Mrs. Li's Shi Feng Dragonwell Green Tea

A crisp and delicate green! I got the Spring 2022 version from my recent Verdant tea order, and for this price range, this tea will knock most other Longjings out of the park. Strong aroma, vibrant liquor, with an exceptional longevity, this tea is pretty decent. It also surprisingly had a nice chaqi and decent texture too! The downsides of this tea however is that its flavour is just missing something, a little body, or complexity. I wished it offered more in the taste as well as the finish, which is why I am not giving the tea an 80+. Still, a tea I can recommend for such a good price!

Do not hoard green tea. Guilty.

That said, although this tea is not from this Spring, it is still beautiful, green as in new shoot-like, sweet, buttery, and slightly nutty. Miraculously, it has preserved its character if not its depth, finer flavour layering, and longevity. Such a beautiful tea, regardless of my neglect.

This is going directly on my Spring focus pile.

Happy Easter, Everyone! And Happy Passover! And Happy Spring and all the fresh and beautiful things!

dry leaf in warmed gaiwan has expressive notes of medium milk chocolate and lightly roasted nuts
wet leaf and liquor warm aromas of spinach, croissant, fresh nuts, endive, berries
palate is rich with strong umami mid-palate. sweet yet vegetal with a long finish

I’ve never been much of a green tea person, but I’ve been trying to sipdown some of the older teas in my cabinet and decided to give this another try. Much to my surprise I really enjoyed it!

Since I didn’t expect to enjoy it much it wasn’t a particularly mindful brew. I steeped it western style 5 different times for 30s, 30s, 45s, 60s, 90s and enjoyed some cups at home, some on the go in a travel mug.

Flavors were not nearly as vegetal as I expected based on the description of this tea. There was some snap pea flavor, but mostly I was getting a creaminess, sugar cane sweetness and a surprisingly spicy flavor on a couple of the brews. There’s a really thick mouthfeel to go along with the creamy flavor. It felt like a more mellow, grounded, and interesting version of a Milk Oolong. It made a refreshing brew for a trip to the gym and a relaxing brew for being cozy at home with a book.

I don’t drink enough green to feel qualified to rate this tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably pick up more of this or try some other green teas down the road.

Well green teas aren’t my tea per se but this was quite a good one. I tasted buttery green peas. Very yummy and definitely recommended. I had just enough time to make a cup before I went off to work. It was +30C already when I left the house.

I have been looking forward to this one for awhile now. While I liked Mrs. Li’s First Picking Shi Feng Dragonwell, I tend to prefer the stronger aromas and flavors presented by the later pickings. I know that the Chinese generally feel that the first picking is the highest quality, but I tend to like heavier, more vegetal green teas, so a tea like this is far more appealing to me. I am a big fan of Dragonwell, and predictably, I really enjoyed this tea.

I prepared this tea using a two step Western infusion. I tend to use this method for most Chinese green teas. I do not perform a third infusion since I find that I normally like the first two infusions best. I steeped 4 grams of this tea in 8 ounces of 175 F water for 2 minutes and then performed a 3 minute second infusion.

On the first infusion, the aroma of the liquor was lovely. I picked up strong scents of grass, asparagus, green beans, chestnut, hazelnut, and cashew. I also thought I detected a very subtle floral touch. In the mouth, I detected lovely, well-integrated notes of grass, straw, asparagus, artichoke, green beans, chestnut, hazelnut, and cashew with slight mineral, honey, and floral underpinnings. The second infusion produced an aroma that was much lighter. I noted mild aromas of green beans, grass, asparagus, and straw balanced by nuts and minerals. In the mouth, the nutty, grassy, and vegetal notes remained, though the mineral presence was much stronger.

I really like this tea, but then again, I almost always enjoy Dragonwell. This one, at least, is a very nice one. The layering of aromas and flavors is superb, and the tea displays a very pleasant, lingering aftertaste. I would have no problem recommending this tea to anyone looking for a tasty, reliable Dragonwell to use for regular drinking.

This note is for the Spring 2016 tea.

Another tea from Verdant. I was up early (for me anyways) and got to savour two steeps of this tea at home before work. Another lovely, gorgeous tea. Here are my findings:

Steep 1: 8oz 175F water, 30sec: vegetal, slightly floral, and more prominent a nutty taste that kind of tastes salty and buttery. SOOO goooooood.

Steep 2: 8oz 175F water, 45sec: less nutty, still vegetal, a bit buttery and slightly floral. Super good too.

I did do a third steep in my travel mug for work, but I only rinsed it after work last night so the taste is muddled with the tea from yesterday. So I will not comment on that steep other than saying is vegetal, lol.

One of the most delicious teas I’ve ever had. I’ve been trying to follow Verdant tea’s western steeping recommendations and I wonder how big of a difference it’s making as well? Usually I do a 12oz mug with about 1-1.5tsp of tea and steep green tea for 1.5-3min and its the same for subsequent steeps. I’m going to try Verdant’s methods on other greens I have and see how it makes a difference.

So, I am trying my best to sip down old tea. I found this in my tea drawer at work. I think it was from a BrewteallySweet tea stash sale. Yep, it is old and yet it is still really good. I am sure it is not as good as it once was, but me being the green tea noob it doesn’t take much to fool me.

This is slightly sweet with hints of green bean and other yummy green vegetables. My first infusion I did for 30s in hopes of not destroying the tea. I think I will add quite a bit more time to my next infusion to step it up a notch. This makes me want to try more green tea. Yum.

EDIT: Yep I ruined it. Second infusion was bitter. I let it steep too long. Green tea hates me. I need to buy some cheap dragon well one of these days and just play. I like the taste of it, but I always end up making it bitter.

I’ve been enjoying this tea all week “grandpa style”. Loose leaf in the bottom of a deep, glass mug, and just keep adding hot water as it runs out. Eventually all the leaf sinks out of the way so you can drink easily, but my dentist makes me use a glass straw so that she doesn’t lose 30 minutes of her life every six months scrubbing tea stains off my tea, so I can just dive right in and not worry about that. Shi feng is a great tea for drinking this way. It really has to sit in the same water for a long time before it starts to seem over steeped.

Brewed this way I get a very soft, round, thick, almost sweet cup. There’s a long finish which transitions to a drying astringency, a bit like sautéed mature spinach.

The “flavors” list doesn’t let me indicate “buckwheat” which is what I really mean by wheat.

Spring 2019 harvest

My dragonwell tasting flight continues. I have to say, I’ve never really been into Long Jing until this year. Turns out it wasn’t my tastebuds, but operator error. Having now learned to brew it properly, I’ve started to gain a newfound appreciation for this tea.

I steeped it grandpa style: 1.2g of leaf in 10oz of 180 F water. The aroma of the leaves is sweet and vegetal. The dry leaf smells of spinach, edamame, and chestnut. The brewed tea has the aroma of sweet peas and honey. On the first sip, I tasted warm grass, sugar snap peas, and green beans. Fresh, crisp texture with a thick mouthfeel. Underlying this is mild bitterness that grows ever so slightly as I drink down my cup but doesn’t become overbearing.