Gunpowder Temple of Heaven

Woke up with this tasty tea today. Bought in mesh sachets and brewed western style, the leaves unfurled beautifully and the two steepings were golden yellow and clear, becoming somewhat cloudy as they cooled. Smooth, buttery, vegetal, energizing and fragrant. A great way to face a snowbound winter day.

I finally managed to finish the last of a 50 gram pouch of this tea a couple days ago and have been putting off writing a review ever since. I don’t know what has come over me, but the past couple of days has seen my motivation and focus slip in all areas of my life. I think a lot of that may have to do with me growing increasingly frustrated and restless in my current career and feeling jittery about the upcoming career change I have planned, but who knows? All I know is that I need to get myself back on track. I’m going to carve out some personal time this weekend and hopefully go into the workweek with my head back on my shoulders. With all of that out of the way, this was the tea I drank during the bulk of my current bout of listlessness. It kind of fit my overall mood and state of mind, but all in all, it was just a predictable, filling gunpowder green tea.

I prepared this tea Western style. I started off by steeping 1 teaspoon of loose tea leaves in approximately 8 ounces of 175 F water for 2 minutes. Afterwards, I conducted a 3 minute infusion and stopped there. I think the next time I decide to drink a gunpowder green tea, I may gongfu it. I have yet to try that on this type of tea.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea pellets did not emit much of an aroma. I got a little bit of lemon and roasted vegetables, but that was about it. After infusion, I detected more pronounced scents of grilled lemon, grass, hay, asparagus, seaweed, garden peas, roasted Brussels sprouts, and pine. In the mouth, I picked up mostly roasted Brussels sprouts, pine, asparagus (I seem to be picking this aroma and flavor up a lot in the green teas I have been drinking over the past couple of months), seaweed, peas, hay, damp grass, and grilled lemon. I could also pick out a few other vegetal notes, perhaps something along the lines of bok choy and/or napa cabbage. There was a hint of smoke too. The second infusion was a little more robust both on the nose and in the mouth. The smokiness strengthened and I began to definitely pick out something along the lines of napa cabbage and bok choy. There were also subtle notes of cauliflower and broccoli, as well as a touch of minerals. Otherwise, all of the other aromas and flavors from the initial infusion were there in varying amounts.

This really was not a terrible tea, but I found that much like everything else in my life, it could not sustain my interest for any length of time. I do like gunpowder teas, but I often tend to find them boring, so I suppose that should not have been surprising. I feel like I got a lot out of it, but lately I have been tending to push my nose and palate more with regard to green teas than just about any other type of tea. Overall, I cannot say that this was bad, but I also cannot claim that it impressed me. It failed to offer any surprises or challenge me in any way. How much one likes this tea will probably depend on how one feels about gunpowder green teas in general.