Anji Bai Cha

This tea is hard for me to measure! The leaves remind me of pine needles…so I usually end up guessing how much to use.

Anyway, I love a sweet creamy vegetal green tea, and this one has the added bonus of occasional twinges of tart cherry sneaking in occasionally. Very complex and delish! Happy Friday everybody!!

Whoops. I sorta steeped this for 6 minutes – sorry fancy tea – you deserve much better.

Still, this seemed to handle it ok. I think I let the water cool more than I should so it balanced out a bit. This is smooth and silky, and very light and sweet. I think that when I’m inspired by how awesome green teas are, I will be tempted to grab more of this!

Sipdown (119) – since we’re all counting back down again!

Thanks for the sample, Stacy! I’m having a super lazy day. I think extreme apathy has set in now that there are only a couple days left of summer before class starts again, so I’m rebelling by not doing any thesis proposal prep. So what am I doing instead? Sitting around all day drinking tea and surfing the net. I’ll probably regret this later.

I’m not crazy over vegetal greens, but this is on the smoother side. It’s sweet, with a side of green beans. Slightly buttery, but mostly vegetal.

Sweetened green beans to the last drop.

This. Is. Amazing. Stacy included this as a sample in my last order and it kind of languished in my cupboard for a while. I chose it tonight on a lark – I was initially planning to have an oolong. I’m SO glad that I had this instead. Ok, enough gushing. On to the actual tasting note.

This tea is so delicate and smooth. The first steep is sweet and sort of wet grassy. The end of the sip is definitely floral. I did not pick up on any of the tart cherry notes.

I did a second steep at 180 F. I didn’t time it but the steep was about 6 minutes. Fantastic. This bark note came out, in perfect balance with a green pea note. The finish is a little bit tart on this steep. The aftertaste builds to almost a maraschino cherry flavor. I’m not a huge fan of cherry anything, but this is really working for me.

I wish I had tried this sooner – now that I’ve placed my Black Friday orders, I won’t be placing any additional orders for quite some time. :-(

Backlog:

Brews to a very pale color that you might find yourself wondering if you put tea in the teapot (I did!) The flavor is sweet, delicate and tastes of mild veggies. I definitely taste corn, I don’t know about peas as I’m not a big fan of peas so I don’t eat them unless they’re in soups or stews or stir fry.

A nice floral finish. As the tea cools, some of the fruit notes emerge.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/09/24/anji-bai-cha-green-tea-butiki-teas/

For a while there I forgot green teas existed; then Stacy included this as a sample in the big group order I participated in a while back. This tea turned out to be a nice reminder that greens aren’t always boring and can be tasty! I really did think I would easily write this one off after trying a cup.

This tea is surprisingly sweet, both in aroma and taste. Initially, I thought the fruity sweetness was due to (a very good kind of) cross contamination, but the online description says that’s one of the distinguishing characteristics. It’s hard for me to get over that this isn’t one of those green, floral cherry blends that are everywhere. How is it doing that? The tart cherry flavour is surprisingly vivid and fresh.

Besides the sweet finish, this has all the grassy, vegetal, and mineral water notes that one could hope for in a nice green. There is are also some nice buttery notes, that give the tea a pleasantly creamy quality, but it isn’t as dominant a note as some of the buttery Dragonwell or oolong teas I’ve tried.

Sweet and somewhat light, reminds me of sweet corn with a silky texture, neither heavy nor thin. Very pleasant after dinner rushing to get out the door for a bachelorette shindig at Mollie Fontaine Lounge. Green tea is so goooood.

A sample in the last Butiki order that I haven’t tried yet!

Hmm. I’m not sure what to say about this. Green teas aren’t my favourite, and this isn’t really something I’d ever buy… but objectively, it’s a lovely tea. It feels almost thick, and tastes sweet and somewhat green.

I think it’s worth a try, but it’s really not for me.

Very mild…didn’t read the directions first (whoops, sorry!), and underleafed, so I will add the rest of the sample to the existing leaves and brew again later.

EDIT: Resteep yielded a richer brew, still very pale in colour, and still mild in taste. I can’t decipher what I’m tasting, but that’s typical of me and straight greens…

Though I have tasted this before, I didn’t get chance to write a note yet… Time to make up for it!

I really like this kind of tea – my boss at the clinic serves a very similar one, as a pre-acupuncture drink, to his patients (he serves them Tianmu White Tea, which is basically identical), and I get to drink a fair bit of it myself.

It’s a really nice green tea – it has a lovely, mild, vegetal flavour, with gentle fruit and floral notes. This definitely is NOT a powerful tea – even with lots of leaf and water that’s too hot, it’s flavours are quite mellow. But, it’s still a nice, stimulating cup and it’s very refreshing on warmer days.

I only got a little sample of this tea, but I’ll be sure to enjoy the rest of it :D

(I brewed this in my little glass tea pot, lid-off, using ~4 g in 200 ml. The first infusion (of 5) was for 2’ and successive ones were longer and used hotter water, until a final steep of around 15’ with near-boiling water. It lasted quite well through all 5 infusions, though the last one was pretty mild.)