This is the Spring 2014 harvest of this tea, so I’m more than a little behind with my stash currently. I think I picked this one out today because I’ve been drinking a couple of Butiki teas, and the last Bi Luo Chun I tried was a Butiki also, and I loved it. Good memories, I suppose. I’m not a fan of all green teas, but Bi Luo Chun is one I really, really like. The dry leaf is very thin and wiry, and a little tangled. It’s quite a dark green in colour, although with some paler, and some almost white, tips. The scent is absolutely amazing – very savoury and vegetal, like spinach and green beans. I used 1 tsp of leaf, and gave it approximately 2 minutes in water cooled to 180 degrees. The resulting liquor is a pale yellow, and (again!) smells wonderful. Not as strong as the dry leaf, but still savoury and vegetal. I love it.
To taste, it’s just as lovely as the scent led me to believe. It’s not a strong or heavy flavour, like some green teas have, but it’s not watery or a struggle to taste either. It strikes the perfect balance in my estimation – clear, clean, mid-strength flavours. It’s also perfectly smooth, with no hint of astringency, which is something else I’ve come to love about this variety. The main flavours, as in the scent, are vegetal – green beans, still, and freshly cooked spinach. A very green, very clean flavour. There’s almost a slight saltiness about it, and the tiniest hint of sweetness at the end of the sip that puts me firmly in mind of buttered green vegetables. Not that there was any doubt about that, but it’s a wonderful final flourish.
I’m really enjoying this one, and I’m glad to have found a green variety that I can really and truly say I appreciate. This is definitely one I’ll come back to in the future – hopefully with a more recent harvest! It’ll be interesting to compare and see how the harvests differ, but I like this one so much I can only hope there’s not too much difference.
This is one of my favourites. I find that a lot of green teas have a slightly smoky taste for me, which I really dislike in greens. This is one of the only greens that avoids that completely. Also, the second steep of this is wondefully sweet.