Green Pekoe

For reference, I rated this a 16 because it tasted really really soapy and weird to me. But no one else had a similar rating and my sister thought it tasted fine and great, so I’m not going to skew the numbers with what is obviously a bizarre personal reaction to the tea.

Review:
The leaves had a nice buttery scent, with a little bit of dustiness.
When I brewed it up, there was a strange soapy residue on top of the pot. I hadn’t used soap last time I rinsed my teapot, so this was just from the leaves. I don’t know why it was foamy…
The liquor smells toasty with a little bit of a lighter scent, almost citrusy.
Unfortunately, this is going to be a tea I pour out. It is bland, bitter and sour all at the same time. Eww. I’m disappointed – I really wanted to like this. I didn’t even oversteep it!

ETA – I see that I’m the lowest rating for this tea. Perhaps I’m a fluke and there was just some bizarre reaction going on here… I used filtered water in a water rinsed teapot, at the recommended settings. Who knows?

ETA again – My sister tried it and thought it was great. So… I’m out of ideas :)

The last to taste of the Green Savant sampler set.

This one has a sweet, grassy, really more grain like (hay? wheat?) smell in the sample tin. The leaves are long and wavy and a bit twiggy. Not delicate twiggy, big twiggy. Despite the description, they don’t look at all black to me dry. They look greenish silver, sort of like white peony but perhaps less grey.

I’m not going by the Adagio suggestions, I’m doing what I always do for green tea instead. 1:30 at 175F.

Pale yellow, slightly greenish liquor. Looks like a sencha liquor. Its smell isn’t very strong and I was remarking about this to the 6 year old, who asked to take a sniff and said “well, it kinda smells like a plant.”

It’s not an extremely flavorful tea at first blush. It’s mild with a slightly soft mouthfeel. As I sip it more, I find that it does have some flavor, but it seems fairly ordinary. A rather standard, ok, green tea without a lot to distinguish it. It’s not really vegetal, it’s not really grassy, it’s not particularly floral, I’m not getting buttery.

I could ask the 6 year old and I’m guessing the answer would be “well, it kinda tastes like a plant.”

Thanks goes out to tattooed_tea for this sample!

In all honesty I usually gloss over the non-flavored teas for the most part, especially greens. Maybe it’s because of the vegetal-ness I get from them, which is not my favorite flavor. But I am glad to try this as it’s not something I would normally seek out.

I got a weird spicy note on the first sip, which I really wasn’t expecting. But then the vegetal washed it away. This happened all through out my cup. It was very interesting.

I am resteeping the leaves as a cold brew, so we’ll see if that can coax something different from this.

smooth, easy to drink, green tea. nice leaves, too.

By far one of the most delicate teas I’ve ever tasted… I really like. Sure the aroma and flavor could use a boost (which apparently can come from a longer steep) I’m not so sure that’s how God intended this tea to be tasted. Being the first tea I steeped from the Adagio green tea sampler, I’m pretty sure I have a fun couple of weeks ahead of me. Anyways.

Green Pekoe, a light and mellow green tea that is as subdued as her color suggests. Enjoy the nuances and don’t come down to hard on her. :-)

The aroma of this tea reminds me of sweet potatoes. The flavor is actually pretty sweet. I can catch buttery notes as well as grassy, vegetal notes. I really liked this green!

iced this with peppermint… yum!

Adagio describes this one as an “everyday” green tea. I definitely agree with their sentiments and would describe this as a gentle, delicate green tea that will offer a great introduction to green tea. Though I prefer my green teas a bit grassier I really like how buttery-smooth this tea is.

Steeping method: 1tsp per 8oz water, 175-180º for 2-3 minutes. Good for multiple steeps, just add a minute to each resteep.

I would agree with what other commenters say, that this is not a strongly flavored tea, that it has grassy qualities. On the other hand, these are not bad things for everyone!

