Thank you so much to Teavivre for sending this sample to review, and my sincerest apologies for taking so long in getting to it. I finally dug out my Teavivre packages, and hopefully will get the majority of them reviewed in the next few days.
Anyhow, first up is this delicious-smelling tea. The aroma from the baggie is sweet, vegetal, green beany…. my ideal green tea. I also am brewing up the Nonpareil Te Gong version, and this one was a darker green with a more intense vegetal aroma, although both smell great.
First sips… and I think I’ve made a couple mistakes here. A) contaminated palate (just ate some supper), so the tea tastes weaker than I think it actually is, and B) I think I may have underinfused. I neglected to set a timer, but was pretty sure I’d given the teas about 2 minutes, my standard green infusion (at about 180F); the bag recommends 3-5 minutes, and I think next time I’d go a bit longer. There’s certainly no indication whatsoever of bitterness, just a light, creamy, vegetal green, with a wonderful sweet, hay-like aroma. Comparing to the Nonpareil version, I think this one has greater flavour potential, although I believe both are nice. Looks like, however, I’ll be waiting until the second infusion (during which I will infuse more generously!) to make more detailed notes.
Side note: I did only measure out about 1.5 tsp… it’s possible that I underleafed, since the leaves here were delicate and intact. Hard to say where exactly I went wrong, but personally, understeeping is preferable to overstepping!
ETA: Yep, this one is the more flavourful/vegetal/beany/sweet of the two, and therefore more enjoyable. I added probably another tsp of tea to the infuser, and gave it a 4 minute infusion, and it was great. The original flavours, but amplified. No bitterness. Hard to believe with such a long infusion!
