Category Archives: Green Tea

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! It’s that time of year again when not only are the first flush Darjeelings being harvested in India but the Pre-Chingming teas are being harvested in China. In my cup this morning is a Pre-Chingming Lung Ching which I am happy to introduce to you.

Chingming, or Qingming, is a festival in China, usually celebrated on the 15th day from the Spring Equinox, or April 5th. It is a day for going outside to enjoy the return of greenery and tend to the graves of departed loved ones. So, Pre-Chingming refers to the tea being plucked before this festival time. This particular tea was harvested in China within the last few weeks.

Lung Ching tea, a very popular and well known tea from China, has a distinctive flat shape to the leaf after processing. This flat shape is intentionally caused by the motion of the pan when the leaf is heated to stop oxidation. Its name means “Dragon’s Well”, referring to the place where it has been traditionally grown. Legend has it that a Taoist priest in the 3rd century advised the local villagers to pray to the dragon of a local well to bring rain and end their drought. It worked and the well was named after that dragon. The Dragon’s Well monastery still stands in that spot to this day.

The color of the leaf while steeping is such an amazing spring green, don’t you think? I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water.

Seeing such an intact leaf is a gift. I imagine a field of women deftly plucking the delicate leaf and tossing it into the baskets strapped to their backs. They methodically make their way through the rows in the crisp spring air.

The tea liquor is so pale, like straw, with a whisper of green tinge. It’s as delicate as a white tea with a complexity of flavor showing its high quality and care in processing. The aroma is slightly nutty with a note of fresh early corn.

So very pale and delicate yet so very flavorful with notes of sweet nectar, melon, a hint of grapefruit and that delicious note of sweet corn. A very special tea indeed.

I’m so excited that my son is on leave for the next week and has come home to be embraced by his family once again.

Enjoy your week and your tea!

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, my dear tea friends! I’m on my way out to my art guild meeting on this blustery cold morning. The clouds are racing across the deep blue sky and the branches sway back and forth in the brisk wind. I feel a change in the air. Could it be spring? I hope so! Anyway, I leave you with another Chun Mee tea review from a couple of summers ago. Enjoy!

On this hazy summer morning in my pleasantly cooled kitchen, I’m lazily sipping a Chinese green tea called Chun Mee. Traditionally, the Chinese have always been quite fond of rolling the tea leaf into various shapes and then naming the tea accordingly. Chun Mee translates to “Precious Eyebrows”. Can you see it?

After the leaf is withered and steamed, it is rolled into a thin needle-like shape with a curve like a porcelain doll’s eyebrow.

It is a very popular everyday tea in China, especially to accompany strong flavored foods because of its astringent aftertaste which clears the palate.

Upon steeping for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water, the tightly rolled leaves open slightly to reveal their curled edges.

The golden liquor has a hint of chestnuts in the aroma and a rich, full-bodied flavor. Its astringency clears my mouth and makes it feel fresh and clean. A whisper of sweet plum rounds out the taste.

Shopping at the local mall a couple of nights ago, I stopped into a tea store there and found these interesting pottery teamugs on the clearance shelf. The coppery/sage green mottled exterior is rough and textured with a smooth, pale blue interior. I love the juxtaposition of textures and the way the mug feels slightly rough against my palm. I also love finding treasures, especially those at 75% off!

The purpose of craft is not so much to make beautiful things as it is to become beautiful inside while you are making those things.

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! A couple of weeks ago at work, I took part in a cupping of some China green teas – the Chun Mees and the Young Hysons. This morning I have brewed up a pot of my favorite tea of that grouping – Chun Mee Moon Palace. I do admit that part of its charm lies in its cool name but, for me, it really shined in its flavor.

The name Chun Mee translates to “precious eyebrows”. After withering and steaming, the leaves are rolled into thin curved shapes resembling a porcelain doll’s eyebrows. I wrote about another lot of Chun Mee here.

The Chinese are very fond of naming their teas.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 180 F water as I do with most green teas. After steeping, the leaves look more like bushy eyebrows, don’t you think?

The deep yellow liquor gives off a fresh vegetal fragrance. The flavor is also vegetal, lightly so with pronounced fruity nuances, like pear and melon. It is the fruity nuances that make this tea so enjoyable for me. As my tea cooled, it got sweeter.

