Chloe

Thanks so much to Jillian for this one who answered my swap request for some more green darjeelings to try! I’m sorry abut the now defunct Simple Leaf because I never got to order anything from them but at least I get to try this one.

This reminds me a lot of a Chinese green tea and I don’t think there’s terribly much about it which would cause me to suspect it’s from darjeeling. It is nutty and slightly vegetal, very mild in flavor with some astringency in the finish. I think I am picking up a few delicate spicy notes – or is that just wishful thinking? In any case I was just sitting here reading JacquelineM ‘s note thinking I might try cold brewing some of this as well. I generally prefer my green teas to be slightly more flavorful but this wasn’t bad at all.

Austin Powers once said…
“It’s a bit NUTTY”

Sorry…HAD to! LOL

The description says it’s fruity and grassy. I’m not getting fruity but maybe a little grassy with the scent. It also smells a bit nutty to me. The taste is a sweet honey, nutty taste. Green Tea taste but not lingering…very smooth at the end of the sip! I like this one just fine.

I’m reviewing this tea for Mike at It’s All About the Leaf (http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/). It’s a great website with some truly excellent reviews of teas and tea-related products, so you guys should go check it out if you get the chance. :)

The tea is fairly unremarkable in terms of appearance and scent – it doesn’t smell stale and the leaves are fairly whole so it seemed to have been handled well from that standpoint.

The flavour is fairly standard for a green tea. It’s on the lighter side of the spectrum and it has some vegetal hints, but I think I can also pick out the traditional Darjeeling muscatel flavours, these are much more muted from what they’d be in their black tea form. It also lacks a Darjeeling black tea’s astringency and I noticed a sweetness creep into the tea as it cooled.

The resteep is lighter and greener-tasting, without the faint muscatel notes. So nothing fantastic or special.

India has historically been known only for its black teas and it’s only relatively recently that they’ve diversified. The accumulated centuries of knowledge about growing green teas in China and Japan can’t be learned in a night but these guys have given it a good effort.

I’m in the mood for something in the green family today – must be the heat we are experiencing!

1st steep: very light and vegetal/asparagus. The tea is almost clear! I wonder if I could have used a slightly higher temperature? I’m going to stick with 175 for this whole cycle and see what happens, though. It’s very enjoyable in a virtuous way, and I think it would be good with food. I’m not getting any honey/apricot this steep (the reason I was attracted to this tea!).

2nd steep: (4 min) More color! A little sweeter, especially as it cools. The asparagus is still present, but morphing into something a bit grapey/musky. I now think 175 is an appropriate temperature. I definitely like this steep better, although I think I should have poured at 3:30 – slightest bit bitter.

3rd steep: (4 min again) Not bad. The second steep is the good one, though.

All in all, a solid green. My tastes prefer the naturally sweet greens and oolongs, but this is interesting and will have no trouble being drunk up ;) especially with a meal. I don’t think this is one I’d repurchase, though.

Chloe is a very light tea with a slightly grassy taste. It is very mellow with no bitterness at all. The smell is slightly nutty/grassy. The tea has an underlying sweetness on the tongue. I steeped this at 190 and intend to go a little cooler on the water next time. The tea is nice for sipping and relaxing in the evening. As this tea cools the flavors in it seem to come alive. I’m getting some type of fruit now, maybe apricot, hard to tell.

The tea has a lovely apricot and nutty fragrance. The tea itself has a sharp taste that means that I oversteeped it I suspect. It’s been a crazy, unpleasant morning and my tea-brewing skills have clearly suffered. I will probably have to rebrew it and revisit. So I’ll wait to rate it until I do so.

Update: I rebrewed it with fresh leaves. It is no longer sharp. It has a taste I associate with Darjeeling, which is not a surprise since it comes from Darjeeling. I am beginning to realize that I don’t care for Darjeeling teas. This is quite sad since they are so well-regarded it makes me feel like some boorish lumpenproletariat destined to dislike this “champagne of teas”. Well, I’m sure I’ll get over it.

This brewed up very light. The liquor smells like honey, rather than “fruit and freshly cut grass” to me. The tea tastes mild and like fruit and honey. This is definitely a sweet rather than savory green tea. I might have over steeped it (strong setting on the Zarafina), as it tasted a little astringent to me. Second steep of the same leaves was even more astringent/bitter, with no sweet fruit or honey taste. Overall, the first steep wasn’t bad, but it’s not something I would repurchase full-size. Next time I’ll try a shorter steep time.

Just as the description says, light and smooth. Most notably, smooth.