Mrs. Li's Shi Feng Dragonwell Green Tea

Mrs. Li’s Shi Feng Dragonwell Green Tea has arrived!

It seems like this tea present (more than purchase) will be arriving today (and the rest of this week) in households across North America and then around the World. ANTICIPATION!

I didn’t hesitate and went to the Verdant website, transferred all the information about the tea to Steepster so that we could review our Dragonwell together as it arrives.

Next, I read ‘How to Brew’ which I highly, HIGHLY recommend!

I chose the tumbler brewing method with 5oz. tea leaves, and luckily I had a gallon of Spring water left in the frig.
The quality of the water is very important with this particular tea.

With the tumbler method there was no straining of leaves, no timing of steepings and no worry. The process was very relaxed.

The leaves were jade green, very flat and had a fine white powder on them.

Following the brewing instructions carefully, I filled my tumbler and began blowing the leaves out of the way… sipping what looked like clear water.
That was fun.
I had to take off my glasses…the steam blinded me!

The sight of swirling green leaves and steam was beautiful.
Like the humid mist in the rain forest, I began to sip and think about green winged dragonflies, pure peridot colored leaves,
leaves swirling around like a school of fish.

I kept my eye on the level of the water in my tumbler and pushed the leaves away from my mouth by blowing on the leaves.
As the water level reached the lower third of the glass, I would fill it up again with water.
Blow on the leaves, sip, blow on the leaves, sip, pour in more water, blow on the leaves and sip.
That was all.

At times my technique of blowing leaves away and sipping had all the finesse of a whale sifting plankton. Some got caught in my mouth.

The flavor of the tea was savory soybean. This was the clearest, purest of pure flavors. No astringency, heat or bite. The sweetness was so subtle you hardly noticed.
The taste was soft but still rich and the mineral quality was like laying under a cool waterfall with the smell of wet granite and calcified rock.

As I continued pouring, the water turned pale green, and there was a bit of peppercorn heat.

My forehead became ‘tight’. Hum, I was aware that the tea was letting me know it’s potency. A well adorned object of beauty with hidden powers.

The last time I went swimming in the deep sea was 5 years ago in Kauai. The spot was off some enormous, jutting mountains (you might remember in ‘Lost’ or ‘Jurassic Park’) that go straight up and then straight down as jagged points back into the sea.
There in Kauai, the light penetrated the crystal water so deep that I watched small, flat, silver fish coming close to me then dart away. There was coral, giant marbled green rock…fern-like plants waving softly as though a gentle breeze was moving past them.

That is what I was thinking when I was drinking my tea. About the rocks, fish, sun and water, and the slow gentle movement of living things. I thought about me in the middle of it all floating.

When I finished my tea, I went to the cupboard, took down my small bottle of toasted sesame oil and put just a few drops on the tea leaves with a few grains of salt. (I could have added these to a salad but wanted to taste them as they were.)

They were delicious! Really, really good!

I can’t wait to hear the tasting adventures everyone else has with this tea. What fun, and what a pleasure to have this rare Dragonwell available to us.

This tea was elegant, refined and pure.

Thank you Mrs. Li for sharing your treasure with us!

I ordered this tea quite a while ago, but never got around to trying it because I didn’t have a scale to weigh the leaves and wasn’t confident on my ability to estimate. Then I finally brought my kitchen scale into work, but still I forgot that I had this tea and now could drink it, until just the other day. Well, I’m finally trying it now.

Let me start out by saying that I am attempting to follow the “dragowell style” steeping instructions on Verdant’s website. However, I am a little miffed that the instructions on Verdant’s site say nothing about the size of the “glass tumbler” used in this method. A medium sized gaiwan, I know what that means. There is not a standard size of a glass tumbler. :P

My cup is about 8oz I think, for anyone looking for the sizes people have used. Otherwise, I followed the instructions. Except for the fact that just about the entire batch of tea leaves is floating on the top of my in a thick layer (and my mug is a wide mouth!), making “blowing them out of the way” nearly impossible. I am definitely eating quite a few leaves, not exactly on purpose. Not to mention that in attempting to blow the leaves out of the way I am mostly succeeding in blowing water all over the place (the water moves, the tea leaves don’t!). This is not exactly an enjoyable way for me to drink a cup of tea.

