Norbu Tea

Light spearmint, light Darjeeling… just a pleasant cup for a lightly rainy evening. :)

Okay. Again with this one tonight after dinner. I would say definitely spearmint but surprisingly decent despite that. I upped the temp but kept the steep time the same. The tea itself is still pretty light, but still good. The mint is stronger but the tea isn’t bitter yet or dry.

I’ll try the final bit I have left as recommended. :)

1.5 tsp

This is interesting. Definitely a Darjeeling, definitely mint. Possibly spearmint… which is not usually anything I like. But this is not a bad after dinner cup. It’s very light and you can definitely taste mint but not in an herbal way, there is tea here, too. I would not pick this out as a 2nd flush, but that could either be to hesitant steeping or due to the fact that my palate just can’t pick out the differences unless I have them side by side. I wasn’t really confident in the boiling for a 5 minute steep instructions so I went with less than boiling for about 3 minutes. Luckily, ifjuly sent along enough of this that I can try another cup or two and play with it a bit!

Brewed this western style, using a Finum basket. Gave it 3-4 minutes, and it needs that time to open up.
The leaves are long, long, long and blacker than a moonless night. They take time to open up, and patience is required for them to release their exquisite flavors.
This is very gently smoked tea, that tastes like a very, very good Keemun – it has some of the malt/bread flavor to it, with a gentle smokiness that does not feel artificial, but gives it depth and body. There is something of the sweetness of sugar to it, and I did not experience any astringency when drinking it. A great intro to smoked teas,and a wonderful companion for a cold winter’s night, in a large steaming mug, with your hands wrapped around it for warmth.
Norbu did it again!

I really enjoy wild teas no matter where they’re from and this is no exception…the sun drying also adds another element into the flavor of this tea which i like a lot too…I’ll be buying more of this before the sale is over …

Ok, so now for a proper tasting note, because this tea is worth it. This is from my latest order from Norbu Tea, part of what I bought during their 25% off Chinese New Year sale (on until the 31st of January. Go buy some great tea now! I’ll wait patiently until you are done).
One of the reasons that I love Norbu is that they have all these unique and interesting teas that you can’t find anywhere else, and this is one of them. This is an aged oolong that is practically my age, and yet doesn’t have any funky, fishy, musty smell or taste. It is very dark, and has a roasted note to the first steepings, but from the third steep on it takes on a Tie Guan Yin taste, with flowery, slightly perfume-y notes, and some fruitiness that remains with this tea from the start. I used very short steepings, as this tea came out bold during the quick wash, so I was afraid of over brewing it. The leaves unfurl, and they nearly filled my little Yixing teapot (Yunnan Sourcing Green Dragon Egg – wonderful teapot!) by the fifth and sixth steepings. This tea can go on for ages, and you are likely to tire of it before it runs out of juice. There are some cocoa notes to the tea, particularly in the first steepings, and there’s a nice sweetness to it, yet also a complexity beyond what you normally get even from a very good oolong. A tea to remember, and to slowly and methodically savor.
P.S. I’m not a fan of flowery oolongs, so I’m knocking off a few points due to my personal preferences. If you are at all a Tie Guan Yin person or an oolong person in general, you need to try this tea.

Clean, toasted notes, with hints of plums and cocoa. A very nice gongfu session during a very frustrating conference call.

sipdown on this one as i’m passing the other half on to one of my tea friends whose preferences run towards white/green etc… ie the full other end of the spectrum from me haha. It’s not because i don’t like this either, but more because i like to share. Staving student with no tea budget and all you know :) As far as white’s go, this is a lovely light, refreshing brew with no floral notes going on! it’s sweet, and tastes more than just warm water to me haha overall another nice one from Norbu :)

sipdown! mwahahah because the other half of my sample is going to go in to Terri’s box so that she can try this one as well. I have to say, these leaves are pretty darn big once they expand through brewing :) this is on the sweeter side of things, without being as distinctively sweet as some of the teas from TTC that I’ve had. it still comes across as a bit of a malty sort of tea but not to the extent of say, Tiger Assam. I am really enjoying this because it’s just a bit different than similar teas that i’ve had.

Norbu (greg) included this one for me because i was trying to find a similar tea to the one i fell in love with from Norbu that they have since stopped purchasing because of the lack of demand in the US. SHAME ON YOU US! :) While this IS a tasty tea, it doesn’t hold the same power over me as the other one. Still though, i enjoy this one a bunch.

Norbu has some excellent customer service for anyone interested, and until the end of January they’re having a 25% off sale :)

An interesting take on Ya Bao, in Sheng format – a kind of combination between toasty white tea and the depth of flavor of Sheng, with a little lemony twist. A very comforting, sweet, mellow drink, that needs several washes and time to unfold its flavors (obviously in a Gaiwan or a Yixing teapot). No camphor taste, for those who avoid Sheng Pu’er for that reason. A nice evening treat to have curled with a book.

