Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

After cleaning, writing, and baking some banana bread, I figured this tea would be a good way to relax. Many thanks to Tao for giving me a sample when I visited his shop a month ago.

For some reason, this tea isn’t listed on the Tao Tea Leaf site – so I have no idea what the correct steeping parameters are. For now, I just did my standard thing for greens: 1 tsp per 8 oz, 80C, for 3 minutes.

The results were surprising. The dry leaf was sweet and fruity – I didn’t get the raspberry note that Polly mentioned below; instead, it seemed more to me like stonefruit.

The dry leaf is long, dark sage green, and tubular. Because of the length, it was difficult to measure, so I might have overleafed this.

Once the tea was done steeping, I was greeted by that same fruity scent.

The liquor was fairly light but darkened as the tea sat and cooled. I took my first sip after it had a chance to cool down and….

Interesting! It reminds me an awful lot of Nina’s Paris’s “Demain” tea – the green tea with raspberry and strawberry flavouring. It’s got that same musty, dusty undertone I’ve sensed in that tea, and the fruitiness is definitely similar. I would not be surprised at all if this tea variety (Liu An Gua Pian) were revealed to be the base of Nina’s greens.

I have enough left for maybe a largish cup. I’m not quite sure if I’ll restock this, but I’m glad I got a sample.

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 24 OZ / 709 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

People who liked this

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

Profile

Bio

Updated March 2016:

I’m a writer and editor who’s fallen in love with loose-leaf tea. I’ve also set up a site for tea reviews at http://www.booksandtea.ca – an excellent excuse to keep on buying and trying new blends. There will always be more to discover!

In the meantime, since joining Steepster in January 2014, I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on my likes and dislikes

Likes: Raw/Sheng pu’erh, sobacha, fruit flavours, masala chais, jasmine, mint, citrus, ginger, Ceylons, Chinese blacks, rooibos.

Dislikes (or at least generally disinclined towards): Hibiscus, rosehip, chamomile, licorice, lavender, really vegetal green teas, shu/ripe pu’erh.

Things I generally decide on a case-by-case basis: Oolong, white teas.

Still need to do my research on: matcha

I rarely score teas anymore, but if I do, here’s the system I follow:

100-85: A winner!
84-70: Pretty good. This is a nice, everyday kind of tea.
69-60: Decent, but not up to snuff.
59-50: Not great. Better treated as an experiment.
49-0: I didn’t like this, and I’m going to avoid it in the future. Blech.

Location

Toronto, ON, Canada

Website

http://www.booksandtea.ca

Following These People

Moderator Tools

Mark as Spammer