With all the fussing and such, I couldn’t even concentrate on the tea. What I did taste was tasty, with a nice buttery-bakery flavor that I like in dragonwells. But this experience was not conducive to a review. I just don’t forsee myself brewing it this way again. Gaiwan/teapot it is, next time.

Finally, I feel like I have enough time to try this tea and do it justice! However, although I’d love to try the authentic dragonwell method, I simply can’t drink hot tea, and can only envision oversteeping occurring as a result of attempting it (although one day I think I’ll give it a shot, I just really don’t want to burn my tongue right now!), so I’m trying a western-brewing sort of thing. I measured out 3g of leaf, popped it into a brew basket, and went with a 1-minute infusion at 175F, hoping that it would work out.

I’m happy to report that I was quite successful – the tea has a light, sweet aroma and a rock sugar flavour much like the Tung Ting Vietnam oolong I just drank from DavidsTEA, however there are light seaweedy notes mixed in here, and additional vegetal notes… and so much more that my poor brain can’t seem to describe! Short version? This is delicious, and a perfect tea selection for this evening. The seaweedy notes I’m getting here are what differentiate this most in my mind from the Dragonwell-style Laoshans, which have the rock sugar sweetness but IMO much less complexity aside from that, with only the green beany sort of flavour. This tea is also so, so smooth.

Very impressed with this one, even though I didn’t brew it as recommended! Onto a second infusion shortly, as I know greens do not take well to sitting overnight prior to re-steeping (in my experience), and I really want to see how this one lasts!

ETA: Second infusion for 1:15 is lighter and less distinctive, but still quite tasty. The vegetal notes are a bit more in the background, and I almost feel like I’m getting a hint of a popcorn sort of flavour… air-popped, we’re not talking buttery here. Yum. Still smooth as anything. I think I’ll try for at least one more infusion (probably 2 minutes) before thiefing some of my roommate’s sesame oil and munching on the leaves…

I love Dragonwell.

I dumped the dry leaves in my warmed flowering teapot and it smelled like a peanut butter, except more vegetal! Maybe I shouldn’t have done that but the smell was worth it. Wow!

Drinking the “rinse” and it is equally full of buttery nuttiness. I’ve never had a Dragonwell that is this full of flavour and smell. It’s almost overwhelming.

I get the green granny smith apples on the first steep; it’s sweet, juicy, crisp, and kind of tart, in a way. I can’t believe I taste that. The buttery nut notes linger in the back roof of my mouth, like mushed cashews or soybeans. My second steep is even smoother with that prevailing buttery, nutty sweetness. The unfolding flavours evolve into various items.

I think I’m going to end the note there and just focus on drinking as much of this as possible- this may be my new favourite Dragonwell! I purchased two “Dragonwells”, among other teas, from Verdant but this is the only one I bought in a larger quantity right off the bat. I’m glad I did!

On a side-note: I never felt the full effect that the water taste had on tea until I started short brewing and went from Vancouver to Victoria. Victoria water tastes of algae! It is not my favourite.

Since I saw this was going so fast I placed an order for a sample size of this and a few of the others teas that Verdant was getting low on that I had heard a lot about. The leaves of this look beautiful and they smell like a nice summer garden. Wet they smell very similar to a strawberry poptart, which amazes me. I am brewing in my gaiwan today so I will just list my notes for each steep.

1st: No rise as suggested and steeped for 3 sec. I can really taste the Cashew notes that are mentioned on the site.
2nd: 3 sec steep. Once again their is Cashew notes but its a little subdued since there is something else coming through, I’m not sure what.
3rd: 3 secs. Alright so what I was getting is a creamyness that compliments the cashew flavor.
4th: 6 sec. Along with the creamyness there is a bit of a sugary sweetness to this one. The cashew flavor is more blended with all the other flavors now so its like cashew butter.
5th: 9 sec. See above and image its blended even more.
6th: 12 sec. nothing different.

