Picked up 25g of this tea at the Toronto Tea Festival – it possibly has the largest leaves of any tea I’ve tried yet! (Or, largest intact leaves). Anyhow, the leaves smelled a bit like cucumber in the little sampling dish the company had out, and I found that intriguing, therefore decided to buy some.
The brewing process is rather interesting – I suspect that this tea is supposed to be brewed like a dragonwell, keeping the leaves in the cup and adding water. I don’t drink my tea hot, so can’t do that without oversteeping, so I just brewed this as a normal green (although it was a bit tricky to make sure the leaves were fully submerged, since they are so long! Nearly 3 inches, I’d say.)
The end result was definitely interesting – I hoped for a bit more cucumber, but instead it was on the smoky side, and more of a grassy sort of vegetal than the beany I’m more used to. It was definitely interesting; I’ll need to give it another go to figure out exactly how I feel about it. Certainly not bad, but not sure about buying it again (although I now want to try some from another company, perhaps Teavivre if they carry it.)
I liked Teavivre’s version but tai ping hou kuai seems to be an acquired taste. Not bad but not a favorite for me.