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I don’t have too much experience with gunpowder tea. The Adagio version that I tried dried my mouth out rather unpleasantly, and I’ve been more interested by dabbling in blacks, oolongs and whites than I have been in really exploring greens.

This brewed up to a yellow color I didn’t expect. Not quite dark enough to be considered amber, but too yellow in the cup to be properly called green, either, and very slightly cloudy (in my office where the lighting is less direct and bright, it’s hard to see).

It’s slightly less astringent and drying than the gunpowder from Adagio, but significantly more mild in every other way, too. The smoke flavor is lessened, and the green seems just as shy; there are no overt grassy or vegetal notes. They say that there’s a ‘lingering sweetness’ to the tea, but I’m not really getting that. I am getting a strange salty flavor that might be ‘sweet’ where ‘sweet’ crosses over with ‘smoke’, but then again that could be some indication that 3 minutes was longer than I needed to have steeped this tea.

I’m finding I’m not an enormous fan of the smell of it, either. Again, that could be because I brewed it (accidentally) toward the outside of the recommended brewing time, so potentially a matter of my preferences versus the tea. Alas, I will not likely find out for certain either way, as my sample of this was consumed by this cup (and the hideousness of my experience attempting to steep the other gunpowder I have a second time — producing that ashy taste, gross — will prohibit me from attempting the same thing here).

Not horrid, but not on my list to buy. Inoffensive, but unexciting (and slightly unappetizing due to the salty note). I know there are better greens out there.