Bi Luo Chun Green Tea (Pi Lo Chun)

Bi Luo Chun how I love you. This review is for the spring 2014 production.

When I first met this tea from Teavivre it was in January 2012, so it must have been a 2011 tea. I was blown away. This was a light bulb moment tea for me. I had been drinking bagged grocery store stuff prior to this. I had no idea green tea could taste so amazing. I likened the scent to Cheerios and the leaf to the appearance of upholstery stuffing. I remember resteeping it until it literally had nothing left to give.

Today the leaf is even more beautiful to me with its green and white fuzzy leaf. I notice the temp has been revised upward to 185 F. Pretty sure it was 176 or so before. I went with a 1 1/2 minute steep. The cup looks like white wine and the wet leaf is so aromatic I want to dig in with a fork and chow down. I resisted.

This is buttery creamed corn in a cup with the good kind of lightly bitter bite at the end. The flavors is light and refreshing. It does not overpower the senses, yet you don’t have to search for it either. Very near the top of my green tea favorites list.

Now for the awwww part of my note. Yesterday, as some may have read, we got a Chineranian puppy, which is a mix between a Japanese Chin and a Pomeranian. It is a little 2 pound fuzz ball. I was concerned how Spike our Chihuahua/Russell mix would react. He goes berserk when the cats even walk into the room when he has a toy or a rawhide treat in the floor. Within just a couple hours Buffy the Chihuahua Slayer was allowed to examine and play with both.

My son brought his big 60 pound dog over to meet Buffy. JJ is blind but he could smell her. So he wanted to nuzzle and sniff her up close. Spike growled. Protective and jealous. I think he is smitten. This morning I noticed Spike hanging half out of his bed to make room for his new puppy love. He gave me a pathetic “What are you gonna do” look that us guys understand. I laughed at him. Tell me about dog.

I found this sample while rooting through my tea. I have no idea how old it is and there is no date on it. I know it is much newer than the Bi Luo Chun I reviewed in the past and it seems completely different to me.

I chose this one because it was a favorite of my husband’s years ago. We are having a cheese plate and tea before bed so I made a tea that I know he likes.

The leaves are soft and fluffy, and a lovely fresh green. Instead of the very short steep recommended years ago, this one recommends 185F (up from 175F) and one to six minutes for time. The steeped tea is just full of little downy hairs that covered the leaves. Looking down into the pot, it almost looks like broth rather than tea.

My husband’s response was as I expected. “Wow, this is really good, this is a good one.” Pouring cup after cup and resteeping, he drank quite a lot of it. I told him it was one he had loved in the past, and broke the news to him that even with all the tea stashed here and there, we are low on the things he likes best, so oh dear I suppose I will have to order tea soon!

The first few years that I got this, it tasted heavily of oats and could have passed for plain Cheerios in a sniff test. This time, even after the food was all gone, I keep getting a fruity taste, even citrusy. There is a tiny hint of briskness, almost not noticeable. It is great tasting tea, it just isn’t tasting anything like what I remembered.

Having this tea this afternoon, brewed in my gaiwan in short steeps and combined into one cup.

I have to say, this cup smelled really really melon-y. Almost cantaloupe, but moresoe honeydew. It’s nice and sweet as well as fresh and green. I am really digging the spring harvest of this Bi Luo Chun! It is so interesting how the harvests can make such a difference.

Many thanks to Angel and Teavivre for this generous sample!

I was really apprehensive about this sample because I am not the biggest fan of greens, especially straight greens, but this was really good! Colour me shocked.

The dry leaf is curly, soft, and downy. It smells really vegetal which has me worried.

Taste: delicious, slightly vegetal, slightly sweet and kind of nutty. I get the “savory” flavour almost like salted butter. It is a little drying on the mouth.

2nd steep: 80degrees, 1.5minutes, a little more vegetal, but still nutty

3rd steep: 85degrees, 2.5minutes, less vegetal with some sweetness remaining.

I think I liked this so much because it just tastes so fresh. I always get excellent quality from Teavivre’s teas and so many of them have surprised me. I didn’t think that I would ever enjoy straight tea so much!

Thank you Angel & Teavivre for another generous sample.

In shades of Sage, sof gray, & cream, this is a delicate tightly rolled tea that opens to beautiful bright green small leaves. The dry aroma is thick & a little tart.
I went with 4 G in the test tube steeper, only filling it a little over halfway, which is maybe 3oz or so, using short steepings of 30/60 etc

Overall, I found it to be refreshing, lightly tangy, & sweet, with a wonderful sense of clarity!
The later steeping tended towards a light astringency & small bitter quality, but not enough to make it unpleasant in anyway. An enjoyable tasty tea, although admittedly, I believe I prefer the Cha Want Tai Ping Hou Kui.

I forget I still have all these Teavivre samples, I don’t think I have ever actually finished a package and I still have some new ones from months ago that I have yet to try, because I completely misplaced them.

They are found now so I will definitely need to get drinking them.

I just made a bowl of “Singapore curry” because this morning’s F1 race was in Singapore, but I was not much a fan of it, since it was made with shrimp and meh. So I went through the drawer of samples to find a savory tea I could have instead.

This time around I get less of a fruitiness and more of the broth-like tastes that I noted other reviews mentioned. It’s still sweet, but mostly vegetal and savory. It’s not too heavy, which is just what I want because I didn’t get to eat lunch until 4 (who goes to play racquetball for 2 1/2 hours at 1pm without even waking me up beforehand to say hey maybe we should eat lunch first since we were up at 7:30? my boyfriend!). I’ll probably go grab one of the teas I’ve yet to try instead of resteeping this one just because I really feel bad now that I haven’t had them yet!

Small twisted dark green leaf.
Brewed palest yellow with an aroma of savory broth and the sea.
Tastes sweet and slightly savory with a hint of salt. Very smooth, light and delicious!

Backlogging from last month.

I’ve been a little slow to updating my notes. This was a sample I had received from Teavivre, thank you. Now, I’ve only had one other Pi Lo Chun before and I didn’t care for it so I decided to try another from a better vendor, so here we are.

The dry leaves are a curled mix of darker green leaves and fuzzy white ones and smell vaguely of the sea. When brewed up the wet leaves have a sweet, smokey vegetal scent to them. The infusion was light and had a hint of smoke to it.

Upon tasting the first infusion I got notes of sweetness, smoke, salt, and vegetal. Kind of reminded me of a savory miso soup, fascinating. As it started to cool a little I started to get roasted/grilled corn notes. As the infusions went on, I got to 5, the corn notes came out a little more but it didn’t really change, but I wasn’t expecting it to either.

This is a decent green tea, unfortunately I don’t care for smokey teas…I’m a wimp when it comes to that and I’m sure Bonnie is going to say something! I’m glad I got to try this and broaden my horizons a bit, but I’m going to refrain from rating this one because of my dislike of smokey teas. Thank you Teavivre for letting me try this!

Scent is buttery, sweet, titch floral. Leaves are soft with lots of down, and tightly curled. The tea is smooth and brothy, with an oily texture which coats the mouth.

This Pi Lo Chun is nice this morning, I needed a mild and somewhat gentle green tea to get me going today. Overall, Chinese green teas don’t seem as flavorful to me as Japanese green teas but sencha can really make me nauseated. Thanks again for the sample, TV.