Xin Yang Mao Jian Green Tea

Sip down :( sigh, but I have to make room for the next round of samples that are in route :)

I think I have always liked this one more than most folks on Steepster. I love the sweet smell of the dry leaf. I love the stew beef smell of the wet leaf. I love the fresh crisp taste with the nice bite at the end. I love the clean green lingering aftertaste. This is just a good satisfying cup with far more depth than it should have for the price. You get all this with only a one minute steep.

Experience buying from Teavivre http://steepster.com/places/2857-teavivre-online—

UPDATE on 12-1-12: I just finished the last 2-3 grams of this tea in my 14 OZ mini glass teapot, brewed following my standard green tea steeping times and temperatures. I don’t have much to report over what I wrote previously. Still, I am posting this because multiple steeping sessions creates more data from which to make a judgement about how I feel about a tea. Briefly, this tea tastes a lot like many Huang Shan Mao Feng type green teas I have had in that this tea has a slightly smoky flavor; it is decent tasting and as I haven’t had a smoky green tea in awhile the flavor was a nice change from the standard green tea flavor profile I usually enjoy. If you like Huang Shan Mao Feng you may like this tea, but as I am personally not a huge fan of smoky green teas this tea is not something I feel I need to have on hand.

Note: this review is based on the 2012 harvest.

After Angel sent me a PM requesting I review a group of selected tea samples she was willing to send me, I requested this particular spring green tea to try out as well (along with one other), and she willingly sent it along with the rest. Thank you Angel and Teavivre!

This Xin Yang Mao Jian green tea is advertized as being harvested on April 19, 2012. I brewed this up days after I received this tea.

I was happy all around with the Organic Tian Mu Mao Feng (OTMMF) green tea I tried of theirs just days ago, so I was looking forward to trying this one as well. This one smelled as fresh as the OTMMF, but with a hint of roasted smokiness to it. The tea was a little more standard looking: small, wire-y, dark-green looking leaves. as with the OTMMF I held a little back to give me the option of brewing it up in my gaiwan at a later time.

The temperature on the first steeping—185F—ended up being a little hotter than I was aiming for—180F (although I am now much more proficient with using my thermometer, using it to determine the actual temperature in the teapot while pouring is very tedious and often troublesome). I noticed that the leaves seemed to love sitting on the bottom of my glass Bodum for every steeping. The color of the liquor was a cloudy greenish, and there was something in the aroma that I have not found in four different green teas I had brewed up on previous days; it was interesting, and may have been sweet and/or nutty (possibly like a Dragon Well). I brewed it on the first steeping for 1.5 minutes.

The wet leaf smelled OK, but not as fresh as the other fresh green teas I have been brewing up. I also noticed after the first steeping that it looked worn—some of the leaves looked torn and as-a-whole they had an uneven look about them. It’s funny that it just dawned on me that I composted the leaves after the forth steeping, so no ‘wet leaf analysis’; ooops! I may do one when I brew up the remaining amount of the dry leaf. The coloring, however, was clearly fresh: it was a vibrant green color (I feel I have looked at enough green teas to be able to spot the difference between a fresh one and an old one).

It had a good, strong vegetal flavor (possibly stronger than the OTMMF), with a somewhat smoke-y note (my wife didn’t get a chance to smell the dry leaf on this one, yet she noticed the smokiness when drinking it before I said anything). When it cooled to room temperature the smokiness was even more prominent (it reminded me somewhat of a good tasting Huang Shan Mao Feng). The smokiness wasn’t too strong though; as a rule, my wife DOES NOT LIKE SMOKY FLAVORS IN TEA, but for some reason, she still liked the taste of this one (I was watching her while she took her first sip, wondering if she was going to make a face that meant she didn’t like it, but thankfully ‘that look’ never made an appearance).

I did a total of four steepings, and there was considerable difference in the flavor on even the second steeping. I brewed the second at 185F for two minutes, and the flavor was weaker and not as fresh as the first; it was definitely lacking something that all of the other fresh teas had been gifting me with all week, and there was nothing ‘quality’ about it. This lack of freshness in the later steepings was disappointing to me, as I felt this was a possible ‘buy’ until then. The third and forth weren’t any better (with hotter temperatures and longer steeping times): it was as if the flavor was flat. I do consider the possibility that 185F was too hot for the first steeping, and so it scorched the leaves; but if it’s truly that delicate, or finicky, or whatever I want to call it, I don’t want to mess with it (I always figure there may be a five degree variance between the temperature I am shooting for and what it actually is in the pot).

