Jasmine Dong Ting Bi Luo Chun Green Tea

I must be a sucker for jasmine tea, but, judging by other people’s reviews (both here and on YS’s website), I think we are on to something here. I like this even better than Mark T Wendell’s Flowery Jasmine that I raved about.

Funny thing is, I really wanted to dislike this tea. I had heard that the presence of jasmine blossoms in the dry leaf is usually an indicator of a lower-quality jasmine tea. Decided to give it a go anyways, because this was an opportunity to try a Yunnan-sourced green tea scented with jasmine, which I believe is a bit different than the typical sourcing of jasmine green teas. And if it is processed in the “bi luo chun” style, well that would be wonderful.

Looking at the dry leaves, there is indeed a good amount of jasmine blossoms present in the mix, but they don’t seem to weigh much comparatively. I’d be surprised if the blossoms accounted for even 50g in a 1 kg bag. So their presence would have a minimal effect as to diluting the tea leaves, which I believe is the typical reasoning for preferring the tea to be free of blossoms.

Brewing western style, I get great results brewing at 175° for 2 minutes, and a second steep at 3-4 minutes. If I want to go for three steeps, I might brew for 1 min, 3 min, and 5 min and it is spent.

The tea is perhaps not as “strong” as MTW’s Flowery Jasmine, in that it gives a slightly lighter color and more of the floral and fruity notes minus the earthier side. Also, a touch less of the tendency to grow bitter but definitely some bitter edge still is present. But it makes up for this lessened strength with the nuanced fruity apple/green grape sweet notes of the tea playing very nicely with the jasmine florals. Just a really lovely light and refreshing jasmine tea!

Picked this up with my YS spring greens as I needed an inexpensive daily drinker. Despite being a year old, it’s still perfumey and has fresh, clean jasmine flavor. I love the little jasmine flowers that open up as if they’re blooming and dance around in the teacup.

I think the white jasmine is better suited for grandpa style while this does best western steeped. Also, really nice cold brewed.

Since I’ve been revisiting several of the green teas in my stash this week, I figured I should do this one too. I think it’s my favorite of all my jasmine greens. I’m not really sure why I prefer this one over the Fuding Yin Hao jasmine in drank a few days ago. This one smells and tastes a little sweeter to me…not sure if that’s from the leaf type or growing region or something else. Like the Fuding Yin Hao, this one is April 2019 harvest tea with May jasmine flowers.

I decided to use my smaller glass gongfu bottle, 175° water, 120-ish ml, steeps starting at 15-ish seconds, just an eyeballed amount of leaf because I’m lazy. When I don’t weigh the tea I try to aim for slightly less than I think I need and then add more if the flavor isn’t strong enough. I don’t like my greens overleafed and I have a long history of being rather heavy-handed with teas and spices so if it looks to me like it couldn’t possibly be enough it’s often just right :-P

I’m not sure what else there is to say about this tea. Like with many jasmines teas, I can really only identify jasmine in the flavor and aroma. They all just smell and taste like jasmine to me. I can tell if they’re different teas but I usually can’t describe what’s different about them very well.