Temple Of Heaven

I’ve got my brew times and leaf/water ratio dialed in better this time.

Starting at 15 sec and moving in +5 sec intervals.

Grass, smoke, a little astringency on the finish. Sort of basic green tea but much more flavor than bagged. Plus there’s a smoky kick on this one.
More sediment than I would like but I paid like 2-cents per gram so I can live with a double rinse before brewing. Someone remind me to rinse this a few times before I brew!

This time cold brewed for 18 hours, producing a nice mild and smooth green tea experience with a little smokiness on the finish. Bumped a couple points, thinking the first Gongfu just had far too many leaves in it.

Picked up at the local Asian Market.
Gongfu style, one wash.

1st Infusion – 40 seconds:
Huh, it’s green tea. Strong. There are slight smoky vibes but that’s mostly in the nose. There’s some long finish but I cannot tell if it’s the tea or the curry I had for dinner.

2nd Infusion – 40 Seconds:
I kept the infusion time the same to avoid oversteeping. The quality is pretty much the same as the first, I’m noticing more of the smokiness and honestly it has some cigarette notes to it that I do not find pleasant.

3rd Infusion – 30 Seconds:
I’m experimenting with the time on this one to see if I’m leaving the tea for too long before pouring. I noticed the end of my last cup has quit a lot of residue, maybe I should second wash before steeping. This one ended up lots better, with a little of vegetal flavor and smoother body. I’ll have to start this one off with two washes and a 15-sec infusion time and work up from there. Medium astringency on the tounge.

4th Infusion – 60 Seconds:
Water is a bit clearer now, same mouthfeel. This seems to be a pretty run of the mill green tea, a little coarse, and probably quite versatile.

Reading other reviews, I may have used too much leaf on this one by following my standard process and the included instructions.

Hey for $1.60 per 100g this is easily 10 x cheaper than a nice green tea I have purchased in the past. I would more-happily drink the good stuff but on a budget, not bad. Better than Lipton green! Good to have a standard to separate low from high quality tea.
I may have to change my review after sampling more of this tea, there is certainly enough of it in the box I bought.

Smoky. Strong. Cheap.
Hoping this will kick me over my afternoon slump.

Not a fan TTb. As much as I love green tea, this is one that I’ve never really liked. I keep trying but it’s just never gotten a special place on my palate. Hay and grass. This one seems a bit old to me. I’m not getting as much flavor out of it as I feel like I should be. Maybe its the intense hay flavor I’m not liking so much that this one usually reminds me of.

On a side note. If you ever get a chance to go to the Temple of Heaven, do it! It’s amazing.

I used to buy this tea in the Asian grocery store long before I ever bought a tea online, before I even knew that green teas required lower temperature. I loved it then, so when I saw it on Amazon while I was putting together an order I picked one up. The Amazon price was rather high but I bought it anyway. I think I paid $6.50 or so. It sells in the Asian market for less but my Asian market has not had it in a while. My first attempt at this today was botched and tremendously over brewed so I dumped it and started again. This time I lowered the water temp to 160 degrees, dropped it to 2 tsp leaf, and lessened the steep time to 30 seconds. I got a nice tasting, somewhat floral cup with the right light yellow/green color, not the dark brew I got with 3 minutes and 3 tsp leaf. I don’t think I would buy this again at Amazon, but it is a good indication of how my tastes for tea have changed. I used to over brew this tea on purpose because I thought at the time that all tea deserved a dark color.

I brewed this one time in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 2 tsp leaf and 160 degree water for 30 sec.

This was the first gunpowder in my collection. It’s stronger than my pinhead gunpowder, and maybe a little less smoky. I don’t taste the grassiness that has been mentioned by others, but maybe it’s because I have limited experience…when I see grassy, I think Japanese green tea, and this is nothing like that. It’s actually smoother than the pinhead gunpowder, although, I have to say, I enjoy the pinhead’s bitterness. This tea is also quite a bit cheaper, making it a nice alternative. I definitely recommend it for those of you that like Chinese gunpowder green teas.

Cheap tea!

I don’t mean that in a bad way. I got a half pound box of this for $1.99 in China Town.

