Tea Side 2018 Thai "bitter leaf" sheng, 2019 steamed green

sheng left, green right (kind of similar though)

These two teas don't pair as closely in style as they might, following my own convention of trying very similar teas together, but it should work.  I just started dabbling in green tea again, and beyond adjustment for brewing temperature difference the character won't be completely separate.

It might be closer if this was a pan-fried green, versus being steamed, processed as sheng and Longjing green teas are instead of the main heating approach used for Japanese teas.  That difference should be interesting though, [as it turns out it was, since the green tea was nothing I would've expected].

Vendor descriptions:

2018 Bitter Leaf Raw Pu-erh Tea

Raw pu-erh tea made from Thai bitter leaf tea tree material.

This sheng does not resemble Bulang, nor Lao Man Er, nor other Chinese regions. But that is how I describe the organoleptic properties... The bitterness is so edible, soft. Without citrus notes - closer to the fragrant fresh wormwood. Now, if we add more sweet wildflowers and a drop of vanilla to this fragrant bitterness, then we get this sheng.

Many puerh producers seek to collect the harvest from sweet trees. And we, of course, understand them in this - everyone loves sweet tea, it is easy to sell, etc. But we are convinced that bitter-leaf pu-erh is seriously undervalued for two main reasons:

It has a powerful fragrant Huygan. That is not just a returning sweetness but a very fragrant sweet aftertaste.  It has a very potent relaxing and sedative Qi effect...


This is being sold for $70 for a 200 gram cake, so presented as above average quality tea related to the pricing.


Steamed old tree source green tea:

For this tea, we used Japanese traditional technology for steamed green tea but adapted it to the specifics of the material from old trees. It took several experiments to figure out the optimum steaming depth in order to remove the astringency of a powerful pu-erh leaf but to preserve the freshness and aroma of light and delicate green tea...

The aroma is sweet, appleish and floral. On the palate is a beautiful, whole and full-bodied mix of fruity-floral tropical notes. In the foreground are apples, plumeria and a bouquet of garden flowers. The finish is sweet and oily. The infusion is light, transparent, with a light green tint.


Sounds good; we'll see.  I never do add or read these vendor descriptions until the editing step, and giving this a quick scan later that sounds about right, essentially how I described it.

This tea version sells for $10 for 50 grams; reasonable enough if it really is a novel and high quality version of green tea.

Review:

sheng left; interesting brewed color difference

2018 "bitterleaf" ancient tree Thai sheng:  this definitely does have some bitterness to it; it's just getting started and it could already pass for a good version of Myanmar sheng.  The tree / plant types there must vary, because although most I've tried were on the bitter side the last sheng that I tried from Kokang wasn't.  This tea is pleasant; bitterness stands out but sweetness balances that.  Flavors are clean and feel has some thickness to it.  That range might even include some dried fruit.  Waiting a round for a more complete break-down makes sense.

2019 Spring 2019 steamed green from ancient trees in Thailand:  I didn't expect that to be like Japanese green teas, and it's not, but I also didn't expect how it is.  The flavors are warm and floral, with a bit of dried fruit supporting that, along the line of dried persimmon or even peach.  So much for concern over this being overly vegetal.

Green teas are never rich and warm in flavor and tone like this.  From the color it doesn't look like they've let it oxidize to warm the tone and shift character; it turned out that way via other causes.  Feel is on the soft side but with pretty good fullness.  It gives up aftertaste range in comparison with the sheng, but then that's how that would go.

Second infusion

2018 bitterleaf Thai sheng:  flavor warms a little. The bitterness is really nice, paired with a lot of residual sweetness.  Astringency isn't part of that; the feel is full and rich but not rough in any way.  It's just bitter.  Mineral undertones support that, warm versions of them, and subtle floral range rounds out the experience, trailing over into mild dried fruit range.  At some point splitting out flavor range over different levels gets to be guesswork and imagination, but to go there the fruit covers hints of nectarine and tangerine.

