Dragonwell

This afternoon, “Oolong, green, white, oolong, green, white,” I thought. Should I go stare at what’s in my cupboard? Maybe something will call out to me. I think about some teas. Dragonwell sounds just right. I think about teas a few minutes more. But I keep going back to Dragonwell. Dragonwell, it is.

I went with the 6oz cup method again, instead of an 8oz+ mug. I have a feeling this size will be becoming my default when drinking teas that get more than 2 steeps. I know it’s not that much less tea than a mug, but somehow I drink it faster and it feels like less tea. This time I used a 2 minutes 30 seconds multiplier like A&D recommends. I kept the 160° F water temperature like last time.

The Dragonwell was much the same as before, which is tasty and enjoyable. I sped through my first two cups, then drank the next two cups after dinner. The 4th steep was at least half tea, half watery, if not mostly watery. I do not think I will be steeping this a 4th time again.

1st steep: 2 min 30 sec.
2nd steep: 5 min.
3rd steep: 7 min 30 sec.
4th steep: 10 min.

Next time I drink this, I plan to try 3 steeps using the same times as a today but with 170° F water. Yes, I feel like each new tea is an experiment in how preparing it differently could change the taste. Yes, I am a scientist. Yes, I’m geeky. =)

- Using a 2 min 30 sec multiplier work well for this tea.
- Steep 3 times. This tea doesn’t take a 4th steep well.

So the whole toss in a cup and pour some water over it thing worked out really well for the Dragon Balls yesterday, I thought I’d give it a shot with this one. It was quite yummy, bringing to mind steamed green veggies, maybe asparagus or Swiss chard (♥), but man, a lot of these leaves float! I ate a few (slightly bitter (like turnips) but not bad) and eventually most of them decided to go hang out at the bottom, but ultimately I think I prefer my tea with fewer obstacles.

I was a little worried that this tea would be too strong since it warns against steeping for longer than 2.5 minutes, but I was pleasantly surprised by a nice cup of green tea with a balanced flavor that isn’t overly grassy and has a hint of minerality.

There are small light green-stained fuzz balls in the tin… I just noticed it today. Strange but I still drank my steep anyway.

You know, maybe I should revise the score I gave this tea way back. I tend to compare all dragonwell teas to that wonderful one I regularly get from Specifically Tea and I’ve had the opportunity to try them side by side and I found that this tea was a bit lacking. Not a lot lacking mind you – it’s a good-quality tea in its own right. But I noticed that it didn’t have the same fullness of flavour and doesn’t resteep all that well. It’s also lacking that hint of smokiness I get from the Specifically Tea Dragonwell, but that’s more of personal preference, I think.

It’s taken me forever plus three days to get around to logging these suckers. I’d sat down to do it one day and then realized that it’d been too long since I actually drank them and wanted to wait until I tried them again before logging them.

Now that that incredibly boring explanation is out of the way, on to the tea.

This Dragonwell rates a solid second on my Dragonwell scale. It’s not a light, dancing, happy sweetness like that darned Dragonwell Spring that Carolyn sent me. It does, however, have some sweetness to it.

The first thing that struck me is that this tea brewed up into a very light yellow color. I don’t know why I made a note of this, but it was very, very light. I’ve had a lot of teas that have been brewing up near colorless lately, but it’s still novel enough for me t notice it when it happens.

Also, the leaves, and this is gonna sound kinda crazy, smelled like turkey when I sniffed them from up above. It took me a while to place it, but when I realized it I said aloud, “Holy poop, turkey!” [Except “poop” was replaced with its four-lettered cousin.] Curious, I sniffed them again closer, through the infuser, and they smelled like green beans – specifically the canned variety.

It had been long enough since I’d tried this that I couldn’t remember exactly what to expect from this [secretly, I’m using these tea logs to replace my BRAIN]. The biggest taste that I got from it was, perhaps not surprisingly, green beans. Fresher green beans than what it smelled like, but green beans. A little salty, more sweet, though. And maybe with just a hint of smoke.

I’m going to try bringing the temperature down to 160 and see what that does for it. I’ll be able to compare better now that I have it in my brain.

Backlogging from yesterday.

This was another sample from Ricky. Thanks Ricky!
As we know, I LOVE dragonwell. So I am going to be harsh, because my standards are pretty high. This tea was a little too weak for me brewed according to instructions. I brewed 3 minutes, hot, no additives. I found that the water was the right color and everything, the smell was a faint vegetal, as it should be, but the flavor just was not there.

I have also mentioned in my ramblings about green tea, that I also tend to simply add green, specifically dragonwell to a cup with hot water and drink it without ever straining. Allowing for maximum flavor (and sometimes bitterness) to come out of the leaves. In the case of the Damn Fine Dragonwell, I have to say that leaving the leaves submerged in the cup while enjoying was the best way. I feel we could have also brewed the tea longer than required, but this gives you a few good steeps, without getting bitter so there was no reason to have to make it in a pot and pour it off.

Overall, the tea was alright as long as you let it sit and infuse long enough, however the recommended time was not enough to get decent flavor out of the tea.

It’s been a while since I cracked open this tin. I wanted to get my darjeeling sample from adagio out of the way, and then I fell in love all over again with the DFT’s Nepal, and I overlooked this stuff for a while. It’s great as always though, as if I never left it.

This is a really pleasant, staple green tea!

this tea is absolutely delicious. it has been my favorite out of all 5 of the tea’s Andrews & Dunham has released. However, I no longer have any of this tea left and I missed the re-release in December of their series one! I really wish I knew where it came from so I could hop on a plane and buy it! :)