Liu An Gua Pian (Melon Seed)

The dry leaf is interesting, greyish green, with some large, rightly rolled cylinders, and small broken pieces. Faint vegetal and musty smell.

Steeped the liquor is an amber gold. Nutty, sweet, and grassy on the nose, with similar notes on the palate. Light honey notes, with a bit of umami. Faintly astringent.

Taste wise, this feels quite similar to many of the senchas I’ve tried recently. I think I should have steeped it a few seconds shorter than I did.

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

After cleaning, writing, and baking some banana bread, I figured this tea would be a good way to relax. Many thanks to Tao for giving me a sample when I visited his shop a month ago.

For some reason, this tea isn’t listed on the Tao Tea Leaf site – so I have no idea what the correct steeping parameters are. For now, I just did my standard thing for greens: 1 tsp per 8 oz, 80C, for 3 minutes.

The results were surprising. The dry leaf was sweet and fruity – I didn’t get the raspberry note that Polly mentioned below; instead, it seemed more to me like stonefruit.

The dry leaf is long, dark sage green, and tubular. Because of the length, it was difficult to measure, so I might have overleafed this.

Once the tea was done steeping, I was greeted by that same fruity scent.

The liquor was fairly light but darkened as the tea sat and cooled. I took my first sip after it had a chance to cool down and….

Interesting! It reminds me an awful lot of Nina’s Paris’s “Demain” tea – the green tea with raspberry and strawberry flavouring. It’s got that same musty, dusty undertone I’ve sensed in that tea, and the fruitiness is definitely similar. I would not be surprised at all if this tea variety (Liu An Gua Pian) were revealed to be the base of Nina’s greens.

I have enough left for maybe a largish cup. I’m not quite sure if I’ll restock this, but I’m glad I got a sample.

I steep it for about 25 seconds. It’s a nice light yellow colour. Mmm… very light. It has a mild fruit taste… like berries or currants. But it’s very subtle. I’m going to need another cup! Yes, the second cup is a bit more developed. It has just a whisper of fruity/raspberry taste. Yet, it’s so light! It evaporates on your tongue, leaving a very clean finish. Almost like it wasn’t there! This is a very nice summertime tea. Nothing at all like artificially flavoured “berry” tea, this one is fresh, clean, light… like raspberry scented dandelion fluff! Cup #3 is still delicious, but it has changed a bit. A little more floral, mixed with the fruit. I don’t know how many infusions it will take, but it shows no sign of stopping with the deliciosity!