There will be other steepings but I don’t feel the need to post them since they seem to be staying the same from here on out.

Tea of the morning here. I can’t believe I have never written a proper tasting note on this but I also don’t have a lot of time this morning. I hope to update this soon.

I brewed this in a tea infuser mug and it has such delightful vegetal notes with a creamy quality. I would like to short steep this someday when I have more time to appreciate it. Overall a very flavorful dragonwell, I would probably purchase this again. Now that summertime is coming I hope to drink some more of my green teas.

Alright, first time in almost two weeks that I actually had enough time to do a proper review. First of all, I actually tried this tea when I got it, but I had a paper to write and team mates to “motivate” so that the group wouldn’t fail a project (I refuse to do all the work, and actually had to bring the professor into the discussion to actually get them to work…).

As with all my green teas, I brewed this tea in my ceramic tumbler. I actually like to let my tea cool for a while before drinking, so the leaves had a few minutes to steep peacefully before I started to blow them out of my way. The first cup was delighfully clear and lightly grassy. It’s very sweet for a green tea, and it has an amazing smooth/creamy finish that is just perfect. It’s also amazing in that the smooth/creamy texture lingers for over two minutes on the hard palate, gently transitioning into a tingling creaminess (somehow, the smoothness dissapates). This is by far the best green tea I’ve ever had.

As the steepings ocntinued, the hashser edges of the grassiness quickly faded into a delightful sweet grass flavor. It’s like my beloved fukamushi sencha, but the texture of the tea is smoother. After about three cups, the creamy texture has faded, and it was relanced by a mineralish smoothness which lingers on the back of the tongue very delightfully. By number 5, vanilla was starting to peak out of the rest of the flavors, but it remained fairly weak for a quite some time.

The later steepings where characterized by a light vanilla flavor, a bit of sweet grass, and a general smooth, sweet taste. The amazing thing is that it never gets bitter, nor does the flavor ever really have anything unpleasant about it. It’s truly a finely-crafter tea, and I offer my humble thanks to both David and Mrs. Li for making this tea available to us.

Final experiment – How do the tea leaves taste? I remember somebody (I think it was Bonnie…) experimented and ate this tea after she was done, so I decided to give it a go. It was interesting, to say the least. The leaves didn’t have that much flavor, and they were very chewy, yet they wern’t unpleasant. It was fine, but I woun’t go out of my way to eat the leaves in the future.

Music of the Day – Dinastia Borja, directed by Jordi Savall.

This is a wonderful historically-informed performance, covereing music from the 11th century up to tail end of the renaissance, and from various cultures. THe common theme is the Borgia Family, and each peice can be related to them somehow. Also, the 3 cds come with a book in multiple languages, which explains both how the pieces relate to the Borgia family, tell their story, and provides the lyrics fo the music.

Here’s a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgU6-cz0RM0

Looks like I get to be the first to review this tasty tea! The dry smell is heavenly! I’ve loved Dragonwell since I first started drinking green tea. I don’t always have the words to describe smells & flavors, but I see a pasture of lush grasses & clover on a hot summer day! There is a mild bitter undertone to the scent, which in my mind is a good thing, as I eat a lot of greens & it is a flavor I used to abhor but now love. In my world, a meal isn’t complete if I haven’t eaten a green veggie with it, so green is good, & slightly bitter is good for your liver & gall bladder, so it’s good too.

I’ll start by saying my scale sucks. It’s basically by the oz, & although it measures grams too, the little lines are each 10g, so I do a lot of guessing. I also don’t own a glass tumbler, we drink cold beverages out of Mason jars around here (I have Qt, pt, & 1 c. size), & we drink hot drinks out of tea/coffee cups (I have everything from thimble to latte sized). As I told my sons, we have lots of class here, it’s just all low. (ok, we’re really middle class…)

So with all that said, I used my regular 6oz favorite tea cup, put 1 t. of the dry leaves in there (I attempted to weigh them, I think I was close), & otherwise followed David’s instructions, filling about 1/3 full, I swirled the water around, added another 1/3 & swirled, & then the final 1/3.