A fond farewell to this Long Jing from Norbu. My packet is now empty, and I enjoyed every glass!

I’m getting near the bottom of this 50 gram packet of Norbu Long Jing—always a good lunchtime choice. I’ve been reading the Harney & Sons Guide to Tea, and each time that I brew a type of tea covered, I read the two pages on the topic. The book is quite good for the tea-obsessed, without being overly abstruse.

Today I learned about Long Jing that the authentic tea (not the knock-offs, of which there are apparently many) is produced in Xi Hu district near Hangzhou, a city with a population of about 1 million and which boasts more than 700 teahouses!

Road trip, anyone?

I’d thought that I must have oversteeped my big pot of Norbu Xi Hu Long Jing, as the liquor was darker than usual and more yellow—almost gold—as well. Gazing out the window, I lost track of time while watching the Salvation Army guys load my donations onto the truck. I cringed as they threw bags containing English-style tea pots into the back. I certainly hope that none of them were crushed!

So today was a turning point. I am now officially into the tetsubin scene and out of the porcelain English-style scene. I was hemming and hawing about whether I could give them away, but then I did, and fortunately the big truck arrived before I could suffer donor’s remorse and remove the teapots from my front porch. I have given a huge volume of possessions away over the course of the past couple of months because I lost about two-thirds of my space when I moved, and I desperately need air space to be able to breath!

I used English teapots for a decent chunk of my life—supplemented by glass Bodum filter presses (intended for coffee). Of late, I’ve been using only the tetsubin because they not only keep the brewed tea drinkable longer (without reheating), but are also ideal for instantly cooling boiling water to green tea infusion temperature! In fact, they are so good at temperature reduction that I have taken the variable temperature kettle off my wish list!

Now back to today’s first POD (pot of the day). It turned out that I did not oversteep the Norbu Long Jing, as it was delicious. I drank two glasses right after my first meal of the day, a hunk of walnut bread (which I picked up at a farmer’s market yesterday) toasted and smeared with butter. Yum!

second infusion (after dinner): also very smooth and flavorful!

Today’s lunchtime green was Norbu Xi Hu Long Jing Spring Harvest 2013. Good, as usual!

I drank two Bodum glasses of the pale greenish yellow liquor after a plate of sauteed kaleidoscopic swiss chard (yellow, red, and green!) with eggs over easy and freshly baked rye/wheat bread with butter. Yum!

Today’s lunchtime pot is Norbu Xi Hu Long Jing from the 2013 spring harvest. I brewed this somewhat stronger—not longer, but with more leaves—and am finding the slightly darker (but still pale) yellow liquor quite succulent. Looking forward to the second infusion of these still quite fragrant leaves!

second infusion: I drank this after dinner this evening. Mighty fine indeed! Brighter yellow, still with a palpable Long Jingy taste.

I have been slowly developing a concept of Long Jing—or Dragon Well!— China green tea through sampling various harvests. This one, from Norbu, is better than some but not as good as my favorite—from Teavivre. It is slightly less succulent, but still quite likeable. I have no idea why I said in an earlier tasting note that this tea reminded me of sencha. It really bears very little resemblance whatsoever. Of course, it is closer to sencha than it is to Earl Grey! ;-) Perhaps it was the very pale greenish tint of the yellow liquor which evoked memories of sencha? Whatever the case, I now believe that this tea tastes like … drum roll … Long Jing! The texture is silky and smooth.

I used rather cool water today, and will be reinfusing the spent leaves in the not-too-distant future…

I was very careful in my preparations for this Long Jing steep-off, using 2 teaspoons in a small tetsubin and water just a little over 80C. I steeped for somewhere between two and three minutes. The results for Norbu Xi Hu Long Jing Spring Harvest 2013 were good, and this tea trounced the competition, Tealux Dragonwell Long Jing.

The liquor is pale greenish yellow, and the flavor has a clean, ever-so-slightly vegetal taste. The texture is silken, almost buttery. A very nice cup!

Lovely, light, and limpid lunch drink reminiscent of sencha. I made it a bit stronger this time and steeped at low temperature for only a couple of minutes.

second infusion: Same light barely greenish-yellow color. Same clean taste.

third infusion: I oversteeped this round, so the color was more golden than green. It tasted okay, but like a different tea—more like a “nameless” green…

I made a pot of this Norbu Xi Hu Long Jing Spring Harvest 2013 after lunch today. The liquor was pale greenish yellow and the flavor slightly vegetable, though I wasn’t really sure which vegetable it was reminding me of.

Smooth and refreshing.

second infusion: same color; same taste. The vegetable in question may be lima beans…

third infusion: same color; very faint taste.

I really like this TGY,its my new daily drinker…its a well made tea and the price tag is excellent…I would have used my TGY yixing but I broke it 2 weeks ago (I dropped the lid on the floor,ouch!I really liked that pot too).110ml gaiwan 8g tea…