Bi Luo Chun Green Tea (Pi Lo Chun)

After many traditional brewings in the Gaiwan and basket single cup I decided to cold-brew. I left it in the Mason Jar for 2 days and the result is where I thought this tea should be. It has this light and fruity mellow flavor that is perfect on a summer day. When I hot brewed this left me wondering. Cold-brewed it is awesome.

Tea of late yesterday morning…….

This one I have had to think on a bit. The leaves are very interesting looking with the green that you would expect from a green tea, and a little bit of white fluffiness thrown in that makes it very pretty to look at. I brewed it up at about 175 for just a minute, even though I usually steep greens for at least two. I must have been worried about this one being a little strong. One should not worry so much, as the tea was light and refreshing. It brewed up a lightly vegetal green, but there were definitely floral notes. It is lighter than an oolong like tie gwan yin, but kind of along those lines. It also is not near the amount of floral you would get in something with a jasmine scent, but it is definitely there.

I am not usually a drinker of green beyond Dragonwell or flavored senchas. However, this was good. I definitely see some in my future at some point, as I am really trying to explore green things in my life, even beyond tea. Thank you to TeaVivre for this sample, and again, opening my eyes to how wonderful green tea can be!

So I found a little rust in the inner edge of my electric tea kettle. I am so upset about that. What do I do about it? Should I toss it or is there a way to salvage it?

I finished this tea up. I used a pot to boil water and make this tea; however, this tea tasted strange after steeping it. This is a good tea overall though. I love the dry leaf that is furry and curly.

Setup (teapot method)

- Vessel: glass teapot (250 ml)
- Leaf: 7,4 grams (sample bag)
- Water: 80 Celsius
- Steeping time: 1m, 1m30s, 2m

Dry leaf – Somewhat long, twisted in loop fashion with fluffy appearance and about 40% of white hairs. The aroma is very rich with clear notes of snap peas with grassy edge.

Wet leaf – Relatively wholesome, it seems to be a fragile kind due to a young leaf and processing method. Airs of brothy vegetable notes with some nutty components in the back.

Infusion – I must criticize Teavivre’s preparation instructions a little bit before I move on the tasting. It seems that the teapot methods on some of their teas result in unbalanced cups, Oriental Beauty Oolong and Fengqing Black Dragon Pears to be precise. I was a bit afraid that this might happen with this tea as well and I’m glad that it didn’t.

This tea is a ‘loud’ one, it doesn’t slowly introduce you with its nuances like some more delicate green would, it actually hits you with a rich and intensive mouthful and leaves you to decompose its notes as you sip on. I think this is by far, so far, the best experience I ever had with vegetable character in tea. It bears intensive notes of corn, eggplant and even some squash, and the eggplant is the one I found the most interesting. I remember when I was a little boy that eggplant had an almost bitter taste with a bite at the top of the tongue, and this tea reproduces it perfectly.

Aside the vegetable components that bears some pleasant and refreshing bitterness there are some grassy notes that might hint on some more brothy Japanese greens, altogether with nutty elements of roasted chestnut and cashew.

The other cups show a slow decline of vegetable components allowing some sweetness and even flowery notes to develop. Third cup bears some astringency, but not enough to shake the overall impression.

Setup (gaiwan method)

- Vessel: porcelain gaiwan (85 ml)
- Leaf: 4 grams
- Water: 80 Celsius
- Steeping time: 30s, 50s, 1m20s, 1m40s

Infusion – Gaiwan method on the other hand shows some more bite, better pronounced nutty notes, and emphasizes more on the corn note than the other vegetable components.

I remember last year’s Bi Luo Chun being quite good, but this fresh pick definitely beats it, which comes at the price (this – 15$/100gr, last year – 10-11$/100g).

I’m doing such a bad job at reviewing my samples from Teavivre. I’m sorry! I just wanted to try them when I stopped craving flavored stuff. Well, today I had a very clear craving for unadulterated green tea, so here we are. I actually fantasized about japanese green tea on the train home, but I don’t have any on stock, so Chinese green it is! The two are very different, as I"m sure you all know.

This one has adorable little fuzzy leaves. They looked so soft and downy, I just wanted to pet them instead of drink them. It’s evident how young these little leaves are. Even after brewing, they remain itty bitty. Quite possibly the cutest tea I’ve ever had.

