Gunpowder Green Tea

gunpowder greens always look so awesome and i doubt i will be able to refrain from saying that everytime i have one. little shiny alien pellets.
i’ve been rather bored with green teas lately. but i keep tasting and trying. and this one is standing out for me! i suspect the slight smokey quality of gunpowders is what makes me like them so much more than the other main green types. thank you Shelley_Lorraine for the nice sample!

I always have trouble getting the ratio of tea leaves to water right with this one. I seem to add too much tea to the water. It’s easy to do with the tightly rolled pellets. I need half or less of what I add for other greens. While I say that, I am a big fan of this when I brew it strong. It is a great tea for multiple steeps and tastes like what I view as a quintessential green tea, only maybe a little more of a roasted flavor. A faint sweetness, only a slight “vegetal” edge, the liquid is an amber color, darker than many greens I drink. This will stay one of my go-to green teas for its drinkability and price.

Today is my birthday and because its my birthday I plan to brew a bunch of teas to celebrate. I am a big fan of Gunpowder Green Tea and that goes for this one as well. You can always count on a gunpowder to brew to perfection, the golden yellow is beautiful to look at and the flavor is clean green tea with a hint of a smokiness.

Ive had a rough time with this tea. This is a tricky one to brew, as you have to keep the steep times short to not let it get bitter. The first time I tried this tea, I got a very bitter brew, where the bitter and astringent flavors overpowered everything else. Then on advice from the seller I reduced both the brew time and leaf.

Much better results on the second brewing, instead of the primary flavor being bitter and astringent, I got smoke.. which is I believe the proper primary flavor for gunpowder green. There is of course a strong vegetal and grassy notes which is pretty common in green teas. There was a strong astringent quality to it as well, but more like what Ive seen in many other greens, and alot more pleasant.

The color was a deep golden and I was very impressed who rich and thick it looked for such a short brew with less leaf than the first one.

Being rather new to tea, im rather surprised how 15 seconds and a gram and half of tea can change the results so dramatically. Well I have enough left in the sample for 1 more tasting. I will update with the results in a few days, I want to give my pallet a bit of time to clear before another tasting.

One more thing, this thing has got a caffeine kick that will make coffee run home in shame.

I normally do not enjoy the taste of green tea, but this tea was very enjoyable. It is very strong green tea. It has a very smoky flavor and good aroma.