Jin Si Luo

Such cute little spiraled leaves, I did a little rummaging around on the interwebs to find out about this particular Gong Yi and it is usually jasmine scented. This particular batch does not seem to be jasmine scented at all, just smelling like fresh green vegetation. The brewed leaves have a bready, yeasty, almost hoppy quality…it does not really smell like tea, more like sourdough starter! The liquid has more of a fresh vegetation and asparagus aroma to go along with yeasty bread, certainly not a jasmine tea!

That taste is surprisingly mild and sweet, it still has a bready quality, like I just bit into one of those flaky dinner rolls (man I really could go for some bread right now!) but with honey sweetness and a slightly sauteed bok choy taste at the finish. This tea is certainly interesting, not sure I like it or not.

The dry leaves are beautifully rolled. I felt they unfurled quite well in the hot water.

This tea tastes very hay-ish to me, reminding me of a white. It’s a very nice flavor, and as it cools I like it more, actually. It seems to be getting a little more green in flavor as it cools. Interesting.

This tea is worth a resteep to see what happens….

On the resteep, the leaves finished opening (they were mostly open before, but now they all seem opened) and the taste is still quite nice. I enjoyed this one.

The dry tea has a clever spiral-wrapped shape. The disadvantage of this style is that it takes a long time to unwind. I gave it 2 extra minutes to steep from my usual 3 minutes. Weak nose. Rich straw/grass flavor. Some spice appears in the finish, which is long but not very powerful. Nice, but unspectacular. To be honest, the only distinguishing character is how it looks.
Thanks to *Stacy at Butiki Tea* for putting this box together