Bi Luo Chun Qing Ming

noms. GCTTB this is delicious! I don’t love green teas all the time, but there are a few out there who make me want to keep a couple in my cupboard. This is one of those. It’s fruity and sweet, with an almost nutty flavour profile in the background? almost? it’s not super vegetal but being a green tea, there’s some of that. mostly though, it’s sweet and delicious.

Simultaneous taste test with 2 other teas from the GCTTB4

I think this was another one of Ubacat’s teas (seriously, Uba, you’re hitting it out of the park!).

I had this with a Bi Luo Chun from YS, but this one paled in comparison. Literally (it was lighter in colour) and figuratively (it was the weakest of the three teas I tried).

I found that this didn’t make much of an impression on me. Somewhat nutty, somewhat vegetal, but there wasn’t a lot of there there. Steeped 1 tsp for 3 min in 80c water.

Update on the cold/allergy/flu/oops I made Apollo angry again front, I seem to be recovering nicely, still pretty sniffly and feverish, but other than that I am mostly fine. This makes me happy, working on my Oppressor also makes me happy, especially since I got the ‘eyes’ to look like creepy deep sea creature eyes. I wanted to make it look like it has those translucent blue-white eyes, so many coats of varnish tinted with white and blue, and I think I have captured it. Also I came to the hilarious realization that when a Harbinger is carrying an Oppressor it cannot sit on a flight stand because the Oppressor is that big.

Continuing on with Nannuoshan week, today’s tea is Qing Ming Bi Luo Chun, that delightful fuzzy and curly green tea from Jiangsu, China. This particular Bi Luo Chun is a Qing Ming tea, meaning it was plucked between April 3-5th, making it almost a year old, happy almost birthday, tea! The name Bi Luo Chun means Green Spring Snail, though that was not always this tea’s name, originally it was called Xia Sha Ren Xiang, which means Scary Fragrance. The reason for this name is kinda hilarious, years ago a tea harvester ran out of room in her basket, so she stuffed the extra leaves in her cleavage, the now warmed leaves let out an astounding fragrance which startled her. I feel like that is a great ‘well what were you expecting?’ moments, later on it was renamed by the Kangxi Emperor renamed it after naming it a tribute tea. I have a tiny bit of trepidation with this tea, see, Bi Luo Chun is best when it is fresh, and it is one of those teas that loses its potency really quickly, with this tea being almost a year old, it might not taste as intense as it would have several months ago. The aroma of the tiny curly leaves (so tiny and cute!) is fairly faint, a delicate note of lychee and gentle greenness of broken leaves. There is really not much there in the aroma department, it has a dry, papery note, but that is fairly faint as well.

Tossing the leaves in my gaiwan and giving the tea a steeping, the now very soggy leaves are still very faint, with delicate notes of lychee and spinach, with a tiny whiff of nuttiness at the finish. Bi Luo Chun is a delicate tea, but not usually this delicate. The liquid is mostly artichoke and a bit of distant sweetness.

First steep is subtle but quite delicious! The tea is cloudy and has a ticklish texture because it is just loaded with trichomes, Bi Luo Chun is super fuzzy, and tends to molt its fuzz off at any chance it gets, I am sure if I used a fine mesh screen I could get perfectly clear water, and would have a nice fuzz ball in my screen, but I don’t mind the fuzz and hate fussing with filters. The taste starts out sweet and nutty, with notes of chestnut and lychee, this moves on to a brisk vegetal midtaste. Sadly the tea fizzles out and does not leave a lingering finish.

The aroma of the second steep has a much stronger presence, with notes of lychee, chestnut, and a distant floral note that adds a level of depth. The taste of this steep has a stronger presence as well, which is not very surprising, the first steep is always a prelude (unless you rinse your teas, which I don’t except for Puerh) showing you what is to come. It starts out with a sweet, fruity start with a blend of lychee and a touch of sweetgrass. This then transitions to a sharp green taste, blending artichoke and fresh broccoli (that is one I don’t get very often) with a bit of spinach. The finish is delicately sweet lychees that linger for just a little bit.

