Tea Trekker

Jungpana (Darjeeling 2nd flush) From the Mahandi Valley comes this award-winning Darjeeling tea. Its small, silver-tipped leaves produce a deep caramel brown liquor with spicy aroma, smooth body, muscatel notes and a bright finish. This tea won the competition for the best 2nd flush Darjeeling at the 2008 World Tea Championship.
Dry Aroma: spice, caramel, rich heady citrus depth
Wet Aroma: dark honey, floral, hint of fruit Leaf: larger leaf than standard Darjeeling, with color that resembles golden beauty (dark, rust, silver tip), lots of pollen
Cup: rich golden, champagne color with green cast legs. Clean, sweet, floral depth with almost pollen-like astringency and totally lacking in bitterness or spicy bite. Silky mouth feel, with lingering sweetness. Offers 2-4 extractions with consistent depth of flavor.
brewing method: Standard cupping set – used 2 grams (1 rounded tsp) per 6oz in 190 degree water, steeped for 3 minutes, but allowing for following extractions by raising the temperature of the water and extending the steep times.

Have been tucking into the 2010 harvest of this tea lately. My perspective on green tea aging has changed a little bit. I don’t think every green can handle time, but some of them manage to keep much of their character and evolve a little in pleasant ways. This one is drinking fine after a year. I eventually burn out on the charcoal, toasted chestnut, and mineral-forward elements of almost any Chinese green, but in the meantime, this provides a light, crisp, refreshing spring brew.

I’ve been drinking this regularly for the past few weeks to sate my craving for green. It’s done well, but in my estimation is far from exceptional matcha. Standard, workable, and without flaw, but does not excel. Whisks up a nice dark green frothy cup, with minimal bitterness, and some solid cucumber and melon tones.

Really surprised to see I hadn’t review this tea yet, I’ve been enjoying it’s delectable greenness for a couple of weeks now. This tea appears to be an easy brewer, as I’ve tried a wide range of leaf ratios (up to 2.5g/oz!) and temperatures and it seems to stand up to most of them. At the cooler range, the tea comes across as pretty bland. But even with a high ratio and warmer temps, there’s never any aggressive bitterness. Flavors stick in the melon and cucumber notes, especially in the finish. It also has a fantastic returning sweetness. A good value, I think.

Finishing off my sample of this tea with a heavy amount of leaf. This is a very nice clean, bright, juicy and straw-like Yunnan green. Tons of strawberry, melon, and peach. Tends to get a little terse, grassy, and bitter if treated too heavy and too hot, but otherwise produces a very spring-like beverage. I found it a little aggressive in the vegetal, herbal, planty spinach notes, something I don’t think works as well with the basket roasting or the light fruit notes, but more with the kelpy, cholorphyll heavy styles of green tea. Nice buds in the steeped leaves.

This is the last rating under my old scheme.
Tasty, just discovered that the amount of tea to use in my new tea cup is less straightforward than I had previously thought. In this case I used two teaspoons to achieve the suggested “generous teaspoon”. The taste is mellow and dirt-like, maybe a muddy version of the frontal bright Darjeelings. The astringency is coming out, but that’s due to oversteeping and cooling. Good for a rainy mild day like today.

I am still at a loss to describe that “white tea” tea flavor. Much like Darjeeling has its special flavor, the white also has its own special flavor. It’s kind of creamy and it kind of reminds me of the taste in the air around a wood-shop when fresh hardwoods are being cut. Maybe “resiny” is the right word, but it has a light somehow lumber like taste. It’s a, shall we say, delicate flavor though. Better for mid morning or even evening. Yes it can be resteeped, and several times, but it is just a much mellower kind of tea than what I would start my day with. Something like a cruising speed type tea, but not something to turn over your engine if you know what I mean.

I couldn’t be precise with the temp as my thermometer is on the fritz (and in the waste bag now), but the water was definitely in the 165-180 range.

This tea impressed me. I think my previous experiences with Wuyi teas have been with poor quality tea. Instead, this has a fantastic texture, little to no astringency, and only the slightest bit of sourness in the mid-steeps. There’s a long, incredible returning sweetness with hints of plum and spice. Delicate and floral in aroma, but robust, caramelized and sugary in flavor. I used Wrong Fu Cha’s “Brewing Rock Tea” (http://chahai.net/brewing-rock-tea/) as a guide and it helped me produce some really fantastic tea. Great tea.

I drank this last night, had to have something right away from my quarterly tea restock. Definitely much less hearty than my usual Assam, but not a wilting flower of a tea at all. Raisiny, earthy (but like dry earth, not loamy soil). Nice flavor. I’ll do another note when I’ve tasted it again.

This tea brews very consistently. I won’t be changing my various ratings. One thing I will say is that I accidentally used boiling water on my third resteep today, and left it in for over 4 minutes. Rather than being bitter/astringent/foul as would be the case with most teas in my experience, it was smooth creamy and even more yummy. Carry on.

This is my first white tea, and I am told by my very friendly tea monger… fine, my very friendly loose leaf seller, that this is a great traditional white tea. I was careful to follow steeping and temp directions as well as I could, but I had to eyeball the amount of tea. That being said:

The liquor was vanishingly clear, but the aroma was intriguing. Again this may be my wild imagination, but it had an almost animal smell to it, like a small musky rabbit. Anyway, it wasn’t a strong smell, and it wasn’t unpleasant. It’s hard for me to describe the flavor, and I will attempt it after a few more tries through the week. That being said it’s a good flavor! As it cooled in the cup it became downright sweet.

Not much of a review I know, but it was a wonderful cup, and I can’t wait to enjoy steeping it for the rest of the day!

A wonderful Shui Xian. The leaves are so large and beautiful too! It wasn’t as strong in the 2nd steep, but dude, this is a great price! ($15 for 4oz) I convinced my dad to buy this when my parents visited this weekend – he’s mainly a black tea drinker so I thought maybe this would open him up to the wonderful world of oolongs!