DISCONTINUED - Spring Jade Tieguanyin (2012-2013)

Here’s another new tea arriving early next week, now available at 10% off for pre-order! :)

About the Tea
Our spring harvest Jade Tieguanyin from Anxi, China is a beautiful oolong that has been carefully hand-processed from start to finish! After hand picking the leaves, the long process begins by firing in a wok, steaming, rolling, and steaming again. This whole process is then repeated up to ten times! Due to this skilled processing, our Jade Tieguanyin has an extremely aromatic bouquet with notes of butter, chestnuts, and lightly floral characteristics.

The taste is unrivaled in the world of Tieguanyin as the flavor opens up with an intoxicating sweet buttery body! Smooth, nutty notes combine with the buttery body as the sweet, oceanic scent of the pacific coastline wafts out of your cup. It’s hard to believe that such a beautiful fresh taste can come from these tiny jade-colored leaves. Infuses more than 5 times!

Best enjoyed with your worries left behind!

Notes
Buttery
Oceanic
Chestnuts
Gardenias

How to brew the perfect cup:
Steep 1 teaspoon of leaves
in 8 ounces of boiling water
for 2 minutes.

2nd infusion: 3 minutes
3rd infusion: 4 minutes

Ingredients
Oolong Tea

Caffeine Content
Medium-High

http://whisperingpinestea.com/jadetgy.html

Another first for today — I’ve never tried a Tieguanyin before! I figured that while I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone, I might as well stay there for a while. I had serious reservations about putting oolong in boiling water, but I did it anyway. It still feels odd to do that, but it makes sense to trust those with more experience. I gave this two minutes.

The resulting liquor is medium yellow-green, and smells quite toasty. To taste, it’s very buttery and very smooth. There’s a strong nuttiness — chestnut is probably fairly spot-on — and a wash of floral flavour towards the end of the sip. The oolong is slightly grassy — I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not a green! It’s quite a heavy tea in terms of flavour, but it’s so smooth that it doesn’t really become an issue. It’s not over-cloying, and I’m glad for that. The flavours dance across the palate, and the floral edge lingers momentarity — it’s like walking through a summer garden. Based on this experience, Tigguanyin is something I’d like to learn more about, and would seek out again. I think I may be coming around to green oolongs more than I ever thought I would!

This is a really nice tea. Buttery and smooth drinking, just a touch floral. A creamy kind of nuttiness that once I re-read the description I agree is yes, definitely like a chestnut. I hadn’t tried this one before ordering it, but I’m really glad I got it.

I’m on my third infusion right now, but I can tell there are several more left in these leaves. I really need a better gaiwan since I don’t really like the one I have. I’ve been doing these western style with my in mug infuser. (Nothing wrong with that, but it makes for a lot of tea.) I’ve actually got a 5oz finum hot glass system coming today, so I think that’ll work for now.

I got this as a sample with my Whispering Pines order.

This is a very smooth tea. The first sip of it I seriously felt like I was breathing in ocean air. I wasn’t… i was standing in the breakroom at my office, but it definitely has a very present oceanic taste and scent at first. It mellows out as you drink it though, and I thought this was a very pleasent cup of tea.

This is a wonderful tea, so smooth and fresh i feel as though I visited the fields in Anxi where it was grown! It starts off quite strong but mellows out as you move through the cup allowing you to explore the complex flavor. Buttery is a great way to describe it, I went through several steeps without realizing it because it was just so smooth. Successive steeps also mellow the flavor a bit, but it stays strong through at least 4 steeps in my experience. Kudos to Whispering Teas for providing so much info about the tea that helps give a little context as to what’s behind the cup, for me the story of the tea is a very important part of the overall experience! This is definitely going to become a regular for me!