Steep number three! The aroma is sweet, a blend of hay, chestnut, and just a hint of lychee and spinach. It is fairly faint this time around, but the notes are distinct. This steep is mostly sweetness, with honey and lychee, and not really much else. It tastes like distant fruit nectar, it tastes like a finished tea. I certainly enjoyed the tastes in this tea, though I wish I could time travel and taste this when it was fresh, I bet it would have been a fantastic Bi Luo Chun!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/03/nannuoshan-qing-ming-bi-luo-chun-tea.html

I was so excited to try this Bi Luo Chun but it was not quite what I was expecting.

Dry the leaves smelled a bit fruity , a bit faint- just a whiff.

It brewed up with lots of colour – a nice amber colour. The elements that make me love Bi Luo Chun were all there. It has a sweet mossy taste with fruity notes ; however it wasn’t very strong. It was just too light (barely there ) for me. I didn’t increase the brew time because I didn’t want this to go bitter. It actually wasn’t bitter for me, one of the things I was a bit worried about.

In my opinion Bi Luo Chun is one of those teas that is at it’s best in the first 6 months or so. This is still a good quality Bi Luo Chun ( I see it was picked in Spring 2014 ) and if I had enough of it I would double the amount of tea in brewing to bring out more flavour.

I used gong fu brewing for this so I’ve still got enough to try again with a bit longer steep.

Thank you so much for the samples, Nannuoshan! I hope my reviews do these teas some justice.. I’m not the most eloquent writer. Already, I’ve noticed there are no steeping instructions on the site for my mug/brew basket infuser/ electric tea kettle type steeping, only for teapot & gongfu methods. So I’m already not able to follow the parameters, which I would have really liked to do. But Gabriele at Nannuoshan guided me to the best way of steeping them. On nannuoshan.org, a teapot method suggests 6grams of leaves for 500 ml of water. Since my mug holds about 350 ml of water, I will use half the sample and fill the mug 2/3 of the way with water, for all Nannuoshan samples. To get the right temperature, I also boil the kettle and wait the amount of time for the water to cool, so waiting 30 minutes after boiling the water should give me a steep temperature of 176 degrees. The steep time on the site also seems a bit long for these teas… I want to follow Nannuoshan’s instructions but I really want to get the best taste possible. I won’t be explaining this every time I review a Nannuoshan tea, but I thought I should the first time. I’m not sure I’m what Nannuoshan is looking for in an official Nannuoshan tea reviewer (I didn’t know that’s what they were looking for when they sent out samples) but I would like to do the best job I can reviewing the teas they sent to me.

To the tea…
I loved the idea that this tea was planted around fruit trees and the fruit influences the flavor of the tea. The dusty green and white dry leaves are actually surprisingly fine and coiled. As I’m accustomed to a Bi Luo Chun looking, but with smaller bundles. The steeped leaves in the brew basket are actually uniform colored and sized green leaf shapes. It’s almost magic that the leaves can transform like that. I filled the mug halfway, added 1 1/2 teaspoons of leaves to the brew basket, and added some more water to make the mug 2/3 full. The flavor of this bright yellow brew is a fantastic green tea. Anything over a three minute steep for this brew method was almost too much. There was a hint of astringency, but nothing that ruins the other complex flavors. It certainly tastes fruitier and sweeter than your average green tea. At first, there is a creamed corn vegetal flavor. Then buttery and nutty notes are consistent through the cup, with a brothy aftertaste. A light pineapple note goes along with the sweet fruity flavors. I don’t think there would be as many fruit notes in the cup if they hadn’t been grown next to fruit trees. Green teas are not usually this noticeably fruity to me. I like that the flavors of this one are so complex and the different flavors are all equally represented. It makes for a delicious, unique cup! The following steeps might not have as much complexity to the flavor, but the first steep was perfect. This tea rates very high up there with my favorite green teas.
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 tsp// 12 oz mug filled 2/3 // 32 minutes after boiling (should be 176 degrees)// 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // 30 min after boiling // 2 1/2 min
Steep #3 // 30 min after boiling // 3 min

So here I am with the second review of the samples I got from nannuoshan.
The Bi Luo Chun Qing Ming was a little to bitter for my taste in the first infusion and I could not distinguish well the flavor. So I repeated the infusion with the remaining leaves at much lower temperature; I think around 70-75°C (the samples was just enough for just two gaiwan-brewings). Bitterness was gone and I could appreciate the sweet taste of the tea, that I definitely prefered to the first infusion!