2019 steamed Thai green:  I really didn't expect this to stand up to the other tea as well, to be anywhere near as pleasant, on a few different levels.  Of course bitterness, feel, and aftertaste aren't comparable but the flavor range is great, the feel isn't thin at all, and overall experience complexity is good.  It's not vegetal, not grassy, like vegetables, and so on.  A faint trace of bitterness and some degree of residual sweetness adds complexity; both are more typical of sheng range, and not as pronounced as in this other sheng version, but they match up well against more modest quality sheng version character.  Warm mineral plays more of a role in this infusion, and it does seem to be swapping out some floral and fruit range for wood tone or mild vegetable, more like tree branch bud at this point.

Third infusion

2018 sheng:  I've been giving this around a 10 second infusion, based on also brewing the other version at the same time.  At this proportion it would work well faster too, using 6 seconds or so, not quite a flash infusion but a quick one.  It's not bad like this but there's more than enough intensity, so it just depends on preference for that level.

Lighter probably would be better.  Bitterness is still pleasant but it is a little strong.  The warm supporting tones, covering underlying mineral range, floral tones, and dried fruit, are pleasant, but the overall balance would probably work better quite light.  This might be shifting from dried fruit to include more wood tone as well, cured hardwood or something such, or closer to tree bark, maybe even a little towards tobacco.  It will be easier to split that out using a lighter infusion.

2019 steamed Thai green:  the overall effect isn't coming across in describing flavor as a list.  It's a bit creamy, with an interesting rich, full character.  Warm floral along the line of rose petal stands out now, with warm fruit range still around dried persimmon.  There is still a touch of flavor edge and mild astringency along the lines of tree bud tip or flower petal or stem, but not much, so it works to give it balance.  Sweetness level is nice; it balances all that. 

Fourth infusion:

2018 "bitterleaf" Thai sheng:  this is still bitter and plenty intense but it does balance better brewed faster, using a 5-6 second infusion time.  It's still cool the way that sweetness kicks in while you still drink the tea, and gets a lot stronger after you swallow it.  This has about as much residual sweetness (hui gan) as sheng ever tends to.  Other supporting range is still transitioning a little but not too far off where it was in the last round, mixing earlier floral and fruit flavors in with developing warm wood tone, probably closest to tree bark.

2019 steamed Thai green:  this hasn't transitioned much.  Maybe that rose petal floral tone is really closer to lavender, which could relate to me getting it wrong earlier instead of that changing.  Lavender tends to have a strong, rich, sweet smell, even when the scent isn't strong, and this is like that.  Again including some bitterness and trailing aftertaste gives this nice complexity.  It has less feel structure than the sheng while you drink it; it feels a little full but not in the same way.

Fifth infusion:

2018 "bitterleaf" Thai sheng:  not too much transition to speak of; the balance of earlier aspects may be shifting a little, but not in any way that changes much.  Bitterness might be tapering off just a little, with other range filling in more, balancing against that more.  Again a wood tone is picking up, more even in level against floral and other flavor range.

2019 steamed Thai green:  it's nice how this is working out well being brewed using parameters pretty close to those for sheng.  I'm using slightly cooler water, nowhere near 70 C, probably closer to what the parameter tables list for oolong brewing, 85.  Given this feel is soft, with just a touch of astringency edge, it would probably still be fine brewed just off boiling point, or even at it.  I don't think it would be better, or probably as good, but it seems likely that would work.

This hasn't changed much either.  Creaminess is really nice, along with rich, sweet flavor complexity.  Floral tone stands out the most but it would work to interpret part of the brighter note as a hint of citrus, probably closest to tangerine.  Most of the flavor range is warmer and richer, but that brighter range contributes too, giving it nice complexity.  That may be what green teas tend to lack, beyond tasting vegetal, like grass or vegetables; they usually don't cover this range of complexity, for flavors or feel aspects, or including as much trailing sweetness aftertaste as this does.  A lot of sheng drinkers would like this better if some of the bitterness in the other sheng version added to all that, but that is subjective.

interesting color difference, for a year and a half of aging

The next infusion wasn't so different (the sixth); I'll skip the separate description.  Bitterness drops off in the sheng, and picks up in the green tea version, seemingly a function of going longer on the infusion time.  The green is finally picking up just a trace of vegetable tone, along the line of kale.  From here more of that will occur, as infusion times run longer to keep up intensity aspect proportions will shift as a result.  Both teas are still quite pleasant but not quite as nice as in the earlier cycle.

