We’re keeping the reviews of these Australian teas coming over here. It’s a productive day on Steepster for me. Anyway, goofiness aside, this was the third of the Australian teas I tried last year. Honestly, I know I have stated that the Arakai Spring Premium Green Tea was my favorite, but I think this one was just as good. It had more of a typical green tea profile, but with some of the floral and fruity qualities that made the Spring Premium Green so appealing to me.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a 10 second rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 fluid ounces of 167 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was followed by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of grass, hay, honey, and straw. After the rinse, I detected new aromas of orchid, lilac, zucchini, and asparagus. The first infusion introduced subtle aromas of baked bread and sugarcane. In the mouth, the tea liquor presented notes of grass, hay, butter, zucchini, straw, asparagus, and chestnut that were balanced by hints of baked bread, sugarcane, honey, orchid, and lilac. The majority of the following infusions added aromas of butter, pear, plum, chestnut, green apple, and carrot as well as a stronger sugarcane aroma and subtle aromas of malt and cream. Stronger and more immediately apparent notes of honey and sugarcane came out in the mouth alongside impressions of minerals, spinach, seaweed, summer squash, peas, lemon zest, squash blossom, carrot, pear, plum, malt, cream, and vegetable broth umami. Hints of apricot and green apple were present too. As the tea faded, the liquor continued to emphasize notes of minerals, grass, hay, straw, malt, zucchini, spinach, cream, butter, peas, and seaweed that were chased by subtler impressions of carrot, baked bread, lemon zest, chestnut, green apple, pear, asparagus, and brothy umami.
This was a more powerful and complex tea than the previous Australian teas I had tried. It was also noticeably more energizing. While the other Australian teas were light and delicate, this one was big bodied, soupy, and thick. To me, it was like a mixture of some of the most appealing traits of some of my favorite green teas from Yunnan, Taiwan, and Japan. Though I did find it occasionally overwhelming, this was still a great green tea. I would love to take a second crack at it in the near future.
Flavors: Apricot, Asparagus, Bread, Butter, Carrot, Chestnut, Cream, Grass, Green Apple, Hay, Honey, Lemon Zest, Lilac, Malt, Mineral, Orchid, Pear, Peas, Plum, Seaweed, Spinach, Squash, Squash Blossom, Straw, Sugarcane, Umami, Zucchini