I’ve tried this tea so many ways. Iced, cold brewed, hot, mixed with stuff and in the end, I prefer it hot with mint (like a sort of Moroccan Mint without the sugar) or cold brewed with fresh fruit (straining the fruit and tea leaves out after). The gunpowder green is robust enough to not be overpowered by the mint or fruit.

By itself, the tea is pretty good. A little bit smokey. It’s not the highest quality tea, but for $1.99, I’m not expecting it to be. For the price point, it’s a really good deal.

One negative is it’s very dusty, so even after straining, there is a bit of sediment on the bottom of my cup.

brew 2:30, 3:00 etc. longer/hotter 4-5 times

TTB 10

I am enjoying this greenpowder green although it is almost ascetically basic. I also must have slightly oversteeped it, which makes it taste slightly roastier than it normally would. It’s very grassy too – I’m guessing it’s supposed to be. I still don’t have as much experience with green tea as I would like to have.

All in all, an okay, decent simple green. Not anything crazy or overtly crave-able, but just fine.

I used a scoop of leaf with add-ons I grew – a couple whole leaves of lemon verbena, 1 tsp chocolate mint, and 1/8 tsp dried stevia. The mint is old stock (2 years old maybe – I was too lazy to go find the fresh stuff in the other room) but this pretty much tastes like mint. I should use way less next time. I sort of taste verbena maybe. Last time I used verbena it overtook the cup. I can’t taste the tea at all. The stevia I cannot get the hang of as even dried I seem to not be using enough to add any sweetness. If I touch the leaf to my tongue it is like licking a pink packet of death, so I don’t know why I can’t sweeten with it.

My point is respect to those of you who create the wonderful blends we enjoy. It is way harder to get right than it sounds.

I swear the last time I had this (years ago) it was very smoky. This is more roasted and kind of reminds me of a mild genmaicha. Very cheap. I paid $2 for 4 ounces. Others said I overpaid as they got it for $1. Way better than the price would suggest. Halfway through the cup I iced it – made a very refreshing iced tea.

I had a hard time finding this one because I kept thinking it was “Tower of Heaven” ….because I’m obviously a sucker for pixels and chiptune (honestly, though, I can’t get through the first panel of that game, I’m so bad at it).

I think I need to get myself used to gunpowders, because all of the ones I’ve tried haven’t been quite what I was expecting. I got this at the local Asian market (hahaha not going there anymore because the owner’s wife always pressures me to get married to my weird colleagues that she knows and now I’m scared that she’ll actually try to set me up), which has a really nice collection of East Asian teas. However, besides Numi’s gunpowder, I can’t seem to find any others in town…

Right out of the box, the dry smell reminds me of a county fair in Idaho. I mean, the whole bit — cows and hay and horses and alfalfa and goats and Idahoans. It’s a bit off-putting, I concede, but it’s also kind of nostalgic. Once brewed, it’s strong and spinachy — and while I don’t mind the spinach, I think I may be brewing it a bit too strong. It looks like the other reviews suggest fewer leaves per cup, so I’m going to try that and see how it goes.

Still not qualified to rate this one yet. I brewed up a nice strong cup of this baby today…to mix with rum, lemon juice, and honey. I’m sick sick sick; having caught a cold the Thursday before last, getting the flu last Monday, having my cold worsen this past Thursday, study and take my pediatrics final (Friday night, and Saturday morning respectively), then have the cold get even worse (somehow) last night. So, it was definitely time for a hot toddy today.
My regular 12 oz. cup of tea made with two big teaspoons of this gunpowder,
about an ounce and a half of rum, a squirt of lemon juice (a slice of lemon is best), and a tablespoon of local honey. Yum. Soothes the throat.

Not ready to do a real rating of this one, but did try it today with lunch. I’m still scared of green tea, not totally sure how to approach it, so I jumped in and made a big cup. This was ok, pretty vegetal, though no more so than any other green I’ve had. It wasn’t bad with a spoon of sugar, and it’s definitely something I’ll be drinking as I continue to battle the forces of the cold my whole family has been through. I swear, my tea-drinking and yoga are keeping me in good hands.