So my review this morning of the Thai red naturally prompted this one of the Thai green. It is essentially the same slightly scruffy material, now processed as a green, a style
which it wears far less awkwardly than the red.
Warm dry leaf is sweet and grassy like a biluochun or maofeng.
In the review on the red I touched upon the subject of my tap water, which leans towards reasonable for most teas. Except ‘fine’ greens, which it can simply destroy whilst amplifying the fertilizer up to 11. So for an everyday green tea I look for something not too fragile. This Thai securely passes the mark. I didn’t really manage to carry the warm fragrance over into the first few cups, but neither did they carry anything of a bitter edge, so perhaps I could have pushed it some more.
Subsequent steepings, as you have it, take on a bolder green profile, where this particular tea leans towards the earthy rather than the grassy notes of a maofeng. This time I don’t have to be poetic to say that it reminds me of an African green tea. And somehow (and that’s not only confirmation bias) I did expect that from the description.
Once more I can’t really judge the old tree thing, but I can see how this could be made into sheng pu erh as well, so once more I regret not to have a sample of that. I would be interested to compare the bitters: this one has that clarity that is par to the course for a green, and I just wonder whether the sheng has that kind of cigarette-y bend to it that I have come to associate with that style.
Overall, enough to chew on.
Flavors: Bitter, Sweet, Warm Grass
Would be interesting to look into what clay Thai would use themselves for other teas replanted there from overseas