Dragon Well Green Tea (Long Jing)

Thanks to Teavivre for a sample of this tea! I haven’t tried too many dragon wells yet, so am happy for the opportunity to try out another one and see how it compares!

The aroma of the brewed tea is light and sweet and a bit like boiled veggies (although that’s really only a hint). Unfortunately, I think I really underleafed this tea (forgot I was using a bit mug, and probably only scooped in ~1.5 tsp), and I am not getting a lot of flavour from it in spite of oversteeping it by over a minute. What I can taste is a bit of rock sugar sweetness in kind of a boiled veggie broth. Not astringent at all (but I’ve found that dragonwells don’t seem to get as astringent as some other greens for whatever reason). I’ll have to give this another shot later, but it’s certainly promising!

Thank you Angel and Teavivre for this generous sample

I enjoyed the first steep of this tea the best. It was a tad softer and had a more elegant appeal. The 2nd and 3rd brew brought on a stronger and more bitter taste, which I didn’t mind, but didn’t love either. Subsequent steepings were mellower but maintained the depth of flavor with considerably less bitterness.

I must admit, my palette is a little biased towards Japanese green teas as that is just what I am more familiar with. But having said that, perhaps by time I finish all the generous samples of green tea from Angel and Teavivre, I might acquire a new-found love for the Chinese green tea. As for the number of times I steeped these leaves – I’m on number 5 and the leaves are still going strong.

This sample was generously sent along by Angel from Teavivre – thank you!
This is the first dragon well I have tried. The liquour was so light I was afraid I hadn’t used enough leaf (I might not have – I don’t have my little gram scale right now).
The flavor is subtle and interesting. It has a buttery scent to it, with a nutty flavor with a funny vegetal aftertaste. I’m not sure that I like it, but I am going to experiment with it and try a shorter steep with more leaves.

I’ve had two pots of this today. A nice break from flavored teas. It has a warm, almost nutty flavor to it. There are light floral undertones. It’s sweet and slightly rich.

Dry leaves look as if they were freshly cut, they are bright green, they smell of fresh green vegetables and grass and they seem so succulent as if one could soak the fresh juice out of them. Tea soup is light greenish-yellow. After 3 minutes’ steep, the smell is unchanged from the dry leaves, very fresh and inviting. The taste is mild, again it feels as if biting into an incredibly succulent apple or pear. But there is a slightly bitter aftertaste. Steeped leaves haven’t lost the pleasant juicy smell and they have uncurled.

_{Tea sample provided by Teavivre for review}

This is the companion review for the Premium grade Dragon Well.

Smelling the dry leaves, I am picking up on some familiar notes of the premium one plus a tobacco like smell. My husband found the scent of these leaves more favourable than the premium one.

Then we smelled the lid of the tasting set after the tea was brewed. Here, it reminded me of bitter greens.

Onto drinking the liquor, there is a strong flavour that hit me right away. Followed by slight bitterness, buttery (less than premium), vegetal (less than premium). The taste reminds me of the type DAVIDsTEA offers, or at least the one I tried from their sample pack.

In comparison to the premium Dragon Well, I don’t like this one as much. But I cannot say it is a bad tasting tea. The major difference is that it tastes slightly more bitter, less “fresh”, and is not as refined. However I would still feel comfortable drinking this at home or sharing with friends. I’ve had much worse green tea than this. Next time I will try this gongfu style in a gaiwan.

120ml tasting cup, 2 tsp, no rinse, 1 steep

This was a sample pack that I am trying from Teavivre. I will be using my gaiwan for this infusion. Notes state on their website the steeping times as follows: 5 steeps:rinse,20s,40s,1m10s,2m,2m30s.

Raw the tea is thin and sharp and they also snap in half so they are rather dry. They are a lovely grassy green colour with yellow and white whisps. It smells gently floral with a slight astringency.

First steep – 20 seconds – Colour is very pale yellow. Smell is slightly astringent but fresh with it. The flavour is nice and subtle, there is a definite florally perfume taste (similar to jasmine but on a much weaker scale) along with a natural grassy sweetness. There is no real bitterness.

Second steep – 40 seconds – Yellow (darker than the first steep) and with a stronger perfumey fragrance. Taste is also a little stronger, more floral and again a little grassier than the previous steep. Still very pleasant as there is no real bitterness and there is still a hint of sweetness about it. A slight nuttiness peaks through. For me this is about the peak of the tea, any stronger and it would be ruined and any lighter and it loses a lot of it’s character.

Steep three – 1 minute 10 seconds – Colour is yellow with a a fairly astringent and somewhat floral perfume fragrance. Both being slight stronger than the previous steep. The nuttiness is coming through vividly now (chestnut would be an adequate description). The sweetness has now gone and has been replaced with a touch of bitterness leading from the over perfumed taste.

I am not at the point of wincing a little while drinking due to the perfumery and I think this will be my last steep. It’s not badly (fubar’ed) but I don’t see myself enjoying the next two steeps and for now I am happy enough to have good memories of this tea with it’s earliest steeps.

Overall I would say this was of good quality and once steeped for the second time it unleashes it’s sweet, grassy and nutty magic. I would drink this for a change but not sure I could see myself buying it for personal use. It’s a little too perfume heavy for me.

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