Top Leaf

Tea type
Green Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Astringent, Drying, Grass, Mango, Roasted, Dandelion, Green Beans, Honey, Seaweed, Sweet, Umami, Round, Vegetal, Butter, Butternut Squash, Citrus, Creamy, Honeydew, Spinach
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by fancyteacup
Average preparation
165 °F / 73 °C 2 min, 30 sec 4 g 11 oz / 325 ml

Currently unavailable

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From Our Community

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49 Want it Want it

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24 Own it Own it

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51 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Green tea of the mid morning here. This is another sensational, fresh & beautiful tea from Mellow Monk. I took this to work with me to concentrate on finishing it off (so I can justify buying...” Read full tasting note
    95
  • “Revisiting a bit of this as I close-up my night of swap prep. In the past 2 weeks I have yanked over 120 different teas from my cupboards! Woot! Sharing the TEA LOVE :) I’m going to have another...” Read full tasting note
    97
  • “Once again, I’m drinking a neglected Sencha and wondering why the hell I haven’t been drinking this more regularly. The first cup was made using barely steaming water, steeping the leaves for a...” Read full tasting note
    92
  • “Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea! It’s A-MAZ-ING and I’m glad that I had this opportunity to try it. This is so good. I love the light grapefruit notes of this tea. The...” Read full tasting note
    98

From Mellow Monk

This is our top-of-the-line honcha, or traditional green tea. Top Leaf™ Green Tea is specially pampered in its own separate corner of the tea orchard. Not only does this tea receive extra fertilizer (organic, of course) during the growing season, but at harvest time, the growers pick only the top layer of young tea leaves. The result is a distinctive, more subtle, gentler flavor. This tea is always first flush.

You’ll taste the TLC (Tender Loving Care) that goes into this special tea. Treat yourself to one of the best green teas in the Aso tea-growing region—Mellow Monk® Top Leaf™ Green Tea.

Top Leaf™ Green Tea comes vacuum-sealed for freshness in foil packets. Each packet contains 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of tea, enough to make 40 to 50 cups of brewed tea.

To brew, use 1 heaping teaspoon of tea leaves for an 8-ounce cup or mug. The water temperature should be about 75 degrees Celcius (167 degrees Fahrenheit). (For more on water temperature, see here.) For the first steeping, let the tea brew for about 3 minutes. For the second and third steepings, let the tea brew for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

About Mellow Monk View company

Company description not available.

51 Tasting Notes

95
2816 tasting notes

Green tea of the mid morning here. This is another sensational, fresh & beautiful tea from Mellow Monk. I took this to work with me to concentrate on finishing it off (so I can justify buying more stuff from Mellow Monk!)

Some teas just seem to lift your spirit and this is one for me. I was also reflecting this morning on how much happier I am than I was almost a year ago. I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself through spiritual practice and opening the heart and it seems to be working. Sending out lots of love to the Steepster universe! :))

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 1 min, 30 sec
tea-sipper

It’s good to hear you are doing better!

Fjellrev

I’m glad to hear it too!

TeaBrat

thanks… :)

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97
6768 tasting notes

Revisiting a bit of this as I close-up my night of swap prep. In the past 2 weeks I have yanked over 120 different teas from my cupboards! Woot! Sharing the TEA LOVE :)

I’m going to have another cup of this tomorrow and/or Monday and will TRY and part with the rest :)

Relmaster

WOW..That is a mighty large Cupboard ;) I only have 32 teas so far..Lol ;-)

TeaEqualsBliss

once get get caught up I could send you some from my stash :)

Relmaster

I would highly appreciate that ;) I love green and oolong teas ,especially “jasmine dragon phoenix pearls”!! I would love to get into the world of Pu-erh’s..they seem complex!! I have never tried one before…I don’t even know where to start ;-) ??

TeaEqualsBliss

Sure! I can throw a mystery pack together for ya! :) Various tea from several companies – anything from a cupsworth to several cups-worth

Relmaster

Ohh WOW..Thank you soo much,…that would be awesome ;-))

ashmanra

Relmaster: if you go to Teavivre’s website they may still be offering free samples to anyone with a blog or who reviews on sites like steepster. It is an awesome company, great tea, great service, and great prices.

