2016 Qing Zhen Premium Green Tea

It Contain many good flavors

Usually I tend to make my little introductory paragraphs to the day’s rambling about me (I am not called the Black Mana Princess just because the MTG deck I play, my personality runs heavy into the black as well) but since yesterday’s blog post the news has been filled with a lot of stuff. Of course there is the tragic news of comedic legend Gene Wilder’s passing, whose life I honored by watching Young Frankenstein before bed…that movie has been my favorite since I was tiny. The science world was not quiet either, with Astronomers finding an inexplicable signal (hello alien overlords, I hope they are Turians) and it being declared we are in a new Epoch, goodbye Holocene hello Anthropocene. In typical geological time we have been theorized to be in this Epoch since the 50s, and it is both incredibly fascinating and more than a little terrifying, we humans are a powerful force. It is safe to say the subject of the Antrhopocene will be debated over many cups of tea with Ben in the future.

Today I am looking at a green tea from Green Tea Guru, it was only inevitable with their name that I look at at least one of their green tea offerings! 2016 Qing Zhen Premium Green Tea is a Yunnan green made from the Assamica leaves, harvested in Simao this past spring. From the first sniff of these long leaves I could tell this was not a tea for those who like their greens really sweet, this is a savory brothy leaf. It is slightly meaty and smoky, along with notes of grilled zucchini, asparagus, and eggplant with a slight peanut finish.

This tea smells like food! Looks like delicate wet pine needles but smells like sauteed mushrooms and tofu, asparagus, grilled eggplant and zucchini, and a light finish of chestnuts and peanuts. I feel like I could use it as a soup base! The liquid has a slight chestnut sweetness to it, but mostly it is savory like the wet leaves, with notes of asparagus, eggplant, zucchini, and specifically enoki mushrooms. The aroma is fairly light, with a touch of mineral as well.

Well, that took me a bit by surprise! I was expecting the first steep to be very savory, but it is pretty much devoid of savory qualities. Honey drizzled sesame seeds dance with sweet snap peas and a tiny crisp quality of raw bell pepper. It is not hugely nuanced for the first steep but it is really surprisingly sweet, as it cools a bit it gets a bit of a savory enoki quality at the finish and a touch of water chestnuts in the aftertaste.

The second steep is more what I was expecting from this tea, hello vegetable broth! Blending a gentle start of sesame seeds and snap pea with a robust asparagus, sauteed mushrooms, eggplants, and broccoli in the middle. The finish is a gentle blend of vegetal notes that really do remind me of soup, with a long savory almost meaty quality that lingers in the mouth for a while. I believe this tea totally counts as my daily need for veggies right?

And with this steep the fade begins, it is a problem with most green teas, they never have much longevity mimicking spring’s fleeting nature I suppose. For steep three both the sweet and savory blend perfectly, starting with the same sweetness as the first steep, snap peas and honey sesame seeds which quickly give away to milder savory note of broccoli and eggplant with a finish of zucchini and a touch of bell pepper. This is a tasty tea, especially if you are a fan of teas that flip flop around sweet and savory, I know I do, it is like an adventure!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/08/green-tea-guru-2016-qing-zhen-premium.html