the vegetative tones emerging: sweet and tasting a bit like mild beans. A few sips later, and I notice a definite cocoa-ish note emerging. I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed a chocolate-y note in a Dragon Well before. By mid-cup, I notice a slight citrus-y tone emerging. This taste comes right before the tail end of the sip, and lingers into the aftertaste.
A really rich, rewarding cup of tea. I highly recommend it! Even if you’ve tried Dragon Well tea (and if you’re a tea lover … you probably have), it is definitely worthwhile to try more than one … even teas with the same name can taste different, and I think that this one is one that is worth exploring.
Organic Superfine Dragon Well Long Jing from Teavivre
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teavivre
Tea Description:
This Organic Dragon Well Long Jing tea origins in organic tea base of Tianmu Mountain in Lin’an, Hangzhou. The organic tea base of Tianmu Mountain, has passed the organic certification of European, USA and Japan, is a significant base of planting organic dragon well and green tea. This dragon well long jing tea persists a high level in picking and producing while meeting the standard of organic certification. The tea should be picked as one bud and two leaves or three leaves in order to reach the standard. Tea workers also have excellent skills, which help keep the natural features of fresh tea leaves. Combined with the advantages of organic tea and high grade tea, this dragon well long jing tea is suitable for tea lovers of organic tea as well as dragon well green tea.
Learn more about this green tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I like Dragon Well tea (I didn’t always, but that’s another story), so it doesn’t surprise me that I’m enjoying this Organic Superfine Long Jing from Teavivre. I knew I’d like it. And I do.
But, what I didn’t expect is how much I’d like it. This is one of the very best – if not the best – Dragon Well teas I’ve encountered. It tastes so crisp and clean. It tastes sweet and slightly vegetative, with buttery undertones. Vaguely reminiscent of steamed fresh veggies – sweet, mild tasting veggies. Like fresh lima beans with just a touch of melted butter. Delicious and mouthwatering!
What I really like about this tea, though, is not the vegetable taste but the taste of freshly roasted chestnuts! Because of this sweet, nutty flavor, it tastes very much like autumn to me, and is making me look forward to a time when it will be cool enough to start a fire in the fireplace and roast some chestnuts! YUM!
Drinking this Long Jing offers a great sense of calm and satisfaction, but at the same time, I can feel it rejuvenate me. I feel invigorated as I drink it – but not so invigorated that I am bouncing off the walls. It leaves me feeling refreshed and relaxed.
Another exceptional tea from a company that seems to offer nothing but exceptional teas – Teavivre!
LongWu Dragon Well from Tealet
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Tealet
Tea Description:
The tea leaves are harvested in April each year and processed by Farmer Ge senior . The premium processed dry leaves are smooth and flat with a uniform size. They have a golden-green color. After steeping them in hot water, they taste fresh with an earthy aroma. The brewed water is clear and bright with a lighter shade of the golden-green color. Looking at the dry leaves absorbing the water into tea leaf flowers is a pleasure for your eyes.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Opening this pouch was such a treat for the eyes. The leaves are gorgeous! Each leaf is nearly identical in size and shape, and they are a beautiful green color that is almost forest green, but they have a beautiful golden hue too. They have a fresh, grassy scent to them. It was an amazingly beautiful experience for this tea lover!
And the experience continues … the flavor is delightful! Sweet and vegetative but not what I’d call “grassy” … certainly not as grassy in taste as the fragrance of the dry leaves might lead one to believe. It is more like the flavor of lightly buttered, freshly steamed lima beans. Not the dried lima beans, or even the kind you might buy in a can or in the frozen aisle of your local grocery store. The flavor of this tea is reminiscent of the freshly shelled lima beans that my gramma would pick from her garden in the morning, and then steam and serve for dinner that evening. Fresh! Vibrant! Delicious!
There is a creaminess to this as well, one that I do not normally associate with a typical Dragon Well tea, but then again, this is not your average Dragon Well. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, this has a lightly buttered taste, and that is where the creaminess comes in. The butter tastes light and creamy, and it doesn’t build on the palate. It just sort of peaks its way in around mid-sip, and disappears by the end of the sip … just enough creamy goodness to enhance the savory element of this tea.
Some tasting notes on Steepster have suggested a hint of bitterness to this tea and I don’t really get bitterness in the traditional sense of the word. What I taste is more of a savory element that is difficult to describe. It’s quite unlike any other Dragon Well I’ve tasted before, and yet it does have a sort of familiarity to it.
