First Flush Mao Feng Yunnan Green Tea Spring 2016

Quick Backlog/Sipdown Review

Green, vegatal, sweet, floral, & refreshing goodness. I had to order more while YS has their sale on teaware…because with teaware, you’ll need more tea to go with it. :P

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTCMrdjls8I/?taken-by=s.g.sanders_teaman

Dry leaf: FRAGRANT, VEGETAL: fragrant wood, honeysuckle, milky tea, sweet mustiness. In preheated vessel: popcorn, cooked sweet corn, sweet note like salted caramel

Smell: VEGETAL, SWEET: sweetened milky tea, honeysuckle, sweet green beans

Taste: NUTTY, VEGETAL: sweet corn, cream, popcorn roastedness/nuttiness, cooked green beans, milky tea, honeysuckle, hint of maraschino cherry and cherry wood.

A few thoughts on this one. First, it provides an interesting experience that is a mix of white and green tea. It has the fragrant creaminess of a white tea while also providing the vegetal nuttiness of a Chinese green.

Second, I had quite a bit of difficulty brewing it. I tried everything – leaf amount, water temperature, steep times. For me, the best solution was an infuser basket full of leaf left in 12-16oz of 190-200 water for a few minutes. I rarely think this is the best way to brew stuff up, but this is what worked best for me for this tea. It did not perform well in a gaiwan – body was consistently too thin and it simply did not resteep well.

So, here’s what I would say – if you’re looking for a to-go green tea, an easy-going green that you can take to work, plop in a mug, maybe forget about for a while… and still have some decent tea, then this is your guy.

Steeped this western style a couple of times and found it fairly unremarkable. It tasted a lot better gongfu’d. Smooth and light bodied with notes of tender green beans, vegetable broth, and umami. There’s some marine/seaweed flavor in the background, though not off-putting, that fades after the first couple of steeps. It finishes with a nice peppery aftertaste.

Although I prefer Laoshan and other green teas, this is still a good, approachable Yunnan green tea – just make sure not to overbrew it.

Smooth, nutty in taste and smell, with a slight sweetness following. Very easy to drink with a pretty light green color, silky texture, and pleasantly savory taste. Has a very nice “fresh” spring feeling to the after taste as well, although I feel it needs more body/flavors to round it out, unfortunately. Not bitter at all, does have some mild to moderate astringency if you push it too long steep wise.

I tried this western-ish style to start due to a rushed morning, 5 grams per 8 oz, two minute-ish steeps. Will report back after trying other methods if they vary result wise.

Not sure what the heck I’m doing different, but my subsequent steeps have all tasted crazily heavy on the umami to the point where it tastes like dashi without the fish flavor to me. Will try cutting back on the temp and/or leaf see if that’s where I’m going wrong, but it’s kind of insanely strong and a bit unpleasant to me at this strength…