It’s Monday, and I’ve got a cupboard bursting with untasted teas! I’m going to try comparing some milk oolongs later this week, but for now, this seemed like a nice way to start.
I got this as a sample from Tao Tea Leaf when I met up with Indigobloom last week – just a little paper pouch.
Dry leaf: Long, dark, and quite spindly. It smelled faintly sweet, but I couldn’t quite compare it to anything. They were a bit hard to measure, but I tried to get 3 tsp of leaf as closely as I could. There should be at least as much leaf left in the sample.
Steeping parameters: The sample didn’t come with any instructions, so I fell back on the default green steeping parameters that I’ve seen others use: 1 tsp for 8 oz of water, 80°C for 3 minutes.
Liquor: The wet leaves smelled very heavily of salt, butter, and vegetables. After steeping, they were a nice olive/jade green, and I hope to get at least one more steep out of them. The liquor is a pale golden colour that shades down to a deeper amber as it sits in the pot. The taste is similar to the wet leaf aroma: buttered vegetables (I’m getting asparagus) with a slight taste of honey at the beginning of the sip. There’s also a bit of astringency as the sip progresses, leading to a bit of dry throat.
Verdict: I quite like this! It’s smooth and slightly sweet, while still retaining a lot of the crisp flavours I associate with green tea. I hope that this tea turns out to be characteristic of Bi Luo Chuns in general. I’ll edit the note once I get a second steep out of the pot.
Flavors: Asparagus, Butter
Yum! Glad you enjoyed it :D