Long Jing Shi Feng 3

I don’t often purchase Chinese green teas, and dragon wells even less often. So, this is an off the beaten track thing, for me.

These dry leaves have a very sweet set of notes under the more typical hay and meadow notes.

By Contrast, the wet leaves are extremely vegetal, bordering on pungent.

The liqueur is actually pale yellow, not green, but that is not too surprising, I’ve only ever found shaded greens to actually turn green in the cup. The flavor here genuinely splits the difference between the dry and wet leaves. Oddly, the flavor reminds me a great deal of the great shaded greens out there — deeply vegetal, but still bright and green, like fresh snow peas or fresh string beans.

I think it says a lot about “good leaves” that a tea produced under such radically different conditions can still produce, in the end, a similarly excellent cup. This is a lot more reasonably priced than most gyukuro, or sincha however.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around all the different kinds of Long Jing. This is my frist time (knowingly) trying Shi Feng. The leaves are very very flat and consistant dry. Beautiful to look at wet. They are very whole with minimal torn or broken pieces.

I’d say it’s lighter and crisper tasting with a milder aroma then other Long Jings I’ve had, such as Peet’s. The color is pale gold.

It’s very refreshing and really satisfies my Long Jing craving. I’d go as far as saying it’s the best Long Jing I’ve had, although I’d like to do a side-by-side tasting someday to prove that.