It’s a decent tasting, fresh green tea, but its actually more expensive ($11.50 / 100g) that the OTMMF ($10.90 / 100g), so I think I’ll be putting my money on the OTMMF.

I am loving this tea today! I made Egg Fu Young for lunch and served this. It had so much flavor, sweet and creamy, smooth but no shrinking violet, it had lots of flavor. After lunch when I sipped, I could taste the slight smoke as well, but the food covered it with the meal.

This is fabulous, and just may join Huang Shan Mao Feng and Bi Luo Chun in my list of must have green teas.

Thank you, Teavivre, for sending this for me to try.

Very good green tea, slightly vegetal very little astringency that was very it was also slightly smokey but very pleasant and refreshing, This would be a tea that I would serve to friends who ask for a good Green tea.

Tea sample provided by Teavivre for review

I tried this in a gaiwan (30s, +10s resteeps) but didn’t enjoy the result very much. So I then prepared it in a glass and used longer steeps.

First steep tasted sweet, vegetal, with honeydew and cucumber flavour, and was slightly buttery. Liquor felt very smooth and soft in my mouth.

Drinking from the second steep, the flavour is obviously much stronger, but still nice and not bitter. I prefer the delicate aroma of the first cup though.

As a personal preference, I think this tea benefits from a higher water to leaf ratio than offered by a gaiwan. One cup of water (I tend to use a bit more at 250ml) per 1 tsp worked very well for me. I still have plenty of the tea sample left so I will keep adjusting the steep settings to find what I like best.

Overall Xin Yang Mao Jian turned out to be very nice with a strong aroma and a fresh vegetal feel.

Glass mug, 250ml of water, 1 tsp, 2 steeps

Thank you Angel for this sample. :)

Since I have been on a green tea bender this appeals to me very much and it’s another sample for me to drink up.

In raw form the leaves are very thin, long, curly and dark green. They have a beautiful thick, vegetal scent much like kale mixed with peony and a dash of grass. Similar to Bi Luo Chun.

Being steeped in my Gongfu teapot three times for 1 minute, 2 minutes and 3 minutes.

Once steeped this is yellow in colour and has a sweet floral and spinach aroma.

In flavour this is floral, grassy, thick, kelpy, sweet and very vegetal. It’s a little astringent and perfume like but now the leaves have been woken up it should vanish over the next steeps.

Yes the second steep is smoother and a little sweeter. Very nice :)

Overall it’s fresh and good quality, well worth a try for strong green tea lovers.

I was thinking of re stocking Bi Luo Chun but this is a very close competitor. :)

3 heaping tsp. of tea, 500 ml. water in the Breville at below parameters.

There is more smoke than I remember in both the smell and the taste of the steeped tea this time. The smoke is right at the beginning of the sip, and then the vegetal note takes over toward the end. It’s reminding me of smoked meats. I think that this would have been good with a savory meal.

I have enough tea to have a few more cups, so I’m curious to see whether this steep (with the smoky notes) or the previous one (which was much more green/spinachy), was the odd one out.

I discovered we had a big stash of this from our original sample that never got consumed before the holiday break, so I have been contentedly “sipping it down” each day from my new gaiwan.

This tea fits the gaiwan perfectly. The leaves open up huge and full in the cup, the liqueur is nearly the same color as the cup itself.

I feel like a decadent ex-pat during the 1930’s with this cup and this tea.

Backlogging from last month.

Thank you Teavivre for this sample.

The dry leaves are dark green, long and thing, and smell like dried out seaweed…not the nasty smelling stuff you find on the beach, more like the kind you use for making sushi. The infusion smells of asparagus lightly cooked in salt and butter.

The taste reflects the smell of the infusion: steamed asparagus coated lightly in salt and butter. There are some notes of corn bread with a sweetish aftertaste. This tea I found to be a bit more bold than most green teas I drink yet it contained no bitterness. Thank you Teavivre for letting me try this yummy green tea!

Another green tea provided by Teavivre. Like I’ve mentioned before, I feel like this is part of a green tea education I’ve needed for a while.

The leaves are very dark green and rolled very thin. Like dried moss. They’re thinner and more delicate in texture than any tea I’ve ever had. They became a brilliant spinach green when brewed, though the tea itself was very lightly colored. A faint yellowy green. It smells like the sea and vegetables and honey all at once.

The taste reminds me a little of nori, but my senses are not very refined for this sort of thing. I’m also reminded of okra for some reason. Something about it just makes me think of summer and fresh veggies from my grandparents’ garden. Despite the short steep time, this tea is very flavorful. I think I’m starting to develop a liking for green tea.