Relmaster

Do you what the website link is for the free samples? I couldn’t find it?!!

Relmaster

Thank you very much DaisyChubb.. I signed up for the free samples ..Yayyy !!! I love Steepster..everyone is sooo nice and informative…Awesome !!

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92
250 tasting notes

Once again, I’m drinking a neglected Sencha and wondering why the hell I haven’t been drinking this more regularly. The first cup was made using barely steaming water, steeping the leaves for a minute since this tea is also a bit picky. The result is very sweet, with a pleasant grassy taste and subtle fruity notes, and a smooth, clean finish. I could definitely drink this every day, but sadly I’m running low, and apparently Mellow Monk is waiting on the next shipment…darn.

TeaBrat

I want to try this when the new shipments come in. ;)

Joshua Smith

I would buy more, but I really need to work my way through more of my current stash first. Between my Verdant Tea binge and the latest set of sample from Teavivre, I just have so much tea on hand…

First world problems at their finest.

Bonnie

So sorry for your problems with too much tea wahhhh! Hahaha!

TeaBrat

welcome to my world. :-P

Joshua Smith

Heh, it’s nice to know that I don’t suffer alone XD

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98
4843 tasting notes

Thank you TeaEqualsBliss for sending me some of this tea! It’s A-MAZ-ING and I’m glad that I had this opportunity to try it.

This is so good. I love the light grapefruit notes of this tea. The flavor is something like a Gyokuro and a Sencha, but I like it better than either of them. It is so completely delightful.

And, now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone with this tea.

Preparation
165 °F / 73 °C 2 min, 0 sec
Geoffrey Norman

Your thoughts echo my own regarding this. It is a perfect sencha.

Shinobi_cha

Anyone interested in a swap? I’d love to try a cup of this now. Just check anything in my cupboard if you’ve got extra and would like to. Merry Christmas!

Geoffrey Norman

@Shinobicha – Alas, mine was only a small-ish sample for review, and it is long since gone.

LiberTEAS

@Shinobicha – me too! I don’t have a lot of this left, but, I can send you enough for at least a cup or two. Please feel free to shoot me a PM with your address and I’ll send it off to you. :)

Shinobi_cha

Cool! Just did.

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82
174 tasting notes

Finally decided to take the plunge and buy this tea. I’m glad I did. I figured it was more or less a sencha and it pretty much is. It’s a little different in that the grassy-spinach taste is a little subdued compared to the in-your-face senchas I’ve had. I was a little disappointing to have found absolutely no umami factor in it though.

Even with that, it is very creamy with a hint of some juicy quality. And I think there was a slight note of pistachio. I got some sort of nut note and while trying to figure it out I kept thinking pistachio. It may not be pistachio but the color of the tea kept making me think of the green nut! Either way…pistachio!

Speaking of color, the dry leaves are a nice dark emerald, wet they become this bright, vivid, vibrant emerald green. It was very pretty. Even the infusion had a greenish cast to it, very cool, kind of like a sencha or genmaicha infused with matcha powder. This is why I think I was coming up with pistachios and not some other nut…so much green!

I found a slight hint of astringency, but it wasn’t the typically blech bitter-astringency I always taste. This was a silky-astringency. It was actually quite pleasant. I never thought I would say astringency in tea being pleasant…I abhor astringency. But this was just a slight drying of the mouth with a bit of a silky mouthfeel. Very pleasant, what I always thought astringency could be but never actually found it to be, at least not in green teas.

This is such a pretty and good tasting tea, definitely worth trying out.

Preparation
165 °F / 73 °C 1 min, 0 sec
Spoonvonstup

Have you tried the Shaded Leaf? I had the chance to try this one, Shaded Leaf, and the Blissful Buds, and Shaded Leaf came out ahead. It’s also nutty as you describe, but it’s sweetness made me think of only one thing: Honey Nut Cheerios!

Invader Zim

This is the only one I bought from them so far. I wanted to try out a little to see how their teas match up to their descriptions and how much I would enjoy them. I do intend to try the others eventually.

