"Dear Upton Tea Company, I'm afraid there's been a mistake. You see, I ordered some of your organic Lung Ching to use as part of my year of tea tasting. Alas, I opened the package and it became clear that one of your delivery trucks must have run over my tea leaves, because the poor dears were flat as a flitter. What can we do about this? Sincerely, Angela McRae."
Fortunately, I didn't dash off the e-mail with my initial thoughts. Turns out, Lung Ching is indeed comprised of flat leaves. Who knew?
Name of tea: Lung Ching (Dragon's Well)
Category: Green Tea
Purveyor: Upton Tea Company
When purchased: January 2009
Dry leaf appearance: Flat, flat, flat. So flat I was worried at first!
Wet leaf appearance: Chopped spinach looking. Sank to the bottom of the teapot.
Steeping temperature and time: 1 level teaspoon of tea, 180 degrees, 3 minutes (I got two more steepings from this tea when using my little glass teapot, each steeped for a minute longer than the previous version. Then, I transferred the leaves to my glass gaiwan and enjoyed three or four MORE cups. I am getting a lot of mileage out of these tea tasting teas!)
Scent: OK, I'm used to the vegetal scent by now, but this time the scent that most came to mind was boiled peanuts!
Color: Deep gold
Flavor: A very rich, full, green tea taste, with no bitterness, and only the teeniest bit of astringency -- which I didn't detect until the second cup. I could (and did) drink a lot of this tea.
Additional notes: According to Michael Harney in The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea, "Lung Ching is to Chinese green teas what French Champagne is to sparkling white wines: the standard against which all others are measured." Well! Isn't that nice to know!
Next week's tea: Huangshan Mao Feng (Yellow Mountain Downy Tip)
Hi Angela, I'm glad you enjoyed your tea. I tried Dragon's Well once and I think it was when I was in Arizona. But I found my to be, well, like a dragon's well- I'll have to try it again sometime since your review.
ReplyDeleteWe are learning so much from this. Especially that we can resteep our leaves and sometimes get an even sweeter taste.
Hi Angela - your posts are wonderful; I always learn something! Although "all things tea" have been a love of mine for years I'm still a novice when it comes to tastings, so thank you so much for your blog! Sharon
ReplyDeleteThank you both so much for the nice comments! I'm still such an amateur at this tea tasting thing, so I'm especially delighted that you are getting something out of the posts!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed your review. I purchased some Lung Ching recently - and enjoyed it greatly. I like the multiple steepings - makes you feel as if you're really getting your monies worth! Didn't notice 'boiled peanuts' though. Fun reference though!
ReplyDeleteNancy
Enjoyed your tea review, and your sense of humor. I had some Adadio Tea Dragonwell, so I was able to have a tasting. I also found this tea to be quite palatable.
ReplyDeletelaughing out loud here angela! great descriptions! peanuts? how odd! sounds like a good tea to try though,after reading your post. thanks for sharing! hugs!:)
ReplyDeleteHahah I enjoyed the description, especially the bit about the peanuts, crazy! Keep it up!
ReplyDelete