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“Backstory: Well then. Now that I finally have a cupboard that is utterly full, and after having tried a far larger number of teas than before, I wanted to revisit this one. I’ve been enjoying green...” Read full tasting note
An extremely rare, refreshing green tea produced with great skill and care.
This rare green tea has a truly painstaking production process. It involves the farmers separating the leaves from the stems and buds, two rounds of hand-pressing in woks and 120 quick bursts of baking high over a charcoal fire. The care taken in making this stunning tea is evident with every sip. The taste is wonderfully fresh and crisp, with lingering sweetness. Truly exquisite, it will please any green tea connoisseur.
Canton Tea Co is a London-based tea company trading in high grade, whole leaf Chinese tea. We have exclusive access to some of the best jasmine, white, green, oolong, black and authentic puerh teas available. In our first year, we scooped Six Golds at the 2009 Guild of Fine Food Great Taste Awards. Our Jasmine Pearls won the top three star gold award, endorsing it as the best available in the UK.
Liu An Gua Pian-Melon Seed-Premium
ESGREENLiu An Gua Pian (Melon Seed)
Tao Tea LeafLiu An Gua Pian "Melon Seed" Green Tea from Anhui
Yunnan SourcingMajestic Jade Liu An Gua Pian (Lu'an Melon Seed)
LahahaLittle Melon Seed (Lu An Gua Pian)
Silk Road TeasLiu An Guan Pian - Melon Seed (Standard)
ESGREENBackstory:
Well then. Now that I finally have a cupboard that is utterly full, and after having tried a far larger number of teas than before, I wanted to revisit this one. I’ve been enjoying green teas and greener oolongs so much recently that my perspective on these teas has changed a great deal.
Plus, I’ve begun to appreciate vegetal flavours/notes in green tea much more than I used to. It still isn’t my favourite – for example, I’d always rather have that lovely orchid flavour of TGY and similar green oolongs – but it doesn’t put me off like it used to.
And after a great experience with Verdant’s Dragonwell and a couple of Butiki’s greens/greener oolongs, I think I ‘get’ Chinese greens much more.
Review:
So yeah! I pulled out my little glass teapot and used a good quantity of these intensely green leaves – it’s such an amazing, deep green! I didn’t measure, but if I had to estimate I’d say I used around 5g. Using cooler water (it was just before the point when bubbles start to form on the bottom of the pot), I began my session!
Overall, I did five infusions: 10", 30", 60", ~2’ (too weak), 10’ (ideal)
The first two infusions were kinda how I remembered this tea before – it is really vegetal. Asparagus is definitely the flavour that hit me most. BUT I did get the sweetness that’s described on Canton’s packaging now – there was an almost floral, fragrant sweetness, particularly in the after taste. The leaves looked lovely whilst infusing, too – they cast a delightful green light through the pot. It was a little bitter, though they may have been a consequence of the quantity of leaf that I used. It definitely wasn’t so bitter that it was unpleasant – I genuinely enjoyed it.
The third infusion was excellent – a far more balanced infusion, with a mouthwatering combination of sweet and savoury. The fourth I underbrewed – I was a little wary of drastically increasing the steep times in case the bitterness ramped up.
The fifth infusion, though not the strongest, was amongst my favourites – it was really delicious! I got some lovely fruity notes, that gental floral fragrance and a gentler, but still present, vegetal flavour.
I still don’t think this is my favourite green tea. But following a very savoury lunch, it went down a treat and I enjoyed it much more than last time. I won’t be reluctant to finish this tin off, now, anyway :-)
Flavors: Asparagus, Floral