Conclusions

In trying a Longjing from Yunnan recently I was surprised that it included so much intensity, complexity, and sweetness, as this green tea version also did.  That tea started out with more of the characteristic nutty / toasted rice flavor aspect, then shifted more to floral, mineral undertone, and other flavor, much closer to this version.  Both were as good as any green teas I've yet to try, lacking the vegetable range flavors and astringency that I don't care for in green teas.  This version was probably a little more novel, not quite as intense in flavor but with more unusual character, with a lot going on.  This might be the fruitiest green tea I've tried, and possibly the creamiest in feel.

This sheng was nice.  Bitterness did stand out, matching the billing.  Astringency didn't, at all; interesting it could be that bitter without including much of that.  Feel structure was more complex than in the green tea version though, with good trailing sweetness in both, but a much stronger related effect in the sheng.  This sheng was a relatively high quality version, but the novel character stood out more than that.  Bitterness in young sheng is normal; that particular form of bitterness and the aspect range coupled with it is not.

It was interesting that the color showed as much aging as it did for the sheng, but then a year and a half enables more transition here in Thailand than in cooler, dryer climates.

Hatvala Vietnamese Assamica based oolongs

Sun Bear left, Moon Bear right (somewhat similar in appearance)

not a lot of extra information, but the packaging has a cool look

Breaking from normal form I wrote the review notes for this prior to doing any intro section, and talked a little to the Hatvala owner about those teas first too.  These were provided for review; many thanks for that. 

I'd lost track of the idea that these are both variety Assamica based oolongs, which is quite novel.  I remember trying an Oriental Beauty version made from Assamica and not much else comes to mind, beyond the Indian versions, which are sort of something else, more less-oxidized versions of black teas.  A Halmari Assam version was great, it just seemed nothing like a Chinese or Taiwanese oolong, a lot closer to a second flush Darjeeling.

They're both quite nice teas; I usually don't know that when writing the intro section.  I'll mostly just cite the web-page descriptions here though, getting back to descriptions and conclusion later. 


Sun Bear Oolong Tea

PROFILE: ANISE, FENNEL, SWEET, NUTTY

ORIGIN: CHO LONG, YEN CHAU, SON LA, VIETNAM

HARVEST: SEPTEMBER 2019

Sun Bear Oolong Tea is one of two experimental Oolongs produced from the leaves of wild large leaf tea trees collected from Cho Long in the Yen Chau district of Son La province.  Yen Chau lies between Moc Chau, where the tea is processed, and the Vietnam/ Lao border.  The tea is processed by an expert Oolong Tea producer.

Sun Bear Oolong Tea is produced from one bud and two leaves with an oxidation level similar to that of the farm grown Red Buffalo.  After rolling and drying the tea is subject to a short roasting phase.  Sun Bear feels a little creamy in the mouth and offers flavours that include aniseed, fennel and a sweet, nutty taste that is similar to cooked cassava (or 5 bean powder if you are familiar with that). The depth of character found in deep rooted, broad leafed, ancient tree leaves allows the tea to be infused up to 4 or 5 times without losing flavour.

The sun bear is the smallest of the bear species and is native to the tropical forests of South East Asia (including Vietnam).  It is listed as vulnerable due to large scale deforestation in recent years.  Sun Bears are also threatened by commercial hunting, both for meat and traditional medicine.  At Hatvala we are sponsoring the rescue work of Animals Asia at their Bear Sanctuary in Tam Dao National Park.


Moon Bear Oolong Tea

PROFILE: DRIED ROSE, HERBAL, MEDICINAL, SYRUP, TOAST

ORIGIN: CHO LONG, YEN CHAU, SON LA, VIETNAM

HARVEST: SEPTEMBER 2019

Moon Bear Oolong Tea is produced from one bud and two leaves harvested from wild large leafed trees. It is oxidized to a higher degree than both the Sun Bear Oolong and the farm grown Red Buffalo. Moon Bear does not have a separate roasting phase at the end of rolling and drying. It produces a full bodied amber liquor with a pleasant bitterness, subtle astringency and a delightful range of flavours encompassing dried rose, golden syrup, herbal or medicinal notes and a little toastiness in later infusions.  The depth of character in the broad leafed, ancient tree leaves allows this tea to be infused up to 5 or 6 times without losing flavour.

