This is another one of those teas I pretty much only bought because the leaves looked pretty and bright green in the pictures. Matcha and jasmine greens used to be the only green teas I drank regularly but I’m starting to really like these more delicate greens. I have the spring 2019 harvest.

I started with a gaiwan and then scooped the leaves into a bottle to experiment with Grandpa style when I got tired of trying to keep track of the steeps. The individual leaves are relatively small but it looks like the tip of each branch (?) was picked as a cluster. I’m no expert on these things but it looks like two leaves, a bud and a bit of stem in each cluster. It’s stiff and pine needley dry and takes up quite a bit of room. I filled my gaiwan most of the way with dry leaves and started with steeps of about 10sec with 180° water. Not sure if I’ve mentioned my water in other notes but I usually use bottled spring water for tea because my tap water smells quite a bit like dirty fish tank to me. Each steep seemed to have a different main flavor…snap pea or sort of tofu beany or some kind of leafy green or floral. Fresh tasting and light but not weak at all. My empty cup smelled kind of spicy in a way that reminded me of Biscoff cookies or maybe snickerdoodles. It was a long day and around steep 5 I was getting tired and not sure how much longer I wanted to pay attention to steep time but the tea still had plenty of flavor left. Into the double-walled glass bottle it went to see how it does grandpa style. It seemed just as tasty and much less work.
ashmanra

Oh, neat! And good to know about the grandpa results. I enjoy Anji Bai Cha.

derk

Anji bai cha is def on my list of teas to try this year if shipping times from China improve.

DrowningMySorrows

Shipping from China (or anywhere, really) has been dreadfully slow since covid hit, hasn’t it? I’m probably going to give myself a repetitive motion injury from constantly clicking refresh on my tracking pages for months and months. If only obsessively stalking packages online would make them move faster.

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ashmanra

Oh, neat! And good to know about the grandpa results. I enjoy Anji Bai Cha.

derk

Anji bai cha is def on my list of teas to try this year if shipping times from China improve.

DrowningMySorrows

Shipping from China (or anywhere, really) has been dreadfully slow since covid hit, hasn’t it? I’m probably going to give myself a repetitive motion injury from constantly clicking refresh on my tracking pages for months and months. If only obsessively stalking packages online would make them move faster.

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I may have a mild to moderate tea addiction. Black, white, green, pu-erh, it doesn’t matter. I’m a little on the fence about oolongs but I’m starting to think I’m just particular about how they’re brewed. I haven’t tried any yellows yet but they’re on my wishlist so I can have a complete rainbow of tea. My tea problem is bad enough that I don’t necessarily even need tea in my tea, most herbals are welcome in my house too.

Favorites: jasmine, moonlight white, shou mei, chenpi/tangerine peel, violet, rose, Mengku sheng (especially autumn), anji bai cha, taiping houkui, blooming tea balls, tulsi/holy basil, chamomile

Dislikes: red rooibos, eucalyptus, allspice, flavorings of unknown origin, pumpkin, apple, banana, annoying flower petals that don’t add any flavor but are thrown in to look pretty (they tend to float and get in my way if I brew tea grandpa style)

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Montana, USA

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