I love the balance here: it is sweet, but it is also savory. It doesn’t taste too sweet, and the creaminess does not overwhelm or saturate the palate. It has a pleasant body to it, nicely round, but at the same time it does not feel heavy… it has a light, invigorating taste and texture to it, making it the perfect afternoon tea. This is one that you want to keep resteeping, too. The leaves can handle it! I managed three very flavorful infusions from one measurement of leaves, and I think they could have delivered a fourth and possibly a fifth, too.
A superior Dragon Well, one of the best I’ve tried. I think that this is one that could satisfy even the most discriminating tea connoisseur. I highly recommend it!
Organic Dragon Well from Rishi Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Rishi Tea
Tea Description:
Dragon Well (Long Jing) is the most famous Chinese green tea, named after the Dragon’s Well landmark in the West lake area of the Zhejiang, where the tea originated. Dragon Well is a pan-fired green tea flat fried by hand in large woks one small batch at a time. This artisan processing technique yields a tea with leaves shaped like the blade of a sword. Each spring, during the prime Dragon Well harvest, we select a unique quality that has a balance of fresh green and smooth toasted flavors. Rishi’s Dragon Well is mellow and smooth with a fresh bittersweet finish and roasted chestnut aroma.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This month’s Steepster Select Box was a celebration of the Chinese New Year which marked the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. To celebrate this occasion, the Steepster Select Box included three Chinese teas: Two Dragons and a Pearl; a flowering tea from Teavivre; Dragon Well (Long Jing) from Rishi Tea; and Pheonix Yunnan Gold from Tea Valley. The flowering tea and the Yunnan tea are two teas that were new to me, and I’ve already reviewed them this month, but this Organic Dragon Well from Rishi Tea is one that I’m familiar with as I reviewed it several years ago.
This Dragon Well holds a somewhat special place in my heart as it represents the first Dragon Well tea that I tasted that I enjoyed, having had somewhat of a bad experience with a Dragon Well quite some time ago, I was hesitant to try it again. Since that time, I’ve realized that I’m actually fond of most Dragon Well teas, and I therefore must assume that it was how I brewed the tea, and not the tea itself that I found distasteful those many years ago.
The tea has a light to medium body and a crispness to it that is quite refreshing. It is sweet and smooth, with a very pleasing nutty flavor in the background. While the description on the Rishi website (provided above) describes this nutty flavor as a chestnut taste, I find it also tasting vaguely of roasted almonds, a flavor that is especially pronounced toward the finish. It tastes very much the way I think a roasted nut butter made of both almonds and chestnuts might taste.
While this Dragon Well has a somewhat grassy taste to it, I find that the grassy flavor can be toned down significantly by lowering the water temperature to just 175°F and steeping for about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. With this cup, I taste almost no grassy tones, only a hint of it in the distance.
A delicious Dragon Well, one that I’m very happy to be enjoying again!
Valley Peak (Ding Gu Da Fang) from Mandala Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Mandala Tea
Tea Description:
Like many of China’s famous greens, this tea also has a rich history. Known in China as Ding Gu Da Fang (Valley Peak Da Fang), it was named after the Buddhist monk who originally grew the plants on Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) centuries ago.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is my first tea that I’ve tried from this new tea company (or perhaps I should say, a company that is new to me!) and based upon this very positive experience, I am glad it won’t be the last tea I taste from them. I am absolutely LOVING this tea.
In the website description of this tea, Mandala Tea compares it to a LongJing (aka Dragon Well). And while I do enjoy a good Dragon Well Tea and can see where Mandala Tea is coming from with such a comparison, I have to say that I prefer this Ding Gu Da Fang to most Dragon Well teas that I’ve tried. It is lighter, sweeter and smoother than a typical LongJing.
There is such a charming nutty tone to this tea. It is light and crisp and reminds me of the snap (or crunch) you’d experience when biting into a cashew. It has a creamy smooth flavor that reminds me of the mild, creamy taste of a delicious roasted nut. The texture is light and clean, with a very mild astringency at the tail of the sip.
The sweetness and smoothness of this tea reminds me a bit of a yellow tea, so I have categorized this as both a green tea and a yellow tea, because even though it is a green tea, it has so many characteristics that remind me of a yellow tea. This is an extraordinary tea; I highly recommend it.