Ah, so this is melon seed tea. I had never heard of this tea before and did some searching about it while I was enjoying it.
The colour of the leaves I have are not quite like in the picture. Mine are quite dark, still green but looking almost black. I could smell a bit of spinach off the dry leaves.
The brew is a yellow colour. Not dark and not light – just yellow. It was grassy, a bit spinach & vegetal. The spinach & grassiness added that umami feel to it. There was also a slight nuttiness I always get from the Chinese green teas but wasn’t very strong in this one. What stood out more was the grassy flavour and that wasn’t overly strong like in Japanese teas but strong for a Chinese tea.
The first cup was excellent but in later brews the bitterness started creeping a bit into this tea. That was fine with me since I don’t always want plenty of infusions of every tea.
I’ve only had this one and Jin Shan Shi Yu so far and at this point I like the Jin Shan Shi Yu better than this one . This one is lacking the strong nutty/sweetness that the other had.
Flavors: Grass, Nutty, Spinach