Ahhhh, the smell of fresh spring peas, the color is a very light spring green. A delicate taste, I kept the leaves in the cup, adding more water each time it got down to a third full, & the flavor was the edamame floating in a bowl of cashew cream. Tasty! I don’t know how many times I added water to my cup, but it was never bitter & I didn’t develop a severe case of cottonmouth, as I get so often from green teas.

I also poured some of the first steeping into a one C. mason jar to check out the color, then allowed it to chill, & it had a lively springlike taste & was quite refreshing!

Finally I have time to do the tasting this tea deserves! I had never had Dragonwell tea before, or even a Dragonwell-styled tea, so the appearance of the leaves was quite striking. They’re flat! As if they had been pressed. I prepared it Dragonwell style, with about 3g tea in the bottom of a glass mug, then adding 175˚ water and starting to drink as soon as it’s cool enough. That took a few minutes for me (I’m a wuss – I can’t drink 150˚ water :P) so the liquor was a lovely fragrant pale green by the time I tasted it, and in the meantime I got to enjoy the beauty of the leaves dancing in the water (they float, then some turn vertical and bob up and down a bit, and gradually most sink to the bottom, though several remain upright as if they might float again). It also has the slight haze you get from silver needle teas.

Anyway, once I could drink it this was quite flavorful. I’m not good at identifying green tea flavors, but this is definitely vegetal, some mineral, and a little spicy at times.

I’ve gone through about 16oz water now, and I like this better as it goes on. The flavor waxes and wanes as I add water and let it sit, but overall it gets fuller and sweeter.

Hmmm, I’ll post my tealog under this – or maybe I should create a 2013 tea?
I dunno. I just drink the tea, take weird photos and write the review.

Lovely spinach, cucumber, melon, creamy, sweet, fruity, refreshing and lychee notes!

I tried this tea both gaiwan and glass brewing – the gaiwan went better for me as in the glass. However, I can see this dragonwell being really great to enjoy in one’s tumbler all day!

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/mrs-lis-shi-feng-dragonwell-green-from-verdant-tea-tea-review/

Backlogging from yesterday when I had a toddler with a fever attached to me all day. I also brewed this in the recommended Dragonwell style. Took a bit of getting used to but got easier when I was half through my first glass (I actually had a place to blow the leaves to) and the subsequent refills only got easier as the leaves sank and tastier! In fact toward then end I found myself getting lost in the glass. Love love love the cherry aftertaste in this one, it’s amazing! The green was a bit intense for me at times, especially as the leaves kept trying to get into my mouth. Thankfully I have over an ounce of this left (pre-ordered a sample size and then added an ounce). Will be picking up some good spring water for my next session with this, at which point I hope to provide more detailed notes. Still feel very blessed to be able to drink this wonderful tea. Thank you Verdant and Mrs. Li!

This is my second “high quality” dragonwell I’ve tasted (first one being Panan from Redblossom) and my first ever Shifeng. As soon as this was announced I immediately preordered 1 ounce just to see what all the fuzz was about.

>Dry Leaf Appearance/Aroma
The leaf is somewhat coarse, with a pale golden green color and a very faint grassy, nutty, hay-like aroma. Leaves are mostly medium sized, with several broken pieces and leaf bits.

>Brewing Method
I’ve experimented with this tea with Verdant’s gong-fu style and Redblossom’s recommended shifeng brewing guidelines. Both yielded somewhat different results. Gongfu was done following Verdant’s guidelines of 175F water, 4 grams of leaf, with 3 second steep times. Redblossom’s I used 180F water, 2 grams of leaf, with 1 min steep time.

>Liquid Appearance
Clear pale yellow-green.

>Taste/Aroma
Following Verdant’s gongfu style, this tea was very light, slightly creamy, grassy, and with a very noticeable cashew-nutty taste. I was able to brew the tea several times in a row with similar results, with it slowly losing its flavor.

