2014 Longjing from Tea-adventure

I'll be doing many reviews of tea-adventure's as I got lots of stuff from them to test the tea out. So far I like most of it. The Wuyi yancha's are really nice and the white tea cakes/bricks are too. So today I tried the 2014 spring longjing. They say it is the highest grade, but I have some reservations on this as the highest grade spring stuff fetches prices of well over a 100 euro/100 grams.

 

This, luckily for my wallet, is not of that price range. However, this is of  high quality nevertheless. The leaves are really pale green, but with some yellow one in between suggesting it is indeed not of the highest grade. The bag contains some of the fluffy tea hair balls, which is always nice, but not necessarily a character of quality. The buds are really short, so the harvest was early in the season, which is said to be good. The aroma is good. Not roasty at all, and really fresh bean like fragrances.

Brewing longjing I always had trouble with. I had guidance from a guy from Vancouver, Canada who told me his technique. He starts with cool water en short infusions and gradually works his way to hot water and long infusions. This has been my technique ever since. So my notes are the following

2 teascoops or 1/4 gaiwan, 100 ml, no rinse:
1st | 75C | 10 sec | Very light sweet floral notes. Only a little of the characteristic bean flavours. Could have been stronger. I didn't rinse as I don't like wasting tea. This does mean the first infusion sometimes needs to be extended
2nd | 75C | 10 sec | It's beany alright. In a nice way of course. It also has a clear aroma of those Japanese rice crackers with a peanut. It was funny, but unmistakable. Really good stuff. Sweet, not astringent. It tastes fresh, with some hay/grass like aroma.
3rd | 80C | 10 sec | similar to 2nd pour. Less strong though, increase in time would do the trick. However there are some astringent flavours coming through now.
4th | 85C | 20 sec | It's getting lighter now. Less of the bean character but still nutty, grassy and some sweetness. should have brewed longer.
5th | 85C | ~60 sec | Almost finished. Spent tea flavours are coming through. When it cooled down it still tasted really nice. Could have gone for a 6th, but it was time for breakfast.

The spent leaves look good. Very consistent 1 bud, 2 leaves. Small leaves, but leaves they are. Colour is consistent. It didn't last long, but that's quite normal for a tea like this. overall I really like this tea. It's been quite a while since I had some high grade Chinese green. I gave up on them, because it was hard to find fresh and not too expensive stuff. Japanese green is easier in this sense.

Good stuff, for a good price. Me like.