Nepal 2nd Flush Dew Drops Green

This is an interesting tea. The dry leaf is rolled into small pellets, slightly bigger than gun powder, but smaller than most rolled oolongs or pearl teas. From the dry leaf, I immediately get a whiff of honey, which is always exciting. Honey is one of my favourite notes in tea.

Steeped 1tsp (about 4g) in 75C water for 2:30. The liquor is golden and quite clear. The steeped leaves are only partially unfurled, and smell nutty.

The liquor smells sweet, nutty and umami, and these notes are reflected in the taste. There’s a hint of hone, but not as much as I would have expected from the dry leaf smell. I also get a pretty strong, cooling vegetal tang of grass. There’s also a bit of bitterness and a moderate amount of astringency.

The finish is long, but only on parts of the tongue. The way the flavours develop within the sip feels a bit off – there’s a big punch of lots of flavours at the beginning of the sip, and then they fade out quickly. The full mouth flavour at the beginning ends up being just a sides of the tongue kind of flavour by the time I swallow and then into the finish.

This is alright, but I was hoping for something a bit more balanced.

Being the only person in the house with a restricted diet is a nightmare! When I was visiting my mom, I forgot how hard it can be, she is not Gluten Free and plagued by multiple food allergies per se, but she feels better avoiding certain foods, so it was not constantly in my face. Since I have returned home I am bombarded with baking bread, loaves everywhere, massive pasta dishes, pies, cakes…it is not very fun leaving my bedroom. Luckily my mom gave me an awesome simmering potpourri, one which I am using to make my room smell like pine trees, anything to keep the bread away!

First off, my computer ate the usual first photo of the dry leaves for today’s tea, What-Cha’s Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Dew Drops Green Tea, so I must substitute it with something random. These adorable little tea balls resemble Gunpowder Green in their shape in size, hailing from Nepal’s Greenland Organic Farms in the shadow of the Himalayan Mountains. The aroma is a bit sweet, a blend of toasted sesame and freshly cut grass, a bit of distant floral and a touch of mineral at the finish. The tight little balls did not give up their scent easily, it required much sniffing, but the aroma that did come off of them was light and clean.

Brewing the little dew drops of tea brings out more of the aroma hiding away when they were dry, it is a blend of light floral nectar, nutty undertones, and a nice spinach greenness that overshadows all the other notes. It is the aroma of fresh spinach leaves rather than cooked spinach, reminding me a bit of a salad. The liquid is a blend of honey sweetness and green notes from spinach and greenbeans. There is a touch of a sesame note at the finish that adds some nice nutty notes, again the aroma is clean and light.

The taste of the first steep is so green! Like a mouthful of fresh spinach with a distant hint of floral and a touch of citrus. It is neat, there is a peppery and almost salty quality that blends really well with the citrus and spinach, like a mouthful of fresh salad. Just like the aroma, the taste is refreshing and clean!

The aroma of the second steeping is a neat little blend of floral sweetness and savory green notes. With notes of spinach (cooked this time) wildflower nectar and a general vegetal greenness. The taste is mostly green, with a buttery taste and mouthfeel, it tastes like greenbeans and spinach sauteed and butter with a hint of pepper. At the end there is a bit of grass and mineral,

For the last steep, the aroma is a nice blend of savory in sweet, but this time it is more floral and honey than vegetal. This time around there is no saltiness, buttery notes, or really any savory notes, it is all sweet and fresh. Like wildflower honey, flowers, toasted sesame, and a touch of fresh spinach at the finish. Overall this was a refreshing green tea, I liked the blend of sweet and savory, they did not clash.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-cha-nepal-2nd-flush-2014-dew-drops.html

Working my way through my What-Cha samples. :) This time I’m trying two: Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Sencha Green, and Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Dew Drops Green. 3g for 8oz, 75C, first steeping 2min and 2nd 3min.

I don’t know, you guys, I’m so bad at green teas. The biggest difference I’m finding here is in the leaves. The Sencha has this cool pine-needle look, that unrolls into leaf pieces, stems, some buds I think. The Dew Drops are rolled into little balls, and unroll into leaf pieces. Once brewed, the tea smells and tastes like green tea, lol (see? so bad.) Grassy, green, maybe a tiny bit of sharpness but no unpleasant bitterness. I don’t think I could reliably tell them apart. A nice green tea but not particularly interesting to my (obviously uneducated) palate.

Hey, guess who is about to lose their internet for one day for reaching the cap? That’s correct, little ol me. It’s just silly but if it makes Verizon happy to do so, go ahead. I am not giving you another dime.

This Nepali tea is an obvious green from the first sip. Dry it reminds me of gunpowder green in appearance but there is no smoke or roasted notes. Instead it smells grassy. The taste is crisp with a bite – the good kind of bitter. There is a citrus note that became obvious when I sweetened the cup. It doesn’t need sweetened, I just wanted to see what would happen. It reminds me of a Chinese green in many ways.

The downside for me was the wet leaf appears shredded. I have been so spoiled by whole leaves from China that I had to remind myself that is not the norm in other growing areas. I just wonder, how they managed to roll pieces into those little nuggets?

See you in October!