Emerald Spring Lung Ching

One thing this company does that stands out against the rest; they go green.
This is a company driven by the idea of sustainability of agricultural products.
Their teas are all organic certified, their packaging is compostable (a clever idea) and a large selection of their tea is produced under the FairTrade label, which I believe to be beneficial to those who profit by it; the farmers. This is a touchy subject amongst the tea world though, so I shall move on.

The first tea being reviewed out of the set is their Lung Ching.

Dry leaf;
dominantly toasted notes, along with walnut and alfalfa aromas. The pan firing process sure imparted its scent into these leaves.

The liquor was lacking in aroma. All I could pick out was the toasted scent.
Sweet walnut comes through as the opening flavor of this tea.
A cooling basil taste follows, which leaves my mouth feeling quite refreshed.
The finish is of a very delicate toast, which I find surprising due to the pungency of this specific attribute in the dry leaf.

There was not much astringency to be found.

Following infusions display lemongrass and a light resemblance to basil, still.
The toast is definitely on the decline as well.

One aspect I did enjoy in the latter cups was the more potent astringency.
I enjoy a dragonwell with a bit more of a bite. Not bitter, mind you, but just enough astringency to leave a lasting impression.

This tea overall was not the best dragonwell I have tried.
I enjoyed it on the whole, but probably wouldn't order it.
The flavor profile was in line with the "classic" dragonwell profile, but this was not a shining star.
If I wanted to introduce someone to the vast assortment of green teas, this would be a tea I might use.

Another thing that did surprise me about this tea was this curious leaf.
Lung Ching teas normally have a plucking standard of "one leaf and a bud."
It was a bit of a random stumble to find a set of "two leaves and a bud."
This has nothing to do with the quality of this tea, it just seems that someone missed the extra leaf as it passed on through the stages of processing.

A thank you to Arbor Teas for this sample.


~billy

Taken from http://sirwilliamoftheleaf.blogspot.com/