Anji Bai Cha

Thank you Roughage for this lovely tea sample!

Oh the people you meet on Steepster!

There should be a place just for the stories!

Roughage lives in the U.K. in a small town. We exchange Personal Messages at times about life in the U.K. and life in the U.S. since both of us live in smallish towns. His wife has a flower shop and sometimes he has to help deliver flowers and traverse the traffic (which he hates) when he’d rather be in his books with the cats laying about and a pot of tea. I can’t blame him there. We’ve discovered we’re both former athletes with aches and pains and both full of lame old codgery jokes and puns.
My conversations with my Canadian neighbors up North are delightful! They seem to drink as much cold brewed and iced tea as U.S. Southerner’s and are generous to a fault about sharing samples.
China, Japan, Denmark, Italy, India, Croatia, Australia and Equador. We are the TEA United Nations.
From San Francisco Amy Oh in the fog to New York and Washington D.C., we few in Colorado, Idaho, Seattle and Texas too…everyone has their own twist of excellent personality. The students and young professionals, mom’s, dad’s, and me…a grandma who lives in my tea cave.
We all belong. We’re like a group of kids who went to Summer Camp and gathered around the campfire for tea. It’s just the best.

Gush, Gush, Gush!

Review:(You thought I’d never get around to this!)

Roughage said that this was one of his favorite tea’s. He steeps it at about 140F which is a pretty low temp. for 2-4 minutes. I did the same and steeped the leaves 3 times.

I wouldn’t call this a grassy tea. The leaves were bright and beautiful nettles when dry, with varied greens. Mostly unbroken leaves. When wet the color was bright green spears and by the third steeping soft pale green. Very pretty.
The wet leaves smelled so wonderful that it was hard to pull away to drink the tea! Because I’m allergic to bean’s (even green beans) the opportunity to taste and smell this exquisite flavor without an allergic reaction was exciting. The aroma was very vegital and salty.

The taste was tender green beans sauteed in unsalted fresh cream butter then finished with a quick splash of lemon juice at the end to brighten up the flavor. The juicy, creamy tea filled my mouth.

The second steep was lighter and dry on the tip of the tongue, still juicy and lemony becoming creamy as the tea cooled. There was less of a pronounced bean flavor but overall this was delicate and an awesome cup.

On the third steep I noticed a little astringency, and just a slight bean taste. The flavor all through three steepings lingered well after the tasting making the experience smooth and enjoyable.

I enjoyed this tea as you can tell from the good mood and comfort it provided! One of the best things that tea does for me is provide an amazingly good cup and a great community to share with!

I just got my first order from Canton Tea Co in about two years. It’s nice having a regular income again! So, anyway, I bought more Anji Bai Cha because I had not had any since last I reviewed it here. I could not wait to try it again, so I ripped open the packet at work and set to. Conditions here are sub-optimal, but no matter, I needed this fix. And, you know what? It was worth it.

The dry leaf is grassy and warm like new-mown hay. The liquor is pale with a citrussy, apple aroma. And it tastes divine. So light and refreshing. There is a hint of umami lifted by a smooth sweetness and that apple that was in the aroma is also in the taste of the liquor. The aftertaste just sparkled on my tongue like a delicate champagne with a slightly spicy finish. The chi of this tea left me feeling so relaxed, almost to the point of being tea-drunk after just one cup.

Very few teas leave me this excited. This tea is awesome and is right there at the top among my favourite teas.

So, as I child, I used to eat grass. Not a lot, and not actual grazing, but every so often when outside, I’d pick a blade and nibble. Thank goodness my parently didn’t use chemical fertilizer, and that we didn’t have any dogs! I favored wild grass, because you can get the milder white hearts of grass from the inner stem in larger portions than from regular lawn grass.

That is what this tea reminds me of – those mild grass hearts. It’s a lovely mellow, smooth and grassy tea. And grass really is a motif throughout the tea. The dry leaf looks like dried grass slippings, while having cocoa and nutty aroma notes. The brewed leaf looks even more like grass clippings and smells like a typical green tea.

But the brew – oh! the brew. It’s lovely. Others have called it sweet. I don’t get sweet. I get grassy, lightly nutty, and very mellow. Mild. Very lightly colored. This is a tea I could sip all day. Lovely, lovely tea.

from http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/2408/tea-review-canton-tea-anji-bai-cha-2/

Another tea from TeaEqualsBliss Thank you!!!

A lovely sweet flavor, pleasantly vegetative without being too grassy. Very light and delicious.

Brewed in Big Glass Teapot

Creamy, Tangy, and a little semi-sweet grassy type taste. Light and Clean. Very nice!

Smells good. Looks exactly like dried grass clippings. It has a light, very slightly grassy taste. No complaints. Very solid white tea. I think I could drink it all day… and just might.

Very fresh tea with spring green colored leaves, scents of mineral and spinach. Very light spring green color liquor that is very light and delicate as it is brewed at a lower temperature.
It is very cleansing and has a touch of astringency. It almost has a hint of jasmine but this is not a jasmine tea. It is supposed to have an “oily” liquor but I didn’t find that at all. I found it very clean.
LIght, fresh, and springy green tea.

This tea also has Se Wei (which is a term I just read about) which I have found in some younger white teas. It is a feeling of having a rough tongue, as astringency deploys, the taste buds contract and it can feel a bit itchy. It is very itchy in the back of the throat.