Lung Ching

I didn’t want something strong on caffeine this morning (trying to get rid of my daily headaches, so I am cutting back on caffeine hoping that will help), so I went foraging through my green tea collection. When I’m in the mood for green tea, Lung Ching is my go-to. This tea from Harney is a great reason why: light in vegetal flavor that seems to be so strong in other green teas, with a slight toasted and nutty accompaniment.

A classic go-to green tea for me.

It took me most of the morning to settle on the flavor of this tea, which was odd given how strong the flavor was. Then it hit me, cigar! This tea tastes like your drinking a cigar, especially ironic given lung is in its name. This was not for me, nor will I be revisiting it in the future.

Another of my Harney & Sons samples that I ordered a while back. I’ve actually had a dragonwell style tea before, back when I got a lot of tea from Teavana. And I remember it being pretty good! This one has long, flattened leaves that are a light color somewhere in the green/brown/grey spectrum. I see stems attached to some of the leaves. It mostly smells like musty hay and alfalfa with some sweetness. 3 minute steep!

The aroma of this actually reminds me of sencha, in a milder way. It has that grassiness with some alfalfa, but it’s much sweeter-smelling and buttery. The taste has a lot more elements than I expected! It’s quite mild and buttery, and it starts off tasting of hay or dried leaves. There’s definitely a nutty element, but I can’t really place what variety it would be. The end is somewhat grassy and vegetal, maybe a bit of Brussels sprout? Not astringent at all and quite smooth.

Overall, I was surprised at the savoriness of this tea compared to the sweetness of the aroma. Quite nice, in an everyday tea kind of way! :)

This is a backlog from forever ago (= 2 nights ago).

It seems to me that I like dragonwell greens a lot. Every time I have them I am pleasantly surprised by how sweet they actually are. They always taste like sweet green vegetables. I also enjoy the way the dry leaf looks – it is the most beautiful hue of green.

This one from Harney & Sons definitely delivers on all levels. Very vegetal, practically not astringent at all, even on consecutive steeps. I think if I were to make one straight green my “everyday” green it would be Dragon Well AKA Lung Ching AKA Long Jing. Not necessarily from Harney & Sons, although it might turn out to be the best bang for the buck. I would like to try it from different companies first, though, especially now that there’s spring and there might be fresh harvests coming up (Am I right?).

Descent Dragon Well tea, but not my favorite. Has a vegetal nutty flavor and is mild in taste.

I’ve bought this Dragonwell twice from Harney. Perhaps I’m delusional but the first time it certainly seemed to have more kick to it – the leaves smelled fresher, and the liquor was more aromatic. Second time around it still makes a good cup, but I can’t help but compare it to the previous time. That being said, this Dragonwell is better than most I’ve tried.