Saturday, March 3, 2012

Premium Grade Dragonwell

Compliments to Teavivre for this next sample.

Usually I pay no mind to the grade of the tea, especially a Long Jing. I have really no idea what the word premium is supposed to contribute to the tea, but apparently its important. Personally, I think it is a marketing scheme. The taste is all about the leaves, not the fancy words and lovely descriptions. Its about pure, raw taste.

Again, as with all the teas they have sent, there is detailed information about the tea and where it comes from etc..

The dry leaf beautiful.
It smells fantastic! It has a sweet, nutty smell as its base with some grassy/hay notes to round it out. To top it off, it smells sort of how I would imagine the wok would smell when the leaves were put into it.
It is a tea from last year, but the storage has been great. It smells quite fresh and looks just the same!


As you can see above, the leaves look great! They look as though they have been handled by hands. They are uneven in both shape and color, and honestly they are even more vibrant green than the picture shows. This is truly (in my humble opinion) one of the best dragonwell teas I have seen, even if it is not the prettiest. It has a rawness and rugged look that really sets it apart!


The liquor smells like fresh grass and roasted chestnuts. The smell of a good dragonwell is hard to beat in the world of Chinese green tea.

The taste is perfectly balanced.

Sweet corn, chestnuts, fresh grass clippings (actually much more appetizing than they sound).
Everything about this tea has clicked with me.
I literally have no complaints.
When I have money (college really can make someone quite poor) I will most likely be ordering more of this tea, or hopefully a 2012 crop.

Thank you for the experience, Teavivre.

~billy

2 comments:

  1. I really like the information they've chosen to include here. A lot of sellers hide their distributors, protecting it as some sort of trade secret. I think it shows confidence when a company is open about how and where they have obtained their product--in general, I think companies would not do this unless they knew that they were an efficient operation, selling their product at a fair price.

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  2. Alex,

    Definitely agree with you.
    That's one of the reasons I am very happy with this company and their teas. The information really helps me learn about the area as well!

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