Invader Zim

I missed the comment about Honey Nut Cherrios! How’d I miss that?! Now I will have to get some!

Ysaurella

does the liquor looks really like the picture ?

Invader Zim

Yes, it does! It’s really pretty!

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911 tasting notes

I’m excited to try something from The Mellow Monk. I’ve heard good things about their teas but never had any. Now, thanks to TeaEqualsBliss, I get to try my first one today!

The smell of the wet leaves and the liquid have a crazy warm cinnamon note to them. The taste is just as nuts. More so even. It tastes like a plum spice tea. A mild plum spice tea with a grassy undernote, but still a plum spice tea. It almost makes me think that I didn’t clean my teapot out enough before I brewed this, but I used my kyusu dedicated to sencha so I know that’s not it. Hmm. Maybe this tea absorbed the flavor of another tea because I can’t imagine any sencha actually tasting like that. But maybe I’m wrong and this is just one weird-ass sencha. Regardless, this is too weird and wrong for me to rate.
3g/6oz

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 45 sec
__Morgana__

Love the name, too. I need a mellow monk in my life!

Auggy

I’ll take the mellow but hold the monk, please! :)

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85
1908 tasting notes

The leaves of this tea are a dark, pine green and look like little bits of chopped-up needles. I’m not quite sure what to expect of this tea, I’ve never tried any of Mellow Monk’s products before – this and one other sample were gifts from TeaEqualsBliss. I’m not even sure what type of tea this is or where it’s from, though my guess from the flavour is that it’s Japanese.

It’s faintly sweet and a bit hay-like at first but then it takes on a savoury, slightly nutty-tasting tone. Then the flavour trails off into a grassy, slightly bitter aftertaste. The touch of bitterness actually seems to work with this tea providing a counterpoint to the initial sweetness that gives this tea balance. It also leaves a nice, fresh, palate-cleansing taste in my mouth.

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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91
280 tasting notes

Thanks again to LiberTeas for sharing such a nice sample!
I tried this again with cold brew (46F water for 12 minutes) and with a regular brew (160F for 1.5 minutes) and each one of those pots I did a minimum of 3 steepings…
This is definitely a unique, enjoyable tea.
The cold brew wasn’t actually as strong as I hoped, but I may have used too much water for the leaf. The hot/regular brew was very good; with strong flavors: earthy, somewhat fruit, and even a mouth-filling mintyness!

Interestingly, the wet leaf smells very similar to the brewed leaf of gyokuro!

I’m not sure I’m sold to buy 100g, yet, it’s just down on the list somewhere… (there’s just too much to try!) :-)
However, I can see that this tea is much more suited to a typical American palate (as they say on the Mellow Monk website) and isn’t grassy or bitter at all, so it could be at the top of the list for some. Either way, I give it a thumbs up!

Preparation
160 °F / 71 °C 1 min, 30 sec
Geoffrey Norman

Probably still my favorite sencha to date.

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81
596 tasting notes

Fruity, slight floral notes emerge on second infusion. A refined Japanese green.

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90
54 tasting notes

Dry aroma: sweet, toasted notes, hints of spring clover and cut melon
Wet aroma: sweet cream butter, nutty, clover and baby spinach
Appearance: deep green jade hue, folded-slightly twisted leaf and wabi sabi hints of curled leaves and blond threads. Moderate leaf length implying spring pluck and new growth pick.
Cup: Pale, ghostly green luminescent liquor; clear, bright, translucent. Clean, vegetal sweet flavors, creamy mouth feel, with hints of pistachios. A silken astringency slides against an elusive body that seems to call to mind spring clouds. Hints of melon and fruit are ethereally present against the creamy, nutty layers. Wonderfully balanced, in all of its characteristics, dancing somewhere between a gyokuro and quality shinriku sencha.
Brewing: 3g in 8oz porcelain gaiwan, using 168 degree water and steeped for 3 minutes. Managed to get 3 consistent extractions.
This tea won the North American tea championship in the green tea division in 2010. The service was swift, courteous, and enclosed note had a personalized touch. Overall, a very lovely tea.

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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