AprTea

There are some quiet , reserved people you meet that you are not happy about. You feel they are shy or unwell and wish they came out out of their shell and became more expressive and assertive. And then there are quiet people that are good and natural at being quiet and you like it and like being around them. And that’s this Jin Jun Mei.

IT is very balanced and hits on all notes: beautiful leaves with a large share of twisty golden tips, captivating sweet caramel and honey aroma, and a long pleasant aftertaste. Also resteeps extremely well. I had it Western style since it is very forgiving in a preparation and provides you with a delectable sweet taste full of honey, caramel and fruit. It is certainly light and reserved but perfectly balanced and quite cheerful.

I liked this tea a lot: it was the first of the Aprtea samples that I tried that I immediately went on the company’s website to check the price for a larger quantity. It is not super cheap (no Jin Jun Mei teas are) but quite reasonable and I am very likely to reorder it.

It’s a good tea that is frustratingly close to being great. It is simply too restrained for me: a delicate smell, a delicate understated taste somewhat reminiscent of a wild unsmoked Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong.

I can go along with its lack of malt, chocolate and kick that is more typical for a Keemun Hao Ya. But if I was looking for restrained subtlety I would be drinking white teas .This tea reminds me how Michael Harney called Keemuns “the aristocrats of Chinese black teas”. Maybe I am simply not refined enough and would rather mingle with uninhibited commoners.

This was another sample given in return of an honest review.

the leaves in the package are beautiful, small handmade balls, and they look beautiful. the fluff on the leafs are wonderfully preserved, and make the balls look silky and shiny. there is a wonderful honey and clover smell, mostly honey.

once again im using the glass brewing vessel as not to alter the taste in any way. i used the entire 7.5 grams in the sample, and 8 oz of boiling water. initial brew is 25 seconds before i start the pour, each infusion will add 10 seconds to the previous brew.

the tea is a light brown, not really any red. it smells faintly of sweet potato.
after letting it cool enough to drink, the first impression is that this tea, like the last i tried, is nice and smooth, and the flavors are light, as is normal for a tippy tea. flavors are nice and balanced. The main flavors i get are sweet potato, with honey and a faint hint of cocoa.

on the second brew, the color is deeper brown, and still smells of sweet potato. the flavor shifts more toward sweet potato, but not much, and a little more cocoa. still smooth, and only light bitterness, only a hint.

third steeping the sweet potato is now almost completely gone, now leaving cocoa, a bit more bitterness, though still not much.

i will stop the review here, as the tea is becoming… not unpleasant, but not as enjoyable to drink.

The wet leaf aroma is surprisingly milky, I don’t really get many fruity or floral notes, apart from maybe apricot jam. Taste is light even when the steeping time is pushed, which I would recommend to do by the way. There is almost no astringency that builds up and you get at least a decent viscosity and taste concentration. It’s a mix of sweet and sour flavours, with floral undertones emerging in the aftertaste especially. Somehow, the overal feeling resembles lighter white wine, maybe a little bit on the drier side. Of course, without the alcohol :)

It’s similar in quality to the Fancy grade TGY from YS, but significantly more expensive. Therefore, I don’t feel like I can recommend this tea, even there is nothing wrong with it per se.

A free sample. Thank you AprTea! Also, it was my first yellow tea ever, so some of my observations could be not tea-specific but rather a result of my first yellow tea encounter.

This tea had one of the most alluring and strong dry leaf aromas I encountered so far: full of guava, melon, honey and pomegranate. The appearance was also impressive – the main photograph used in the tea’s Steepster account describes it well.

I prepared it both gong fu and Western style at 175 degrees, and the short gong fu steeps were decidedly better. It has a very creamy mouthfeel, with the honey, herbs, spice, spinach, and tropical fruit flavors. A bit of nuttiness as well. Overall, it is a very cheerful tea that put a smile on my face. Western style felt a bit thin,and longer or second/third gaiwan steeps brought forward some green tea-like bitterness and grass. And I personally find this generic slightly oversteeped green tea profile not so interesting.

All-in-all, a good tea that requires some attention in preparation and high leaf-to-water ratio. I will probably need to try more yellow teas to better evaluate its relative value in class.

