Dongshan Dolce

Upon opening this tea a sweet aroma with hint of grassiness caught my attention. The very delicate leaves unfurl in the cup only slightly and the resulting liquor is pale green. The taste is almost exactly like the smell of the dry leaves. Very sweet, very little grassiness if any. This reminds me of a sweeter version of Adagio’s Green Pekoe tea although the leaves of this one are much thinner than the Pekoe. Bottom line: if you’re looking for a sweet green tea, this will be perfect for you.

Method: 1 tsp / 8oz water; 165º- 170º; 2-3 minutes.

A very light liqour. Although Adagio advertises this tea as “like that of a sweet bun, with biscuit and butter-like notes,” I did not find that description to be true of either of my infusions.

It’s fine. Good even. But for me it seemed weak and lacked the sweetness not only described by Adagio but even the sweetness that I expected as a frequent tea drinker.

I always see people who are looking for a good tea to dip their toe into the green tea world. This would probably would make an excellent choice for someone looking to try a green tea but scared by its somewhat fussy and sometimes bitter nature.

I really like this one. It has a sweet, buttery, floral scent. The taste is a very light buttery, nutty, with a very slight vegetal. It reminds me more of a white tea than a green tea in its light taste. The color is a pale, cornsilk yellow that is very appealing. I may steep it for a little longer than 3 minutes next time to see what it does.

Own one ounce sample. Tips look grey/green, golden and silvery, unlike the bright green photo on website. First brew per instruction at 180F/2 min, 3 tsp in 500ml. Came out very, very light yellow tasting of hot water with only scent, but more flavour followed when sipped cooler. Second steep tried at boiling temp but that brought some bitterness. It didn’t ruin taste but at least deepened the liquor colour. Third steep back down to 185F: brew seems to improve with later steeping and am picking up
a toasty flavour that I never noticed before. Light bulb idea to try adding toasted rice to this Chinese green to make own blend of toasted rice green tea.

I’m finishing off my sample right now and I’m still iffy about this tea… On one hand there is something about its taste that makes me think about repurchasing it. The tea is slightly sweet, buttery, refreshing and totally devoid of any vegetal notes that I don’t appreciate in green teas. On the other hand the brew feels way too light, I can’t get the impression of drinking tea-flavored or sweet-bun-flavored water out of my head as I sip. Aroma is virtually non-existent as well. I tried to vary the amount of leaf and steeping time but it hardly affected the brew quality.

The second infusion is even lighter, grassier and less flavorful. Seems like a poor value to me.

Gave it an 83. Could have had stronger, more complex flavors/aromas.

http://walkerteareview.com/http:/walkerteareview.com/tasting-review-163-adagios-dongshan-dolce

I didn’t put anything extra in this tea.
When brewed the color is extremely light but, I brew a pot at a time instead of a cup and if you do this you will notice that the tea gains color as it cools like most whites and minimally processed greens. So its lack of color just seems normal to me.
The flavor starts sweet, hits a little wall of toast and jumps it so fast you’ll wonder if you imagined it. The finish goes right back to sweet. Sweetness that doesn’t go away for an extremely long time.
This is a great tea for non-obtrusive tea drinkers.
I had an idea that it would work well as a palate cleansing tea because of the extremely long finish and stubbornly sweet qualities. It does work well to remove strong sweet flavors like fruity cookie samplers but for thai spicy kind of food it was more of a pleasant compliment than a palate cleanser. I was not expecting that at all but it’s lean to compliment spicy makes me thing that this might be a more oily tea.
Anyways… I find food and tea combos interesting.
Great tea.

I got this in the new arrivals sampler free w/ $19 purchase. It came w/ 2 oolong teas and a jasmine oolong. The raw tea leaves have a very faint non descript green tea aroma.

I steeped 2.25g of tea leaves in 6oz of purified water heated to 175 degrees F. This tea is a very light tea not only in aroma, but in weight. 2.25g is approx. 3.25 teaspoons so unlike a lot of loose leaf green teas I’m expecting this to be a darker green.

Well… I was wrong. 3 min later and this is by far the lightest tea I’ve ever seen. If I didn’t know it was tea, I would probably mistake it for funky water. Surprisingly though, it does have an, albeit very light, aroma. Absolutely no scent of pu erh like some greens, just a light grassy smell w/ a sweet finish.

Surprisingly this does have a taste, although I have to strain to taste it. The flavor is very weak, but the flavor that is there is a very basic but good, smooth green tea. Nothing special.

Infusion 2, 4 min: Ok… Interesting… This infusion is actually darker than the 1st. I’m thinking that’s because there was not enough leaf to require the full min of extra steeping time that additional infusions usually require. Both the aroma and liquor are stronger versions of the 1st, nothing different. The taste is also stronger… I’m wondering if the caffeine is stronger in this infusion even though everything I’ve read says most of the caffeine is released in the 1st infusion.

3rd infusion, 5 min: When I originally steeped this I would have never imagined that I’d get 3 infusions out of this. The 3rd infusion is a weaker version of the 2nd in sight, liquor, and taste, yet stronger than the 1st.

Conclusions: While the 3rd infusion is still of a VERY good quality, I think my favorite is the 2nd. The 1st is pretty much a waste for me. This tea requires quite a bit of leaf for a solid 2nd infusion and good 3rd, but even that much results in a useless 1st infusion. I’m glad I tried this, but I’m also glad that I got it free. I would have been very disappointed I even wasted $2 for a sample of this. This tea requires a lot of leaf and a wasted infusion to get only 2 good infusions (I didn’t try a fourth, maybe that would be drinkable as well) so it’s more expensive per cup than you would think. Just not worth it for me when there are so many other wonderful green teas out there.

I had a second steeping of this tea today after the first steeping sat for about :15 minutes, and it had a musty/mossy aroma and taste that just didn’t agree with me. The color was still very light, and there was a grassy after-taste, but overall, I didn’t like this one.

Sarah and Brad both liked. A good plain green.