Moon Bear Oolong Tea is another of two experimental Oolongs produced from the leaves of wild tea trees harvested from Cho Long in the Yen Chau district of Son La province. Yen Chau lies between Moc Chau (where the tea is processed) and the Vietnam/ Lao border... 


My review notes have them a lot closer in character than those aspects lists do, and the interpretation varies, but that's all normal enough.  To cite a typical example I picked up no bitterness in the Moon Bear version at all.  Then again I've been drinking mostly sheng for two years, and an average level of bitterness in young sheng is a lot higher than in this tea version.  I might describe a sheng as "not bitter" when it includes more bitterness than any oolongs ever tend to.

Now that I think of it I'm way off being calibrated for interpreting rolled oolongs.  I've been drinking some of a cheap Tie Kuan Yin I bought in China at work but I've not reviewed better versions here for awhile, maybe only one this year.  That was a roasted Tie Kuan Yin from Jip Eu, a local shop I make it to often.  Odd, since that was my main starting point for better teas, exploring Thai rolled oolongs (which in retrospect aren't usually exceptional).

Review:

Sun Bear left, Moon Bear right, in all following pictures as well

Sun Bear:  it's not fully opened yet but clear enough where it's headed.  It's a more oxidized, probably somewhat roasted rolled oolong, although no particular level of roast comes across.  [Very moderately roasted, per the description.]  That would be comparable to their Red Buffalo oolong, which I haven't tried in awhile, so it will be hard to do aspect comparison by memory.  The flavors are nice, and though those will develop further.  The main aspect that comes across is that of toasted pastry.  From there a mild spice might develop more; we'll see.

Moon Bear:  this overlaps a little but it's different.  Toasted pastry works as a description for part of the range but it's a little more towards a root-like aspect.  Usually I'm referring to that as root spice, but in this case maybe just non-distinct root, what that range is typically like, or maybe not far off the smell you would pick up by sniffing potatoes and yams in a grocery store, especially if they were wet.  It sounds less pleasant, but the way that sweeps in an interesting underlying (or in this case primary) mineral tone has a lot of promise.  Sweetness and floral and fruit or whatever else will probably pick up to balance that, since this is just getting started.

Second infusion:

Sun bear:  mineral and earthy tone pick up in this; it approaches the other in character.  I love oolongs in this range, versions that tend to be called "red oolongs," even though that terminology doesn't make perfect sense to me.  It only means "more oxidized," so the intention and final meaning couldn't be clearer, I just don't relate well to black teas being called red.  It has more to do with how someone prefers language to be used than it being right or wrong, clear or unclear.  I'm fine with conventions evolving however they happen to, with a tea type being named after a village, for example, even when it comes from a much broader area, or the British screwing up the name for black / red tea at one point.

It's interesting how this balances.  It has enough sweetness to be pleasant, but a bit more would completely change the effect.  Mineral related to wet potato definitely joins the toasted pastry flavor, with that trace of spice not picking up much, at least yet.  The overall effect is nice, clean and balanced.  Feel has some thickness, I've just been spoiled by really structured teas that express very long aftertaste effects for awhile, so it all seems moderate to me.

Moon bear:  this shifts a little into cocoa.  It's even less sweet, which makes the mineral (root) part stand out a lot more; that shifts the perception and placement of the same aspect.  Add a little more sweetness and I think it would seem like cocoa is dominant.  Again the balance is nice, and the cleanness of the flavor aspect.  The tea is smooth with reasonable thickness.

Third infusion:

Sun Bear:  more of the same really; no difference related to transition.  As I remember a mild version of malt, more like malted milk balls, is present in the Red Buffalo version, and stands out, and this also includes that.

