After the great pre-Qinming Teavivre Bi Luo Chun I enjoyed earlier this year, I wanted to try something a bit more moderately priced. This Bi Luo Chun seemed like a good option to get me over the free shipping threshold. I steeped 4 g of leaf in a 120 ml teapot using 185F water for 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds. These parameters don’t match the ones given by the vendor because I have issues with bitterness when steeping greens for a longer time. I also bowl steeped 3 g of leaf in 250 ml of water at 185F, starting at 2.5 minutes and refilling as necessary.
These fuzzy little curls are very pretty! The dry aroma is of beans, asparagus, butter, and florals. The first steep has notes of beans, asparagus, butter, grass, florals, and nuts, and the body is thick and fuzzy. It has a strange honey/asparagus aftertaste. The next steep has more spring flowers and something I’ll call pear, but also more asparagus and bitter veggies. The next couple steeps have a good balance of beans, asparagus, nuts, kale, and grass, with some nice florality. The final steeps are more grassy and vegetal, but bitterness is still kept at a minimum.
Bowl steeped, the tea seems more beany and nutty, with the asparagus, florals, and grass emerging in later steeps. The tea becomes grassy and mineral near the end of the session, though the bitterness never gets out of hand.
This is a nice Bi Luo Chun that I didn’t find as compelling as the one from Teavivre. Maybe that one was higher quality, or maybe it seemed better because I drank it when it was fresh. Either way, this is a floral, refreshing BLC that never got too bitter and was pleasant to drink in this warm weather.
Flavors: Asparagus, Butter, Floral, Grass, Green Beans, Honey, Kale, Mineral, Nuts, Pear, Thick, Vegetal
