Organic Tian Mu Yun Wu Green Tea

Thank you, Angel, for this sample.

And it’s a belatedly posted sipdown!

#long time ago internet hiatus sipdown

First sit-down with tea in a while, in the comfort of my tea cave. Happy to be home? It’s nice to be back with Kiki, my old girl and tea but I have a lot on my mind. Travel does that. Seeing backroad towns, exploring the terrain and new environments, meeting locals, learning different ways of life.

I bought a new bowl for tea at the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens outside Gainesville, FL. This tea, a spring 2020 harvest, is wonderful prepared in this manner. It’s not a complex green and I think Teavivre captures the character in their description. The tea is soft and sweet spring water and fresh and tender garden-grown green beans with a drop of sugarcane and a sprinkle of tarragon. It finishes with enough briskness to balance the upfront sweetness. There isn’t much aftertaste; the tea is clean and cleansing with a mouth-watering granite- and quartzlike minerality. Warming and sweating eventually cools the body.

The third bowl does tear up my mouth a little with what seems to be enzymes and creates some discomfort in an empty stomach, but I do overall enjoy this clean and sweet green tea.

Cold Brew Sipdown (697)!

I actually had intended to cold brew a different sample from Teavivre – a jasmine scented green tea. So, my first third or so of drinking this cold brew was spent just being completely perplexed as to why my cold brew didn’t taste floral/anything like jasmine at all. Finally I went and fished out the sample bag from the top of my garbage can and that’s when I realized I’d grabbed the wrong sample from my drawer…

This was still fine as a cold brew – just really not what I’d intended. More of a very generic green tea taste, but pretty smooth and delicate. Hints of fresh cut grass and raw green beans. Not my thing, really – and I likely would have enjoyed it more hot.

It is what it is though – mistakes happen.

I had an opened packet of this that I thought I’d reviewed recently… but as I see no note, I guess it’s been open longer than I thought! It didn’t really seem to affect it, though – this was a deliciously full-bodied, rich, beany green tea. The first two characteristics are probably a bit due to overleafing a tad, but the resulting brew wasn’t astringent at all, so it was definitely worth it. This isn’t a super delicate green, though – lots of flavour. It really hit the spot last night, and I actually had finished the entire cup within maybe 20 minutes of steeping it? Rare for me.

Thanks to Teavivre for the fantastic free sample!

This is a sample I received from tperez in our recent tea/teaware swap, thanks Thomas!

The smell is very sweet and woody, I like it a lot. It’s also very flavourful tea that reminds me of Laoshan greens. It is sweet and crisp with a decent umami. Apart from tasting like a vegetable broth, the soft and thick texture also is very broth-like. In fact the mouthfeel is probably the most memorable about this tea. Both the aromas and the flavours are better in Laoshan green teas (say the ones sold by YS). I also like the somewhat sour and light aftertaste.

I won this tea in a recent giveaway. Apparently, I’ve written about it before, though I have no memory of drinking it. I didn’t pay as much attention to this tea as I wanted since I was swamped with work and grabbed the first green tea I saw. I steeped 2.5 g in 250 ml of 185F water for 4 minutes, refilling the cup as necessary.

The dry aroma is of asparagus, green beans, lettuce, corn, and grass. The first steeps have notes of corn, spring flowers, butter, asparagus, beans, lettuce, and grass. This tea is quite vegetal, though it has some sweetness. The tea becomes more vegetal in the middle, with asparagus, beans, spinach, lettuce, and butter. The final steeps have notes of spinach, asparagus, and grass, with touches of bitterness.

This green tea is much more vegetal than the ones I’ve been drinking recently. It has a nice brothy quality, but otherwise it tastes like a fresh but generic Chinese green tea, which is not at all a bad thing.

Backlog from last month. Thank you to Teavivre for the free samples!

These are the notes I took compiled from three of us doing a group tasting:
This is a very flavourful green tea and it has a strong green flavour.
Notes of seaweed, but it isn’t salty.
Vegetal
Kind of sweet like the scent of honey
Umami (seaweed/kelp) but not buttery
Not astringent at all in any of the steeps.
Gets more floral, honey, seaweed flavour in the 2nd and 3rd steeps. The first steep was the greenest.

2017 harvest sample provided by Teavivre. Thank you!

Had a gongfu session, brewing 3g in a 60ml porcelain gaiwan with 180 degree water (the ratio is a bit higher than the recommended, which is 1g:30ml). No rinse. Followed the website’s steeping directions directions: 10 seconds, 15, 20, 25, 35.

The dry leaf aroma is lightly sweet with notes of corn silk, white sugar, and hay; and transforms into butter and fresh blueberry muffins after I let the leaf sit in the pre-heated gaiwan. (I triple-checked – yes, blueberry muffins!) The wet leaf aroma is drastically different: vegetal and savory. I didn’t let the leaf rest in fresh air as usual when they’re packaged in these packets, and that may explain the bizarre yet fascinatingly scrumptious aromas.

With a fresh and lively feel, the liquor is bright green in color and full-bodied. It has a sometimes thick, sometimes creamy texture. Though clean tasting, there are many bits of bud fuzz floating around. The liquor tastes similar to the wet leaf aroma in that it is vegetal and savory. Heavy in flavor, but not in substance. Tops off with a sweet finish. No aftertaste. The taste and feel are consistent throughout the session.

I went beyond the recommended steeping times: 45 seconds; 1 minute, 2, 5. I could have stopped with 45, the sixth infusion, which tastes lighter and sweeter than the previous five and has a cooling sensation. Thereafter, the liquor tastes cooked.

Teavivre continues to offer excellent green teas. I’m not much for savory green teas, but I really like this one. It’s a little more high-end for the pricing of 100g, but seems worth it.

Sipping this sample down by drinking it western (3min) and gongfu style (10sec, etc) simultaneously. Lots of seaweed and umami notes ensue. Would it be too much if I drank my seaweed tea while eating my seaweed snacks? Only time will tell.

Steep Count: 3 (x2)

(2017 spring harvest)

Another sample from Teavivre! Thank you! I’m trying to write tasting notes quickly because they were nice enough to send some samples over, and sometimes I don’t try the samples at their freshest. Oh but this one is fresh! Such lovely fragrance even just opening the sample — sweetest creamy corn and the flavor is exactly the same as the scent. And I adore these types of green teas. The flavor is lighter, but so delicious. The brew is smooth and clear even though the leaves have plenty of fuzzies. The dry leaves are extremely spiky, long and twisted together. I used two teaspoons, or possibly more because they were clinging together so much. Over the years of trying Teavivre’s teas, I’ve wanted to stock up on most of them that I’ve tried! How does Teavivre find these amazing teas? They are the tastiest teas! I couldn’t even pick a favorite green from Teavivre because they are all so good. I definitely wouldn’t need to buy my green teas anywhere else.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 33 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // 25 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Harvest: 2017