Alright, first time in almost two weeks that I actually had enough time to do a proper review. First of all, I actually tried this tea when I got it, but I had a paper to write and team mates to “motivate” so that the group wouldn’t fail a project (I refuse to do all the work, and actually had to bring the professor into the discussion to actually get them to work…).
As with all my green teas, I brewed this tea in my ceramic tumbler. I actually like to let my tea cool for a while before drinking, so the leaves had a few minutes to steep peacefully before I started to blow them out of my way. The first cup was delighfully clear and lightly grassy. It’s very sweet for a green tea, and it has an amazing smooth/creamy finish that is just perfect. It’s also amazing in that the smooth/creamy texture lingers for over two minutes on the hard palate, gently transitioning into a tingling creaminess (somehow, the smoothness dissapates). This is by far the best green tea I’ve ever had.
As the steepings ocntinued, the hashser edges of the grassiness quickly faded into a delightful sweet grass flavor. It’s like my beloved fukamushi sencha, but the texture of the tea is smoother. After about three cups, the creamy texture has faded, and it was relanced by a mineralish smoothness which lingers on the back of the tongue very delightfully. By number 5, vanilla was starting to peak out of the rest of the flavors, but it remained fairly weak for a quite some time.
The later steepings where characterized by a light vanilla flavor, a bit of sweet grass, and a general smooth, sweet taste. The amazing thing is that it never gets bitter, nor does the flavor ever really have anything unpleasant about it. It’s truly a finely-crafter tea, and I offer my humble thanks to both David and Mrs. Li for making this tea available to us.
Final experiment – How do the tea leaves taste? I remember somebody (I think it was Bonnie…) experimented and ate this tea after she was done, so I decided to give it a go. It was interesting, to say the least. The leaves didn’t have that much flavor, and they were very chewy, yet they wern’t unpleasant. It was fine, but I woun’t go out of my way to eat the leaves in the future.
Music of the Day – Dinastia Borja, directed by Jordi Savall.
This is a wonderful historically-informed performance, covereing music from the 11th century up to tail end of the renaissance, and from various cultures. THe common theme is the Borgia Family, and each peice can be related to them somehow. Also, the 3 cds come with a book in multiple languages, which explains both how the pieces relate to the Borgia family, tell their story, and provides the lyrics fo the music.
Here’s a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgU6-cz0RM0
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Loved listening to Dinastia Borja and thinking about how the music influenced your experience mystically with this tea. How lovely to listen and have the best green tea of your life.
It really is a good album for tea listening, even the parts of the album which are recitations with musical accompaniment. MY only regret is that I don’t understand any of the languages, since I’m sure that it’s even better when you can understand what the singers are saying.
Somtimes I’d agree, and sometimes I like the fact that I’m listening to the essence or feeling of the music instead of the words. I listen to lots of Russian Chant and Choral music and Byzantine Chant.
I know exactly what you mean. The music was designed to evoke some emotion in the listener, and that is universal. You don’t actually need to know what they are saying to empathize with the music. It’s actually why I listen to Italian opera: I can figure out maybe 1 in 10 words, but the music is so expressive that I can understand it well enough to actually enjoy the music.
I think that when I was a little girl and my mom sang opera or Beethoven’s Lords Prayer ( http://youtu.be/50dLkv7v2TQ ) and I knew the underlying physical pain she suffered. The tears would roll down my face as she sang and my little heart would almost break. I learned to play this last piece of music on the piano for her which wasn’t easy to do if I got choked up! So this is where I learned to feel music.
Loved listening to Dinastia Borja and thinking about how the music influenced your experience mystically with this tea. How lovely to listen and have the best green tea of your life.
It really is a good album for tea listening, even the parts of the album which are recitations with musical accompaniment. MY only regret is that I don’t understand any of the languages, since I’m sure that it’s even better when you can understand what the singers are saying.
Somtimes I’d agree, and sometimes I like the fact that I’m listening to the essence or feeling of the music instead of the words. I listen to lots of Russian Chant and Choral music and Byzantine Chant.
I know exactly what you mean. The music was designed to evoke some emotion in the listener, and that is universal. You don’t actually need to know what they are saying to empathize with the music. It’s actually why I listen to Italian opera: I can figure out maybe 1 in 10 words, but the music is so expressive that I can understand it well enough to actually enjoy the music.
I think that when I was a little girl and my mom sang opera or Beethoven’s Lords Prayer ( http://youtu.be/50dLkv7v2TQ ) and I knew the underlying physical pain she suffered. The tears would roll down my face as she sang and my little heart would almost break. I learned to play this last piece of music on the piano for her which wasn’t easy to do if I got choked up! So this is where I learned to feel music.