West Lake Treasure - West Lake Long Jing (Dragon Well)

A very tasty tea. I just finished my stash of it. I would definitely recommend this tea to others.

This is a lovely Dragon Well, perfectly balanced with none of that drying quality that comes from over-roasting. Sweet and juicy (sugarcane, sweet peas, corn, stonefruit) play off savoury notes (butter, toasted nuts, chestnuts). The corn, nut and butter notes come together for a nice cream impression that either leads to a finish of umami-like seaweed (the crushed kind you’d find sprinkled on top of okonomiyaki or something) or creamed corn, depending on how my brain associates it.

I steeped this longer (2-3min instead of 1min) than what Teabento recommends because I like my Dragon Well that way. This particular offering has a gentle enough profile to handle it, imho.

Steep Count: 2

Small jade leaves, many with a bit of white fur. Tastes of buttery chestnut with hints of sugarcane, green grass, and lemon juice. Very refreshing. A nice dragonwell.

This is one of the samples I received from Teabento in exchange for honest reviews of their products. Now that I’ve offered that particular disclaimer, I’ll say that I was most interested in this dragon well from the outset, and brewed it up pretty much immediately after receiving the package. Also of relevance is that the packaging on their samples are resealable, which is one of those minor-seeming things until you go to move something in the tea cupboard (everyone has a tea cupboard, right? Just me? Oops), and loose leaf comes spilling out all over the place.

The dry leaves are absolutely gorgeous, with variegated jade and lighter greens throughout the flattened leaves. Once brewed up, this has a lighter flavor profile than I’m accustomed to in dragon wells, despite the fact that I oversteeped it slightly. The liquor is very pale, almost clear, and has a savory, broth-like flavor to it with toasty notes lingering underneath. I’m not getting much of a floral component, more sweet corn and something that could be chestnut, but, again, I think some oversteeping took place. With flavors this delicate, I’ll be revisiting this review in the future with a more accurate flavor profile, but I wouldn’t kick this tea out of bed as-is, either.