As I continued to sip this tea, an astringency began to flower, leading me to think that I probably oversteeped it. So with my next pot of tea, I’ll experiment by pulling back on the steeping time, probably starting with a 2 1/2 minute steep and then possibly working back to a 2 minute steep.

As I’ve talked about before, it’s amazing how different a tea can taste when you adjust the steeping time a small amount of time. I like to be open to the positive qualities of a tea and believe that I can develop a relationship with it with some minor adjustments. Too often I hear stories of folks thinking that something is wrong with a tea after just one steeping. I encourage everyone to experiment and see what works best for them. After that period of experimentation, if you still don’t like it, well, that’s just what it is – you just don’t like it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with the tea. Enjoy the journey!

Next week I will be attending my art guild meeting so there won’t be any new tea post on Saturday. I’ll be back in 2 weeks to share another cup of tea with you. Until then, dear friends, happy sipping!

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”  ~Buddha

Saturday Morning Tea

I experienced sheer joy in taking photos of this morning’s tea, a green tea from the Yunnan province in China. It’s called Yunnan green Snow Dragon.

I don’t think that anyone rivals the tea artisans of China in their tea leaf rolling techniques. Corkscrews? Unbelievably amazing, huh?

With such an auspicious name, I wondered where this tea came from so I looked up if there were any mountains called Snow Dragon in Yunnan.  Here’s what I discovered.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, located in northern Yunnan province, is the southernmost glacier in the Northern hemisphere. It consists of 13 peaks, the highest one being 18,360 feet. It’s never been climbed. Wow. You can see photos of the area and read about the legend of the creation of Snow Dragon mountain here.

I steeped the little corkscrews for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. Their shape relaxed considerably towards the end of their steeping time.

As I removed the infuser basket from my glass teapot, I was struck by an intense aroma of fresh pear. This distinct note carried on into the flavor.

These steeped leaves remind me very much of a white tea, consisting of mainly leaf buds, the newest growth on the tea plant. That said, the further manipulation of the leaf into a shape is the mark of a green (or black or Oolong) tea, not a white tea.

The straw colored liquor is as pale as a white tea though.

The flavor is very soft and delicate with notes of pear and fruit. As the tea cools, its sweetness becomes more defined and lingers in my mouth.

As I watched the leaves steep and release their shape, I thought of how we all have a tendency to hold on to things – people, situations, even sickness and emotional wounds – because we get so comfortable with them, even if it is time to move on and change our shape. Even though the unknown is scary, if we are just able to release and let go, we can discover the beauty in a new way of being. Just like the corkscrew tea leaves released their shape and transformed into a delicious cup of tea.

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! This morning I’ve brewed up a pot of another green tea, this one from Korea called Jung-Jak. Interestingly enough, I did review the 2008 version of this tea here.

This spring harvest tea is usually plucked sometime during the month of May. Its name translates to “medium sparrow tongue”, a colorful reference to the appearance and shape of the leaf.

What do you think?

I’ve been looking for a  comparable alternative to our Japanese teas as my company decided to take a cautious stance and not purchase any 2011 teas from Japan.

I steeped the leaf for 3 minutes in 180 F water. I noticed that I used 160 F water back in 2008. I think that I’ll steep another pot using that temp as, right away, I taste a bit of a tang on my tongue. Have you ever had a cup of green tea that you thought was too pungent? More than likely, the water temp was too hot for steeping the leaf.

The warm sunlight in the photo above tints the tea liquor golden but it is the color of light jade. The aroma has a pronounced vegetal quality, like fresh spring asparagus, which carries over into its flavor. This tea makes my mouth feel very fresh.

I don’t consider myself a green tea connoisseur at all, drinking it probably several times a week. That said, if I didn’t know that this tea came from Korea, I would guess that it’s a Japanese sencha. I’d love to hear your feedback if you’ve tried this tea.

Next weekend I’m attending my 35th high school reunion. I’m amazed at that incredible number and am looking forward to seeing my former classmates and hearing about their life journeys since our graduation many moons ago. So, I won’t be reviewing a new tea next Saturday but I’ll be back in 2 weeks to enjoy a cup of tea with you again.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

“Words have no wings but they can fly a thousand miles.”

~Korean Proverb