As with the other green teas, I’ve tried from Teavivre, this one is very umami. It’s less toasty and more grainy. The mouthfeel smooth and a bit creamy, despite the drying effect. This brewed up very light colored for me, but the flavor is perfect. Not too strong or too weak. This tea also has a caffeine kick to it. I have half a cup remaining and I’m wondering if I’ll get to sleep tonight. I should have known this would happen when I saw how little the leaves were, but I really craved a good green tea. ah well. It’s worth it. Sleep is for the weak!

Overall, yummy tea! I’ll just file this one away with the “morning only” teas. :)

Backlog:

In my full-length review of this tea: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/06/07/bi-luo-chun-green-tea-pi-lo-chun-from-teavivre/ I said that this is as good as it gets. And it’s true.

That’s why I love Teavivre. Their products are always … just so good!

The aroma of this tea is lovely, as is the flavor. sweet, fresh, with notes of freshly steamed veggies … and here’s the interesting twist to that … instead of having freshly steamed veggies that may have been lightly buttered … these taste like they’ve been accentuated with fruit. Like the veggies were steamed with sweet oranges and melons or something. Weird …but delicious!

Another exceptional tea from Teavivre.

Another tea from my second round of samples provided by Teavivre. This is my first time trying a bi luo chun and the reason I chose it was honestly just that I thought the leaves looked cool, hehe. It’s definitely a beautiful looking tea. I wasn’t a HUGE fan of the taste, but that’s not to say that it’s not a good tea, I’m more casual with my reviews and usually rate based on whether or not I personally liked it. This tea was just a little flat tasting for me.

I definitely agree with what Ian said about the “saltiness”. There’s a definite alkaline taste to it, and other than that all I’m getting is your typical vegetal green flavor. All in all, I’ll happily drink it every now and then…it just didn’t captivate me in any way. Still a big fan of Teavivre, many thanks to them for the samples.

I’m actually sort of angry at Teavivre right now. Why does every single one of their teas have to be so amazing? Why can’t some of them just be mediocre? Then maybe I wouldn’t want to just give them my credit card and be like, “Send me one of everything!”

I ordered some of the premium dragon well to split with my fellow tea snob BFF, because, like everything from Teavivre, it was amazing. And with that order came four samples of this tea, which is also amazing. Maybe even more amazing. And I only get two of them, and I just restocked my tea cupboard and need to drink some of that before I can justify another order.

And now I can’t even be properly annoyed because this tea is so, so good. The flavor is strong enough to cover up the fact that I was too lazy to filter my water, but it still tastes light HOW DO THEY EVEN DO THAT??? It’s really sweet, almost floral, but somehow I am getting some really yummy oceany flavors and even though I can’t taste any mint, it leaves that same fresh feeling in the back of my throat. Such a complex, incredible flavor.

This tea is MAGIC somehow, there’s no other explanation. I AM CAPSLOCKING OVER IT.

Also the leaves are really pretty, all curly and green and white and I know this is a ridiculous thing to focus on but if I try to analyze how great this tastes anymore my head might explode.

Okay, obviously I can rhapsodize about this one forever, but I’m going to wrap it up, give this tea 100 points because that’s as far as the slider will go so I can’t give it 110, and go make another cup.

Sample provided by TeaVivre – thank you Angel and company

The fuzziness of the curled dried leaves is quite interesting. This looks to me like a green Golden Spring Yunnan-like tea. Oh, it tastes like a black tea too…

This one took me by surprise because of the miso-taste. It reminded me of golden fuzzy yunnan buds from Adagio I tried in one of my first tea adventures. I could not pinpoint any flavours that reminded me of chinese green tea: no nuttyness, no vegetable notes, no buttery flavour. I got a smoky, miso-soup type flavour, and folks, I really don’t enjoy those things in my green tea. The polarity of this tea compared to my expectations did make me appreciate the vast differences in green tea. I love that this was not what I expected, and over the next few cups I hope my taste buds learn to appreciate a smokey green tea like this one.

New tasting with the spring harvest!

The leaves on this one are fluffy, but kind of twisted. The dry leaf has a light, sweet smell to it. Brewed, it is a bit more brothy and vegetal. I found that this tea was not as mild as before, but I anticipated that and added in a little more leaf. I am not sure that was wise, but it wasn’t un-wise. I did get a stronger flavour with more leaf, but maybe I had wanted something a little lighter after all. I think I lost out on some of the sweetness I smelled in the dry leaf that way.

I’m not good at describing subtle tastes in tea, so I can’t make out what veggies it tastes like, but it was a little more savoury than the sweet that I was expecting.

This tasting was better than the previous, I think. I’m not sure if it is because it is a different harvest, or the brewing parameters changed.

Many thanks to Angel at Teavivre for providing this sample for review.