Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Shan Valley
Tea Description:
This tea hails from Pyin Long within Northern Shan, Myanmar. This is also a first flush tea and is an everyday drinking tea. This tea is a reddish color.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Although I drink a lot more green tea than I used to, I still consider myself a learner when it comes to my familiarity with different types. This green tea looks like none I’ve seen before. For a start, the leaves are pretty much a uniform dark brown, almost black. They’re also wider than I’m used to seeing, kind of rounded or bowl shaped at the tip, tapering in to a narrow, short stalk. Intriguing! I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 2.5 minutes in water cooled to around 170 degrees.
Wet, the leaves do show some hints of green after all, although there are large brown patches on almost all of them. The scent is interesting – almost olive-like. It really reminds me of a very green extra virgin olive oil! The liquor is a pale yellow-gold.
To taste, this one is pure smooth, buttery amazingness. The flavour is mild and sweet, reminiscent of freshly buttered peas. It’s hard to say it’s “oily” because it’s really not, but it has an oil-like mouthfeel, really bringing to life the olive oil scent I noticed initially in the wet leaf. It’s not an over strong or pungent flavour, which is the kind of green tea I get along with best. There’s absolutely no bitterness or astringency at all, which is another firm point in its favour in my book. As it cools, I can detect a sharper, greener, almost chlorophyll-like note creeping in just a little. It’s an interesting contrast to the earlier flavours, and works particularly well with the rich, olive oil like flavour this possesses.
Pyin Green is making for a very enjoyable mid-afternoon cup. I think it’s a pretty perfect green tea, certainly in terms of flavour, level of intensity and smoothness. I feel like I could drink this one any time and be happy with the result.