Moon bear:  these have drawn to be relatively close to each other.  Some of the same aspects must be in a slightly different balance, and there must be supporting aspects that vary, traces of this or that, but they're pretty close, at least at this point in an infusion cycle.  This evolves a little towards a mild woodiness, close to balsa wood, which is how I remember part of Red Buffalo as well.  I had went a little lighter on this infusion (round); I'll try it slightly stronger and see if that points out differences better.

Fourth infusion:

Sun Bear:  I had already mentioned it but this flavor profile is really clean for being in this range.  It doesn't take much for a touch of mustiness, woodiness, or some other earthy range to disrupt this given the heavy, somewhat earthy flavors at play.  This is quite clean.  Toasted pastry still stands out, a lot more than the mineral, which works as a base.  A trace of cinnamon joins that.  A bit of raisin would be perfect, matching one of my favorite pastry types, and with the right degree of imagination one could see it as there.  Sweetness isn't as pronounced as it might be but it gives it good balance.

Moon Bear:  Spice stands out a little more than any toasted pastry aspect, also closest to cinnamon, but it's non-distinct enough that it could be nutmeg instead.  Making that swap is the main difference between these, with spice range more pronounced than toasted pastry.  Mineral range has dropped off.  That malted-milk ball trace is stronger in this version than the other.

Fifth infusion:

Sun Bear:  some other spice aspect seems to be picking up, not one I can define though.

Moon Bear:  not as much transition in this version, at least for this round.


I did try these for a few more infusions but they were fading past that point.  The Moon Bear held up better in late steeps, picking up a nice roasted chestnut aspect, while the other just faded more.  Both were quite pleasant even when stretching them though, clean and balanced throughout.

Conclusions:

They're not that far off their popular Red Buffalo version in character.  Both seem like more-oxidized oolongs, not at all like partly oxidized black teas.  They lack some of the sweetness and a little of the full, round feel oolongs tend to express, but beyond that they're normal for the general range.  There is no clear narrow aspect set for more-oxidized oolongs to be shooting for so these seemed type-typical enough. 

It probably would've helped with interpreting them if I'd been drinking just a little more roasted oolong over the course of this year, versus that one example back at the beginning of it.  Not rushing to beat the Sunday morning swim class timing would've worked better, but that's a given as the tastings go.  Interpretations would naturally vary anyway; one person's rich root spice and warm mineral would be another's roasted chestnut.

Related to not interpreting them as sweet that probably ties to bias related to other types too.  I drink mostly sheng and black teas now, both of which can come across as very sweet in different ways.  By chance I've tried two of the sweetest green teas I've ever experienced in the last week.  That particular aspect layers in with others in these teas' examples, and it was enough to provide a nice balance.

They're by far the best Assamica based oolong I've ever tried, but that's not saying much, given the limited prior exposure.  With that consideration these are interesting for novelty, but they stand on their own for pleasant character well enough without that as a factor.

Wild Qi Tea Longjing

I'm trying the last of four teas shared by Shana of Wild Tea Qi, a Longjing version.  She is the official main founder of the tea group I admin for, International Tea Talk.  I have mixed feelings about trying this, on a couple of different levels, and this post may never go out [although in the end it did].  I'll go into that background first, a list of reservations.


I'm sick:  I'll not taste much of this; I'm probably at around 75% capacity for tasting, much improved from two days ago when my sense of taste was mute, from another sinus infection.  The main reason to try this tea is related, to taste it now and then again mid-week to see how different it is.  I won't get another chance to test exactly what being sick does to sense of taste, at least for a few weeks until I become ill again, the way things have been going.

Editing note:  it's a week later now that I'm publishing this, with a second tasting in the middle.  I think I've got this recovery.


It's not Spring:  people tend to prefer and review green teas in the Spring.  There is less point to mentioning them in what is about to change to be the temperate climate winter.  I'm almost not talking to an audience at this point anyway, more writing what is interesting to me, for whoever happens to also be interested to read it.

