With my most recent shipment of tea for business I purchased a couple hundred grams of various highly esteemed green teas for personal consumption. I’ve had a strange sleeping schedule in the recent weeks and thought I might be able to fix it yesterday. I gave in to my desires and had a power nap at 8pm which spiraled into me waking up at 1am and methodically tasting through all these green teas in the peace and quiet of the early morning
I am considering releasing these 4 teas as a sampling set for people to better acquaint themselves with Chinese greens. If you have any interest in tasting through them either with me or on your own, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d sell or conduct a tasting with 5g amounts of all 4 teas for $20, and I’d sell 20g amounts of all 4 teas for $75.
The 4 teas in the line up are:
Meng Ding Gan Lu from Sichuan $36.90 /100g
Xi Hu Long Jing from Zhejiang $57.60 /100g
Emei Zhu Ye Qing from Sichuan $78.30 /100g
Liu An Gua Pian from Bian Fu Dong in Anhui $240.60 /100g
All of the following teas were prepared at a 1g:75ml ratio. 2 Minute steepings. 80 degree water. Water was tap water through a Brita filter, tea pot was Porcelain, tea cup was Clay from Bizen.
With that out of the way, let’s dive into some thoughts:
Meng Ding Gan Lu:
To speak to the teas aroma, it’s very familiar to me. I would compare it mostly to cooked yellow lentils. For some less acquainted to lentils, it’s similar to roasted chicken with a crispy skin. It’s a bit sulfur-y in the same vein that cooked eggs can be. It’s savory like toasted pumpkin seeds while being sweet like pistachio nuts. Behind all the savory aromas are sweet aromas of spring air, napa cabbage, and a seaweedy lime note. Over all I would say the aroma is in a soup brothy category.
Flavor wise it is sweet and vegetal. I associate it with the flavor of napa cabbage most closely, although it is a touch sweeter than I would typically associate cabbage being. Texturally it sits on the heavier side of an average green tea. It has a cooling but decidedly dry finish due to its passive astringency, flavors in the finish touch on cucumber and pumpkin seeds.
Xi Hu Long Jing:
Classically I associate Long Jing with pistachio, lime, and toasted nori seaweed. In this particular instance I can’t find the lime notes. I can’t quite commit to saying it tastes of nori either. The roasted note which usually accompanies the nori is there. It is a tresure trove of green pistachio, and that is the main attraction for me. Beyond pistachio it’s nutty in other ways too, sort of like what you get from ground sesame seeds and/or peanut/cashew butter. There are classic ‘Chinese green tea’ vegetal notes that hide in the background but they are subtler than I am accustomed to.
This is a bit lacking in energy (cha qi) for what I look for in Long Jing but this isn’t at the same price point I would usually purchase this tea in (this is about half price I would normally spend on a great Long Jing)
The texture of the tea smooth, it has a nice richness and comes off more warming than cooling. Savory flavors gift wrap a refreshing tea body. The flavor is a good reflection of the aroma in all of its nut butter glory.
On the 2nd infusion it sheds the identity of nuttiness and becomes like my memory of a ‘summer backyard pool’, soggy grass, fresh air, you can get some nuttiness on the finish but I would say its now mostly just green and refreshing. Not astringent.
Emei Zhu Ye Qing:
What a crazy change in aroma, this was not at all what I was expecting; especially for a green tea. Seeing as this is less than half of the price it will be very practical for me to use this tea as a gateway to pitch the pinnacle of yellow tea: Jun Shan Yin Zhen. I digress.
The aroma of this tea is would be best described firstly as the abstract concept of the colors ‘cucumber green’ and ‘banana yellow with brown spots’. The aroma is appealing in the sort of way that makes you want to bite into ‘it’ as big as your mouth can open — to really sink your teeth into something. Perhaps in a bit more of a tangible way… lets say it’s like a crepe filled with fried banana, fried milk (as you can find in Chinese desserts), sauteed yellow summer squash, and lotus root (which tastes pretty much like corn I guess) — it’s a strange crepe indeed.
The flavor is sweet, it has a tartness which comes out of nowhere. The tartness makes it feel incredibly refreshing. The tea despite being so refreshing is surprisingly rich. The richness coats the tongue with sweet marine aromas and (lucky for me) a pistachio note similar to what I like in Long Jing.