Opening the package, the interior of the foil lined package is covered in a rich brown dust, the “fluff” from the leaves, if you will, and the leaves are a mix of dark brown and tan, and spindly. the smell is striking, rich clover with honey, hint of cocoa. exactly what i look for in a red. i placed it in my glass steeping vessel, and brewed for 25 seconds at 200 degrees F before starting to pour.

the heated leaves now smell strongly of sweet potato with the clover underneath. the tea is a light brown with hint of red, nothing really different from many red teas.

the flavors are well balanced, with nothing trying to dominate the other. the main flavors i get are the clover and honey, with a hint of sweet potato. this tea is extremely smooth, and is modest in the flavors, as i tend to expect from a tippy tea. long aftertaste of honey and clover, also muted.

Second steeping has 10 seconds added, and is much sweeter, swinging more toward honey and clover. the flavors are a little lighter, as is normal with an iterative brewing.

third steeping has a total of 20 additional seconds added, and has lost the honey, now becoming that of clover. flavor is once again ever so slightly more muted than the last infusion, the color a bit darker red.

i feel these leaves can go for possibly 2-4 more infusions, but i will end my review here. My final thoughts are that this is a really nice tea, silky smooth, modest flavors that are well balanced with each other. this can be enjoyed at any time of the day, but imo would be best suited for a calm afternoon, or paired with a lightly flavored meal/snack later in the day, as a heavily flavored food could cause some loss in perceived flavor of the tea.

This tea mostly has fairly standard Chinese green tea characteristics, but with better mouthfeel.

The smell is similar to longjing – nutty and a little floral, but more fruity. The taste is brothy, vegetal and fruity. In terms of flavours I can pick up some grapes and courgette. Overall, it is fairly light and crisp tasting, medium-bodied with nice thick and oily mouthfeel that gets a bit astringent in the finish. In the aftertaste, there are some sour flavours emerging as well. The feeling in the throat is warming for a while after drinking the tea.

This is one of the several free samples generously sent to me by AprTea, a new Chinese tea vendor located in Anxi (Fujian, China). I much appreciate both the samples and the fact that we seem to have gotten another quality vendor of Fujian and other Chinese teas, of which I am a big, big fan. The collection of samples came in simple but visually appealing sample bags packed in a cardboard tube. I actually like their design that is minimalist with a touch of a faded antique style: it’s practical, tasteful and good for the environment.

The tea itself consists of visually pleasing golden snails, quite uniform in size and color. This is the tea that is well suited to gongfu. I had three infusions and all of them gave something new. The aroma was the one that you often get from a good Yunnan tea with honeyed sweetness and malt.

The first steep was short (10 seconds) and the tea came out quite mild, with the notes of baked bread, sweet potatoes, honey, hay, malt and wild flowers. It came out as very fresh and authentic , i.e. “real”. I increased the second infusion to 25 seconds and the tea aquired a pleasant bitterness , metallic and minty notes. The bitter chocolate aftertaste lingered for a long time. The third and final infusion (25 sec) gave me a very mellow tea with all kinds of muted sweetness and barely a hint of bitterness.

Well, I liked this tea quite a bit. It tastes very “real” and three-dimensional and responds well to experimenting with a gaiwan. On the negative side is that I am not a big fan of a strongdark chocolate bitterness and that this tea does not give you a lot of quality infusions, both of which is not that uncommon in dianghongs.

Thanks so much for sending samples, AprTea.com! I really appreciate it! AprTea.com is a new tea company selling lovely teas. This one looks quite different than any other pu-erh I’ve had before. It looks like little shards or pebbles of a ripe pu-erh flavored with sticky rice. I used two heaping of teaspoons of these pebbles for a mug (the entire 10gram sample) and I’m glad I did use two teaspoons as they don’t really unravel like the usual pu-erh leaves. And I like my pu-erh extra dark. A dark pu-erh to me is like having a cup of coffee. But coffee is less to my tastes than ripe pu-erh. While steeping, these pieces remain in their pebble shape. The flavor is delicious though — smooth and sweet with no offensive pu-erh flavors, and the sweetness is not even counting that delicious sticky rice flavor that is consistent through all these steeps. The last steep I forgot about and left an hour and a half – extra dark, delicious and still had that rice flavor. I like these! AprTea also has another sticky rice mini tuocha that is even lower in price than these.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 17 minutes after boiling // rinse // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 10 minute steep
Steep #4 // just boiled // 1 1/2 hour steep

7g at 130ml, 90C. This is not a “blow you away” TGY, but certainly a good green one. No kidding on the floral notes, the first few steeps are definitely better, I think later I was using something with too much heat retention that it steamed the leaves.