Following the more “default” way to brew green tea, using Redblossom’s guidelines, I was able to get a super thick and creamy first cup with crisp grassy notes, but surprisingly lacking the clear cashew hint. Subsequent re-infusions were noticeably weaker in taste and texture (losing its thick creaminess at the second infusion).

>Wet Leaf Appearance
After several infusions, the coarse leaves become very tender and reveal their beautiful shape of three young top leaves.

>Overall
I really liked this tea. It’s also very interesting to see the differences between good dragonwells. I still prefer the panan version, but this one, with its clear cashew nut taste and thick creamy texture makes it a delicious green tea. I also found verdant’s gonfu way to be my preferred method to brew this tea, Redblossom’s way gave me a very one dimensional tea compared to the gongfu style, but maybe this method will work better with their version of shifeng? we’ll have to find out once I try that one in the future.

A “cv” stans for “curriculum vitae”. Its basically a resume but for all the scholastic accolades you’ve apparently acquired. Initially, I felt pretty good about writing one; seeing my name with M.S., M.A. to the right of it, like a stamp of approval for all the hard work and hard times I went through.

As I completed it, though, I didn’t feel so good. My cv doesn’t look that impressive at all. I’m not technically published: I’ve written a thesis, a 98 page atrocity of short stories, titled “Toska”, that was dedicated and tries to pay homage to my favorite writer of all-time, Richard Yates. That’s it. No journals, no articles, no academic presentations. There’s no way one of those two community colleges looking for instructors are going to hire me. Granted, I’m fresh out of the gates but looking at my professors cv’s and their pages-upon-unfair-pages of publications and books written, it makes me feel like I’m not trying hard enough. Like I’m not good enough. Like I’ve got these little stamps of approval next to my name that don’t really mean anything.

So, I need a way out of my existential meltdown. Let’s steep.

My packets of Yu Lu Yan Cha Black, Hand Picked Autumn Tieguanyin, and Autumn Harvest Laoshan are just about depleted. This tea, though, is tucked away in the corner, behind my tins and some other packets. Even though I know where it is, I like to think its hidden. I should keep it in a bomb-proof safe.

I know I’m technically not supposed to rinse this tea but I’ve done it a few times just to smell the leaves as the water is absorbed into them. It’s so beautiful and calming. Chestnut, a roasty and nutty mellowness. Like peanut butter. Little bit of smoke scratches my nose.

My mom used to make me a “Skippy” when I would come home from grade school. It was a piece of bread with peanut butter on it. The name “Skippy” doesn’t make any sense now because she used Peter Pan peanut butter because I thought Skippy tasted too sweet. Regardless of that, the only thing that made a “Skippy” a “Skippy” and not just peanut butter on bread, was that she would use the knife after spreading the peanut butter to carve out a perfectly shaped heart into the tan spread. They tasted better that way, I used to tell her.

She stopped doing that when she started getting sad. Haven’t had one since. Thought I forgot about those days. This tea brought me there.

There’s something about watching leaves change from their dry leaf appearance during the infusion that fascinates me. With this tea, the color of the dry leaf is dark and light green and they trickle over the flat little shards like shadows. For some reason I think of ripped-up old book pages. There’s a barely noticeable gloss to each leaf if the light hits it right. Once they soak in the water, all that disappears and there are big, juicy, plump, tongue-like leaves with little ridges on the edges, the colors rich and deep, fleshy green and shades of dark.

I’ve had other Dragonwell teas before. The flavor of this one is a different breed. There’s that sweetness others have written about (that sticks to my lips), there’s that mineral quality, too (in the back of my throat). I get the contrast of a creamy, nutty spread on top of toast against the hint of a sharp, rock-like bite. I don’t mean that tastes like I’m licking a rock but there’s something “rocky” and “stony” about the aftertaste in the back of my throat that makes me think of rocks underneath a faint trickle of cold water. Maybe its because of the “family’s plot of land at the heights of Shi Feng” that it has this “mountainy” taste to it. I couldn’t tell you. I can tell you that its gorgeous and calming and I feel so, so much better now.

Is this the best Dragonwell I’ve ever had? It could be. I have a lot more tea to try and buy before I can sound like I know what I’m talking about.