Beyond what I’ve already said, there is also an incredibly nostalgic fragrance that I cant quite place… Suffice it to say that it is quite Vietnamese… or Filipino. I had a lot of Viet/Flip friends growing up and whenever I would go play in their houses there was a consistent combination of aromas like jasmine rice left in a rice cooker and fruits left on little plates in shrines with incense. It’s something like that — very cool.
Liu An Gua Pian:
That brings us to our last tea. Somehow despite its cost and prestige I might actually have the least to say. The tea initially comes off as a very high grade of Tie Guan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy.) Something about it is not quite the same though — it’s in how the aroma progresses. The fragrance of well made Tie Guan Yin is the closest you can get to the aroma of white orchids without actually having white orchids. In Tie Guan Yin however, once the orchid flavor hits the nose I find it’s usually followed up by a freshness like Bounce dryer sheets or a pungency like a bunch of crushed egg shells (depending on quality), followed by vegetal notes and various other things. In this tea the orchid aroma is followed only by Chinese broccoli. Just 2 aromas. What’s fascinating about this tea is how long the orchid fragrance can be smelled before it fades to the broccoli, it really stretches out. It’s not exactly a great mental exercise, but it is a concise and easily appreciated fragrance.
So lets talk about the flavor — it’s aight. The tannins coat the tongue and have a strong presence in the mouth but they don’t come off as astringent or bitter whatsoever. The tannic layer peels off the tongue to give the impression of a cooling and lengthy finish. The tea coats your throat and gives the flavor of orchids to your every subsequent breath. From my experience this aspect of the tea must be the major contributing factor to its cost. It is very natural tasting, very youthful, and so quintessentially the core flavor of ‘Chinese green tea’ that I wonder if that’s a positive thing? It’s not as much of a wonderful sensory experience as much as it is confirmation that I am indeed drinking a flawless tea.
This is one of the baffling things about the ‘world of asia’ to me and my western mind. I can say “this is a flawless tea” because I know what flaws are. I have some experience to judge a tea for its merits and demerits. While this tea has no absolutely no fault — what is interesting about it? What is the draw to this tea? I feel literally every person that I show this tea to will think:
“Yep… this is tea.”
Maybe I don’t have enough appreciation for floral notes. After all, as wonderful as orchids are in their fragrance I don’t think many people have had a chance to smell them before. I don’t believe the flavor or fragrance of orchids is very useful in the kind of food pairings I get to do either.
My desire to smell and taste things which are interesting or unusual outweighs my desire to drink something flawless I guess. Unfortunately there seem to be very few circumstances where ‘flawless’ and ‘interesting’ have a chance to meet face to face. I cherish every chance to try things like that…
There I go, 500 words when 30 would have done the job.
In conclusion!
My favorite of the 4 is Emei Zhu Ye Qing. It is my favorite because it’s the most interesting aromatically while also being impeccably made. A tea I can sit around and daydream with.
I can understand why the Liu An Gua Pian is the most expensive but I choose not support the mentality that ‘not bad is good.’ This tea makes me feel inadequate for not being able to just praise it like a zealot. Fuck it. It’s great though — objectively.
The Long Jing is fine, especially at that price point it probably represents ‘value’ the best of the 4 teas. The Meng Ding Gan Lu is also fine.
All of these teas have their role to play in the world. I hope someone will read this. 😀
Bonus:
The following afternoon I did this same test again. The tea pot is different, now it’s a clay teapot from Tokoname instead of porcelain like I used for the article. The cup is different, now it’s porcelain instead of clay… Maybe more importantly I drank each tea in only 1 infusion, and in quicker succession. I shared the tea with my family this time to hear their responses. I am perhaps in a better state of mind to be tasting things, but I am not as focused as I would have been when I have more time to myself. Here are some quick observations:
Meng Ding Gan Lu wasn’t quite as pungent as I recall.
Xi Hu Long Jing wasn’t quite as toasted and nutty, I actually found it quite vibrant and fresh.
Emei Zhu Ye Qing is about the same, I think comparing the aroma to jackfruit is the connection I wasn’t able to make during the tasting for the article.
Liu An Gua Pian is still quite orchidy, but on a second thought, the flavor is a lot greener, ’rounder’, mellower than the Tie Guan Yins I’ve had. It’s noticeably not Tie Guan Yin.
During this session I think my favorite was the long jing. My wife preferred Meng Ding Gan Lu because ‘it tastes the most Japanese of the bunch’ and
My daughter said they all taste the same (she’s 7 years for the record).
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