Jari Nousiainen Send Message

Special steeping instructions for this fresh tea resulted in a pleasant surprise. About 2 grams of leaves, 2 dl of hot water in a gaiwan and steeping until the leaves sink.

I did not manage to wait until all the leaves had sunk, but when the most had and the rest were hanging from the surface, I decided to it was ready. I poured 2/3 to a pitcher and left the rest as a seed for the next infusions.

The intensity of the flavour was not completely unexpected, considering the time of over 5 minutes. But how balanced it turned out, was indeed. There was the bitterness anyone could predict, but it did not take over completely. Along came that familiar vegetal long jing taste — that in my opinion is greatly enhanced by a good amount of bitterness. Also I found prominent a pleasant sweetness and to balance it, some lemon or lime like sourness.

Drinking long jing prepared like this reminded me more of drinking gyokuro than anything else. The resulting liquid is a very potent extract of the essence of the leaves. I still have to repeat this with the Wang Grade I have waiting.

To make it simple: Excellent tasting high grade mao feng.

Right after receiving the shipment of the fresh tea, I boiled some water, poured 0,5 dl or so to my 2 dl gaiwan, waited for a moment for the temperature to settle between the water and the vessel, added a spoonful of tea which is probably about 2 grams, poured some hot water, around 90°C at this time I suppose, and infused for a minute or maybe a bit more. Result: sweet nectar, rich but balanced flavour. I even got some hui gan from the one cup despite of eating breakfast on top.

Already at this point I can say this is bound to be one of the top teas of this spring.

This is one I had already in the fall, and I found it very good. While waiting for the new season, I’ve been emptying my sencha stash, so as I ordered some special spring matcha (Nodoka) from Ippodo, I took also this delighting organic sencha.

Quite strong flavour, solid typical sencha type taste. I like the balance between grassiness, sweetness and umami. This one is very good when made relatively strong, without turning bitter.

As I tasted the tea only in February, I was a bit suprised how well it had retained it’s aroma during the winter.

Taste was good, nice sharpness, maybe even slight something I’d describe as sour. It took a few tries to do it right, bad infusions resulted in strange unpleasantness. Goes also very well with different foods.

Nice last tie guan yin of the year, but it’s flavour was not quite as strong as that of their previous winter tie guan yin.

First sip had unexpected sweetness to it, very soft and well suited to tie guan yin. The sweetness faded and was replaced by a mellow type of the typical tie guan yin aroma. Not especially strong, but good whatsoever. Lasted four infusions quite well, and was ok for six, after that it was clearly finished. Also a bit stronger infusions might be good, but I wouldn’t recommend anything beyond 1 minute 15 seconds.

Also very interesting development in the taste of the liquid as it cools down. It might be worth a try to make ice tea out of this one. (Using the hot water method.)

First testing. Very sweet scent, almost disturbingly so. Taste also very typical classic biluochun, sweet and soft, round. I probably oversteeped, I found slight bitterness toward the end. (2 dl / 2 g).

Will try later with my season 2010 standard steeping, 85°C / 1,5 min.