And even if I don’t know everything there is to know about tea, even if I don’t have 200,000 posts and am not well-known in the tea world, even if I just drink tea and write about it on a website and don’t get published in some scholarly journal for snobby intellectuals…at least I’m using my time in this life trying my best at the thing I love.

That’s all we can do, right?

I couldn’t resist the chance to try this tea and ordered a sample. The dry leaves smell deeply green, with that peculiar ‘Dragonwell’ aroma. I’ve only ever had one other Dragonwell, and I was interested to see if they had the same aroma. They share characteristics, but this tea is definitely has more depth. It’s also probable that it’s fresher.
I’m trying to brew this the recommended Dragonwell way with a glass tumbler. To keep from eating leaves I’ve resorted to using a large spoon to hold the leaves back as I sip. I’m still managing to sip in a few but so far this working much better than without. And this tea is WONDERFUL. It blows the other Dragonwell I’d had out of the water.
I finally strained the tea into another cup, leaving leaves in a little water in the tumbler. It was taking me so long to sip through the leaves that the tea was getting a bit bitter. Once I added more water and strained it though, the sweetness came out more. I’m using filtered water but I think next time I may make sure I have spring water on hand, and see how much of a difference it makes. I also want to try this western style, without as much leaf.
This tea is really good!

I have waited awhile to try this one, wanting to have the time to prepare it Dragonwell style which was the recommended method on Verdant’s website. I measured out 3 Gms and placed it in a very broad shallow 6 oz porcelain teacup which was part of a huge set of hand-painted bone china my great-aunt, a professional china painter, had made for me. The beautifully painted delicate dogwood blossoms on this teacup were a nice contribution to my experience with this tea. I soon ran in to a stumbling block in that I just could not drink it at such a hot temperature, and I was afraid that letting it cool down with the leaves in the cup would change the results quite a bit. So I strained out the leaves and proceeded Gongfu style. Once the first cup cooled some, I was able to thoroughly enjoy it. Though Dragonwell style is suggested as the preferred way, I certainly enjoyed it brewed Gongfu as well. It is delicate, sweet, a little vegetal in a very good way, and certainly not bitter or drying to the mouth. I’m glad I purchased enough of it that I can experiment a little and maybe even try it chilled. To summarize, this is a wonderful Dragonwell, even though I wasn’t able to prepare it in the preferred way.

Yup, definitely the real deal :) Don’t have time for a proper note, it arrived on a day I am leaving on a business trip so expect full note after week or so…

I received this fresh Dragonwell as a sample from Verdant. The dry leaf in the bag has a strong chocolate scent (not at all expected from a Dragonwell.)
The steeped leaves lose the chocolate, and the liquor has a sweet, caramel & rice-pudding taste, very mellow and smooth.
I did not find this Dragonwell vegetal or grassy (except as a light background note), which for me isn’t a plus.
Personally, I like the strong toasted almond & grass flavor of a fresh and assertive Dragonwell. This tea is assertive but in a softer, sweeter caramel fashion. More rice pudding than green or seaweed. To many, I’m sure that’s what will make this Dragonwell stand out from another. There is no bitterness or floral to the steeped tea, which dances lightly in it’s green/gold liquor. A very nice selection!

A cleansing and fragrant green tea! The fragrance is sharp, flowery and quite long lasting. The aftertaste is smooth and the tea leaves are mellow green before brewing, and turns yellowish green after steeping. I am not a dragonwell aficionado by any stretch, but the aroma and flavor of this tea is complex and the long-lasting aftertaste of this tea is just, wow.

Brewed in gaiwan at 175F, with brew times: 20s, 40s, 1:20m, 2m

I prepared this tea gongfu style. I used about 3.5 grams for a 5 oz. gaiwan and steeped for a few seconds each steeping.

The tea grew much progressively over the first few steepings. The dried leaf smells slightly malty. The steeped tea is very sweet and quite vegetal in flavor.

The liquor was very light but fairly strong, though surprisingly I could still taste the flavor of the water through it. I used filtered tap water which wasn’t bad, but I think a more flavorful water would have been better.