It's not late fall here in Bangkok either, it's the end of our rainy season, about to be our cool season, which are both close enough to Spring in character, I guess.  As to teas being better fresh they do seem to lose a little of the edge, less so if stored refrigerated, but people make more of the change than they need to.  Well stored green teas lose just a little freshness, which is really unfortunate, but they're far from ruined a half year or a year later on.

Other factors, not necessarily tied to reservations, just background:


It's a Yunnan origin Longjing:  that's not a reason not to review it, just relevant context.  The original, main origin for Longjing is elsewhere, and the only example I've tried from Yunnan, included as a sample along with a purchase from Yunnan Sourcing, wasn't type-typical of more standard versions.  Let's cite a less than idea but standard reference to cover what Longjing is, a Wikipedia entry citation:

...sometimes called by its literal translated name Dragon Well tea, is a variety of pan-roasted green tea from the area of Longjing Village in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. It is produced mostly by hand and renowned for its high quality, earning it the China Famous Tea title...

...There are various definitions of Longjing; however a common definition is that authentic Longjing at least has to come from the Zhejiang province in China,[4][5] with the most conservative definition restrict the type to the various villages and plantations in the West Lake area in Hangzhou.[6] It can also be defined as any tea grown within the Xihu District.[7] A large majority of Longjing tea on the market however is actually not from Hangzhou. Many of these inauthentic longjing teas are produced in provinces such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Guangdong.... 

...Authentic Longjing tea tastes sweet, mellow and rounded. Some varieties are distinctly vegetal and grassy, and others carry a hint of roasted chestnut and butter.


I'll add more later about flavor and other character differences, and typical types; the point here was more to clarify that origin issue.  Any tea sold from a different area as Longjing that is clearly identified related to source location is in no sense a fake tea.  It's just not the most conventional version of this tea type, per the typical definition.  The plant type used is probably different, in addition to any other terroir issues or processing variations.

This version was still good, but it's odd discussing any difference when a type is typically associated with being very standard, in terms of aspects.  An example helps clarify what I mean.  Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong oolong (or any of those) tends to cover a narrow range of associated flavors and character, floral or else peach, as general flavors go, with the rest very familiar to a lot of people.  It's odd placing where a version stands if it is slightly off that normal scale range, even if the difference wasn't negative in any way, beyond being less typical.  What if a Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong was roasted more, in a range more typical of a Wuyi Yancha Fujian oolong, versus flavor profile differing in some other way?  That might be fine, it would just be odd placing it.  Most likely that wouldn't be an improvement, and the conventional range for a much more limited level of roast is in practice in the Guangdong province / Chaozhou area oolongs for a reason.

Here I'm talking about origin area instead, a different thing, but that will carry over to discussion of character differences as well.


Brewing using 205 F / 97 C water (package recommendation):  this is a matter of preference, right?  I've rehashed this issue so many times I'm bored of going too far with it, but there are a few sets of themes and perspectives that stand out.  The standard temperature brewing table relates mostly to Western style brewing preferences (I think; even that's an interpretation), and those tend to vary.  Another school of thought says that it's best to use boiling point water with essentially everything, and adjust intensity or astringency as necessary using timing, dropping infusion time.  Of course especially in the case of green teas those sets of ideas conflict.  Most people and vendors would recommend brewing this tea at closer to 70 C, I think.

The resolution here is clear enough; someone could try any given tea version made a few different ways, and then their own preference and opinion is the correct yardstick.  I suspect I'd like this tea best made using hot water but slightly below 97 C, down around 90, but still hot.  Then again I tend to be a bit sloppy when it comes to parameters, guessing things out, going by instinct.  Maybe I'm robbing myself of a truly optimized experience, or maybe that somehow makes more than enough sense and works well.

I might also mention seeing notice that Shana is currently running tea training courses in China this week, with more on that kind of thing here.  Use of the term "sommelier" tends to draw some heat, related to that kind of thing, since it means a different thing related to wine, and to some implies a close parallel that doesn't hold.  Using "master" in any course title would raise similar concerns, but with a more value neutral title there's nothing wrong with different training providers offering different options. 

Onto a little more background about this tea then the review:


Vendor description:

About a two hour drive from Kunming, Yunnan Province and after a three-hour hike deep into the mountains of Yiliang County we found this gorgeous hidden gem, an ancient tea tree garden hidden right in plain sight.

