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I just had to get in another sample sipdown today. This was another mini sample I received with a recent What-Cha order. Prior to this, I had never tried one of their green teas. This one convinced me that I should perhaps focus on more of Alistair’s green offerings in the future.

I did not do anything fancy with this tea. Though I have gotten strong results from gongfuing teas like this in the past, I opted for my trusty old Western two step for this one. I started by steeping 3 grams of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 176 F water for 2 minutes. This infusion was followed by a 3 minute infusion in the same amount of water at the same temperature.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted pleasant aromas of grass, hay, chestnut, and soybean. After infusion, the light yellow tea liquor produced stronger aromas of grass, hay, chestnut, and soybean underscored by malt, squash blossom, and asparagus. In the mouth, it was easy for me to pick up on a lovely mix of grass, hay, soybean, chestnut, squash blossom, oat, malt, cream, butter, and asparagus notes. The second infusion continued to emphasize chestnut, grass, and vegetables on the nose, though here there was less of an impression of hay and squash blossom and more butter, oats, and malt with a hint of minerals. In the mouth, the liquor displayed smooth notes of butter, cream, malt, oats, grass, chestnut, asparagus, and soybean with a hint of minerals toward the finish.

Dragon Well is perhaps my favorite type of green tea. Though I have gotten away from it recently, it was so nice to come back to a tea like this. It was a very pleasant, straight-forward drinking experience. What I got on the nose, I also got in the mouth. Though it may not have packed any surprises or detours, it would have been foolish to expect a tea like this to provide such experiences. As Dragon Well teas go, this one is quite nice. I think fans of such teas would get a kick out of it.