Top Leaf

Thank you for the lovely sample Alphakitty! The leaves have a beautiful deep green color. The aroma is slightly vegetal and sweet with hints of butter. It’s sweet and has a bit of a buttery\vegetal taste to it. I want to say that there is a bit of a light(and I mean LIGHT) citrus flavor in the background. I reeeaalllllyyy enjoyed this tea. It’s been a minute or two since I’ve had a nice green :]
Thanks again!

mmm! sipping on this while carving a pumpkin today! It is really delicious tea, that tastes vegetal and buttery smooth. I am almost out of this tea, and will most definitely have to restock after this sample is finished!

Drinking the last of my Top Leaf sample presently. It’s quite good. I enjoy this more than most of the sencha teas I’ve tried. It’s characteristic smoothness is very appealing. The deep grassy flavor is maximized with with almost zero astringency (at least the way I brew it: < 1 minute). It’s a very refreshing and invigorating tea for early morning drinking. First time I tried this was actually at a tea gathering with friends in the evening, and having been away from Japanese green teas for a while, I found myself at a low tolerance to their higher caffeine levels (relative to whole leaf Chinese teas) and could not get to sleep that night.

Anyway, I find this kind of tea very well suited for the morning, especially when it’s still dark out. Drinking before and during dawn is one of my favorite times for tea. It’s a liminal and contemplative time, when I feel completely free of distractions. And I’m finding the Mellow Monk teas I’ve tried to be apropos in that space. Not just anything will do here. A more astringent sencha would be like the shock of a bad alarm clock, starting your day with a nervous jolt. I can’t have that.

Honestly, I’m generally much more fond of the shaded Japanese greens, as I had indicated in my tasting note of Mellow Monk’s kabusecha (Shaded Leaf). I enjoyed the kabusecha quite thoroughly, and this tea doesn’t fall that far beneath it. I would take this over a standard sencha any morning. Though if I had my way, and money was no concern, I’d be going for the finest gyokuro all the time (which is really my favorite of the Japanese greens, far and away).

For the price, which is less than half of Mellow Monk’s kabusecha, Top Leaf is much more reasonable for the possibility of drinking a good Japanese green tea daily. And it’s certainly a tempting prospect…

A delicious and wonderful sencha. Not-too-intensely vegetal (cooked greens) in the first infusion, slightly less vegetal with a hint of stringency in the second, and pleasantly astringent in the third. A great value indeed for the price!

First infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz. water, 65 deg., 50 sec.

Second infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz. water, 60 deg., 1 min.

Third infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz. water, 55 deg., 10 min.

This is my favorite! I love this like no other. I also love the company. Their customer service is awesome! I love how they use the personal touch. Their shipping is fast, and inexpensive. I especially love how they listen and respond to, not only their own customers, but also the tea drinking community, in general. They are very in-touch. They are also a green certified company, and all of their teas are organic.

Top Leaf is my top choice. It is sweet and berry-like, and has that slightly citrus tangy lip smacking quality. There’s also a hint of sweet butteriness, like corn on the cob. I love the smell of the dry leaf, too. It smells of sweet mellon and honey suckle. The color is quite beautiful. I always order a lot, because I drink it down, fast. It leaves me feeling centered, clean, and relaxed. I crave it all day long.

Been on a bit of a Japanese green kick and I have tried a handful of senchas, gyokuros and a highly touted shincha over the past few months — I must say Top Leaf is the cream of the crop. For my tastes, and wallet this is the best sencha I have found yet!

Everything about this tea is very well rounded, without a single glaring flaw or characteristic dominating the flavor profile or aroma. Top Leaf brings the entire gambit of Japanese flavors together seamlessly into a full bodied and near perfectly balanced cuppa creamy green greatness: sweet, creamy, savory, nutty, vegetal, mildly oceanic with a forgiving faint citrus-like astringency. Really I can’t emphasize enough how well balanced these elements are in this particular tea, its certainly an accomplishment!

Another high point, Top Leaf is relatively flexible and forgiving with regards to brew temp and time which is not a characteristic shared with many other senchas I have encountered. It brews wonderfully mellow and sweet at gyokuro-like temperatures ~ 120 and can tolerate a full minute of 180 for the savory 2nd steep without getting overly bitter. Anything in-between is great too of course! Really, you have to completely blow it (in sencha standards!) to muck this one up.

Overall a great great sencha and certainly worthy of a spot amongst one of my favorite teas. Its exceptionally well balanced bordering on exquisite! I have gone through 3.5 oz and recently ordered more! In my opinion, you’d be hard pressed to find a better quality japanese green for the price.

First tea from Mellow Monk. They had a promotion going on after Top Leaf won an award.

Smelled very…. green, similar to fresh cut grass. Its a good smell, but not at the top of my list. With the first steeping it was shockingly smooth yet the flavor was distinct and noticeable, not in an overpowering way. The flavor demands and holds your attention. The second steeping, while having a fainter flavor is remarkably similar in quality to the first.
Verdict: Beautiful and delightful, this tea is under-priced. No reason you shouldn’t treat yourself to top notch, award winning tea.

While it may be intense for some on the foretaste, it settles into a grassy, berry-sweet middle ground unlike any sencha I’ve ever tried.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2010/08/07/review-mellow-monk-top-leaf-green-tea/

I’m pretty new to the whole loose leaf tea scene, so my palate might not be as discriminating as that of a true tea connoisseur, but even I can tell that Mellow Monk’s Top Leaf is without a doubt a tea of very high quality. I’m giving it an 100 because I haven’t tasted anything better yet.

I received my order only a few days after I placed it, which was a pleasant surprise.
The tea itself is fairly smooth and has a delicate grassy taste to it that, for some reason, makes me think of the ocean.

I agree with TeaEqualsBliss – this tea has a buttered veggies kind of taste which I personally enjoy quite a bit. Delicious.