LongJing Green Tea 2013

Gongfu Teapot – 8oz
Leaf -7g
Water Temp – 80ºC
Steeps – 1m,2m,3m

Raw leaves are long, thin and crisp with a sweet, grassy and perfumed scent.

Steep 1 – 1m
Light, sweet, floral, grassy, dry
Delicate and refreshing, sweeter than expected and also left a fresh but dry hay after taste.

Steep 2 – 2m
As the strength has increased the sweetness has decreased though is still present. A touch astringent. It’s much more floral and mineral now but still with minimal dryness. Also picking up fresh spinach.

Steep 3 -3m
Buttery and mild once again but keeping it’s floral sweetness and touch of a dry, perfumed after taste. Very fresh and mellow.

I enjoyed this Long Jing more than I thought I would. While I love green tea Long Jing is usually too dry and perfumed for my taste and has suffered a bed reputation with me for a while. I don’t know if it’s purely down to quality but simply some Long Jing I like and others I hate. This one I like.

Nice green tea with slight hints of wood .

A sample I removed from the travelling european teabox organized by Kitty (thanks!), and one which waited till I was in the right mood. For some reason, this type of tea is so spring like, so pure and grassy and green, and the calendar says March. Let´s pretend it is Spring!

I liked this very much, though not sure how much how can say about it other than ah, dragonwell, a nice smooth one. Floral, and greeny and all so soft somehow. I think I screwed up the steeps (but in a good way), maybe let the first and second steeps be too long, those were heavenly, the third steep was one too many though!

One of my tea goals for 2014, in addition to Not Buying Any Teas in January (check) and Trying All The Peach Teas (working on it) is to try more unflavoured greens. This tea fits the bill.

My aggressive lack of knowledge about various tea regions and leaf types really puts a hamper on things, though – it’s very hard to discuss something completely out of context. I feel like I’m a kid at one of those Kid’s Day at the Art Museum type events – you know, a four-year-old pointing at a Mirò, howling, ‘Nana spilled lemonade on the wall!!!’

Cute? Yes. Helpful? No.

With this tea, for example, there is a dominant scent and flavour I can’t quite place – it’s not like something I’ve had before, but it’s sweet, and light, and subtly perfumed. It seems too easy to always retreat to ‘grassy’, or, ‘vegetal’, or ‘buttery’, or ‘hay-like’, because most unflavoured greens (and oolongs) have those characteristics to varying degrees.

I don’t quite know what to do about it – is this a typical LongJing? How do I know unless I drink more LongJings? Where do I find a LongJing to compare it to around midnight on a Sunday in Rome? (It’s probably best not to ask, there’s no telling what goes on in the park where I live after dark.)

It’s a little frustrating. I know I enjoyed the f*ck out of this cup and that it made me happy and smiley and that I really want to drink more unflavoured green teas.

That’ll just have to do for now.

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]