There were remnants of an old temple and later it was confirmed to be the famous Bao Hong Temple’s old tea garden. This ancient tea tree garden created by a monk who came down from Fujian Province in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). He brought with him tea tree seeds, which were a special small leaf variety from Fujian. During the cultural revolution, the temple was destroyed as were many holy sites.


Ok, that's more a story than a description.  I kind of like those stories.  There really is no description of the tea character there, what it tastes like and such.  In a comments section some people claim it's the best Longjing they've tried; that's promising.  Who knows what else they've tried though.  There's a video link on that page and that probably contains more discussion of how it's made and what it's like.

This tea is sold out so it may be something to think about for next Spring, but isn't available now.

Review:

Interesting guessing how much of this experience is dropping out; clearly I'm not tasting this tea normally.  It has more of a mineral / metallic edge than I think is actually present, an input from the illness.  At the same time I can still guess at what it's actually like, beyond how I'm perceiving it.

It seems to overlap with the most typical Longjing scope, the nutty / toasted rice flavor, mild sweetness, towards-vegetal but not really vegetal nature.  It's kind of a joke to break down the flavor to a list though, only a guess how accurate that would be.  It leans a little towards floral tone, with some warmth to it, a rich, fermented grain effect.  I'm not sure that extends to toasted rice but it seems to be in the ballpark.  There probably is a more pronounced mineral aspect to this than is typical, which isn't a bad thing (if it's what I'm perceiving, not an illness-oriented illusion), just unusual.


Savory character picks up in the second round, with plenty of sweetness, fresh aspect range, and good overall balance.  Not to overemphasize the point but "as far as I can tell."  This probably did move away from malted grain to closer to toasted rice, not completely unrelated flavor ranges but different.  There's a fullness to the experience, even for experiencing 3/4ths of it.  At first scent of the dry tea I was concerned this version might be too atypical, and I don't think this is completely conventional.  It works though, and the second round shifts back to closer to that.  Floral still seems a little pronounced, and a mineral undertone.  Beyond that the differences are finer than I can pick up.

Intensity might be even more pronounced in the third round; this seems kind of hard-hitting as green teas go.  I like that about Longjing, that better versions can be intense, and not vegetal, covering a complex, interesting flavor range that isn't grassy.  It will be interesting seeing how much of that mineral is actually there and how much is error input.  This actually has aftertaste experience, a significant amount of it, more than is typical for Longjing.

Of course you never really know if you've tried 10 or 20 versions of a tea type and just haven't experienced the best versions yet, or ones in that general range.  If you keep buying teas from mass-production resale budget vendors you can be assured that you never will experience that.  I don't mean Yunnan Sourcing; a category of vendors that I shouldn't name an example of since that seems rude.  Yunnan Sourcing sells so much volume of tea that you can buy good, bad, and very exceptional versions through them; it just depends.  The best of the best might tend to not come up in such an outlet but I don't think it fits to lump them in with mass-production resale sources, even if that describes their core theme well enough, the Dayi outlet scope and such.

From here I'll need to turn this over to the next tasting round.  It will be interesting checking a take on the underlying mineral, overall intensity, fermented grain versus toasted rice aspect, floral tone (pronounced, but my take on that will shift a little), aftertaste effect, and on what else I missed.  It will be odd doing a guided tasting theme informed by my own input.

I went extra long on the next brew, getting caught up in a fight between my daughter and her mother.  It's nice to have so much of flavor come through, even though it's definitely not optimized, and I never would've brewed it this strong intentionally.  Overbrewing a tea does let you determine flaws in a different way, I just don't practice that enough to be good at it, and using a standard timing and proportion approach to set a baseline would help a lot (the ISO brewing standard theme).  All the same I interpret what I'm experiencing as positive, not in the sense that the tea is good this way, but that it's not right in the right ways.  Astringency and vegetal edge pick way up but it's still clean; even minor flaws would show through as quite unpleasant aspects made this way.  The balance is all wrong, per my preference, but I interpret it as just right for a way-overbrewed version of this particular tea.