This is the first tea I tried in my new IngenuiTea tea maker, and I have say parenthetically that the IngenuiTea is the best invention since the mesh ball—and easier to use! I highly recommend that anyone who loves tea, get one! Anyway…

In my first brewing I followed the directions on the sample package: 2 min., 180 f., just over a teaspoon of leaf (though these are such long squiggly leaves dried, that it’s tough to measure in any meaningful way). I found the resulting light golden brew to be, well…acceptable. The flavors weren’t strong, but they were: grassy, buttery, a little mineral-y. Like a combination of white tea and lightly fermented oolong, but at an inoffensive and almost insignificant level of flavor. Yet I didn’t taste wateriness, leading me to believe that this was not strictly an understeep or too little tea for the amount of water; this is just not strongly flavored tea.

In the second brewing (a couple of hours after the first, though I don’t know if it makes any difference) I kept the temperature of the water the same, but steeped for radically longer: six minutes. Wish I could claim this was some important insight on my part, but what actually happened was that the phone rang right after I started steeping. I was worried this brewing would be lost to bitterness, but it seems low flavor also means low bitterness in this case: at six minutes the brew is more flavorful but otherwise unchanged, as if to say, “No, really, I am an everyday type of tea in every sense of the word; you can’t get me wrong.”

I’ll remember to steep longer in the future because with a longer steeping, even on a second brewing, the flavor is really nice; the butteriness is more pronounced and there is almost a clean, though not at all watery, quality to it. The grassiness recedes to the background, and overall, it becomes very drinkable, if still rather inoffensive. Is it possible the 2 min. recommendation is some kind of typo on Adagio’s part?

Probably I won’t buy this again; there are lots more interesting and tasty teas out there than this one. But I’ll finish the package probably over the next couple of weeks at work, when things will be quiet and I’ll be looking for ways to stay alert! For the price, I do recommend it to anyone who is looking to try (or to help someone else try) green tea for the first time. It may not be remarkable, but it is still head and shoulders above what you might get in any American grocery store, and balanced enough in flavor that anyone who thinks green tea is too grassy, vegetal, sweet, or, well, too whatever, will be pleasantly surprised.

A great simple green tea. Mellow flavor.

I have to agree with a few of the other reviewers: This tea has very little personality. It is very delicate and has very little going on. It’s not bad—not bad at all, it just lacks any real flavor.

I tried multiple steep times: 3, 4, 5, 6. All producing, more or less, the same flavor. I brewed it at 180, as suggested. I may try 190 or 200 next time to see if I can coax a little more life from this.

If very delicate, extremely subtle tea is what turns you on, then this would be right up your alley.

At 180F temperature, as directed by Adagio, the cup I got was so light as to be almost tasteless. Bumping up the temperature got me a couple of steeps of a mild, unremarkable green tea. Lightness of color is okay, but this was sorely lacking in flavor and aroma. I want more out of my tea than this.

A very unremarkable green tea, but good introduction to Chinese greens. The description says it’s a good “everyday” green tea and I agree that it is, it’s very light and mellow. I steeped it 4 times starting at 1 minute and adding an additional minute every time each time at 175F. The flavor hasn’t changed at all, not that it’s a bad thing. A very simple and pleasant green tea.

A nice light green, very middle of the road. A little brothy, light vegetal taste. Very average but dependable.

I will freely admit to not being much of a green tea connoisseur. I like to drink it every so often, but I can’t really tell the difference between specific kinds of non-flavored green teas (at least not the way I would be able to with black tea). Still, this is a nice green, delicate, not too grassy. I don’t know that I’d be able to recognize it out of a line up, though.

I really need to review my knowledge of greens, as almost all of the ones in the Adagio sampler I got taste almost identical, sans sencha and the gunpowder.
Very mild and grassy, a touch of astringency but overall smooth and soothing.

I don’t know about this tea… I think I might have oversteeped it. I brewed it at 180 degrees for around 4 minutes with somewhere near a teaspoon and a half of leaves. It has a sort of odd aftertaste, but definitely does remind me of pekoe. Maybe I’ll give it another try at 3 minutes?

Accidentally oversteeped it, still turned out quite good.

My second cup of this today, and TeaEqualsBliss is right: oversteeped is the way to go.

I fully admit that I may have over-brewed this tea a bit, which explains why I find it so bitter, but it should not be as bitter as I’m getting because I didn’t over-brew it by THAT much. I find it smoky and bitter, and those two flavors just overwhelm my palate. So…. Not my favorite. I prefer gunpowder for a everyday green tea.