I don't think this is exactly like the better standard Longjing character but there seems to be more than enough overlap, and the shift that I'm interpreting (based on partial input) seems quite positive.  I generally felt that way about that Yunnan Sourcing version too, that it was non-standard but in a good way.  At a guess this might be better tea.  I'm basing that on the complexity and intensity more than flavor range, at this point, because the dulling of that level isn't a clear input.

Second tasting impression:

I still think I'm not 100% back to normal related to sense of taste, even though I became sick 9 days ago, and was relatively fully recovered 4 days ago.  It's taking time.  I re-tried the tea again anyway; it's best to keep this moving.

The first infusion brings up a good bit of the characteristic flavor range that is most typical of the type, a nuttiness, in the range of roasted cashew, or in other forms more like toasted rice.  It's not really vegetal or floral; some versions can drift in those directions, even though I don't see that as standard.

Throughout a second and third infusion other aspect range ramped up a lot.  There's a much stronger underlying mineral tone and aftertaste based sweetness in this tea than is typical of any green tea, never mind standard Longjing version.  Both are characteristic of sheng pu'er, but the context of the other aspects is completely different in this.  It's not bitter though, the feel is different, and it lacks dominant floral range, although a bit picks up after the initial rounds.

Intensity level is unusual, related to flavor range, sweetness in general, and especially sweetness of aftertaste.  I wondered if that couldn't somehow tie to a carried-over error in my sense of taste, versus being how this tea really is.  I'm not tasting it in the other teas I'm drinking day to day but it's so pronounced in this that it's unusual.

Conclusions

It didn't completely match that standard Longjing profile, past the initial infusion impression, and not completely in that too.  The main flavor aspect associated with Longjing was present in that round, but additional sweetness and mineral undertone filled in later.  In a sense it was either a neutral or positive difference tied to that standard expectation; this is one of the most intense green teas I've ever tried.  The flavors are quite clean (I think), and overall intensity is off the scale, especially related to sweetness and aftertaste effect. 

I'm surprised that my impression was as close as it was when trying the tea sick versus mostly recovered.  Some detail had definitely dropped out the first time but the general impression was quite similar.

One criticism might relate to someone seeing that as lacking balance; teas in general just aren't this intense or sweet, except for some young sheng pu'er.  It's easy to counter that by using short infusion times but the sweetness is still really dominant.  I've never blamed a tea version for being too sweet in a review, and I don't intend this as doing that, the idea here is to be clear that it's just past the typical maximum for such a scale.

I can relate to why some people claimed that it's the best green tea they've ever tried in those comments.  Longjing is my favorite green tea, so that I typically buy some every Spring, and if one can divorce themselves of the expectation of a version being absolutely standard this is as good as it tends to get.  To me that's a part of the experience of Longjing though, that for this particular tea type the best case is the closest match to that ideal.

The Yunnan Sourcing version I tried not so long ago varied from standard form in some related ways (also a Yunnan origin version).  It swapped in a touch of savory aspect, and was also floral and sweet, just not this sweet, and also wasn't completely typical of Longjing.  It probably wasn't quite this good, even though that is a judgment call, tied more to subjective preference than a quality level distinction, without a standard form expectation to ground that.  It definitely wasn't this intense; no green teas ever are, except for Japanese green versions.

This works for me.  Since it lacks grassiness or other vegetal quality, tasting nothing like spinach or seaweed, the aspects I like least in green teas aren't carried over.  It probably does express some umami; that kind of judgment would be clearer tasting this with a more grounded palate, one completely unaffected by illness.  That I don't mind though.

I tasted another unusual character green tea recently, a Thai steamed version that I've just made notes for.  Again I was surprised by how sweet that tea was, and how it expressed a flavor profile I've never experienced in a green tea, not grassy or vegetal at all.  I might have to go back on saying I like green teas least of all the categories if these exceptional versions keep turning up.

I'll keep buying a Longjing version every Spring either way.  This one was among the best I've tried, just not exactly conventional in profile, which for some would be an improvement, and for others it could be a deal-breaker.

Happy, a local kitten I've become attached to