Organic Nonpareil Ming Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea

Spring 2021, thank you derk.
I have asked my brother to get me a red box, where I have tea bags from Swiss friend. He brought me an orange box, where I have mostly green teas. Certainly, something to hard to brew… as I do not have thermometer, scale and other necessary things in my isolation-room. But at least I have a reason to drink greens.

It seems I have been waiting a lot with this tea. I tend to forget about teas and I have another branch of tea museum as Leafhopper have.

Anyway, I was drinking this tea all afternoon while playing PC games which is something I do not do usually. And while not playing, I was watching European Championship in sport climbing. What a sport!

Anyway, the tea… I would really know how much I have used as it is great. 400 ml mug. And three steeps — 90 seconds, 2 minutes and 3 minutes.

All three steeps were great. First one was most flavourful — grassy, sweet, smooth and brisk; but with no astringency nor bitterness. The later one, was again delicate, again with sweet and smooth flavours, this time I think chesnut and some nutty flavour, but not overpowering the grassy note.

The last, was somehow strongest, yet still I haven’t noticed any bitterness or astringency. I haven’t noticed even the strong green flavours, for instance spinach, buttery notes, or vegetals.

Certainly a tea that I may try with other methods, as gong-fu or shall I try the bowl-brewing as derk have tried? Grandpa will suit this tea well too, I am sure.

Prepared this morning as bowl tea in my largest teacup. 1g, 140mL, ~185F. From a sealed sample packet, best before date of a little over two years ago.

The dry leaf smelled floral-sweet with nutty-sweet chocolate overlaying a very light vegetal-earth tone. The brewed aroma was chestnut-floral with hints of citrus and earth.

I realized with the first few sips that this tea is not to be had as a flavor experience. This tea is gestalt. By the second pour, my usual approach was dissolved by the delicate, silky-oily broth. Gentle in every way. It was cleansing with astringency and mineral salts. Beany-vegetal sweetness mingled with a very mild, underlying bitterness. The tender leaf and bud sets left a strong, sweet smell of tarragon in the bottom of the cup. I realized then that I had been misattributing as anise this aroma in other green teas. A gentle calm emerged with the arrival of returning sweetness. With the third pour, a sun-warmed sweet apricot aftertaste emerged.

Prepared in this way, the tea was perfectly balanced. Highly recommended.

Thank you for sharing Leafhopper :) What a pleasant experience. I am looking forward to drinking the remaining amount in this manner.

More like a white tea than a green. Beans and corn and much better than I thought it would be as someone who is not a fan of green teas. Thank you for sharing, Angel from TeaVivre!

Check out my full review here: http://www.sororiteasisters.com/2019/04/25/organic-nonpareil-ming-qian-dragon-well-long-jing-green-tea-teavivre-2/

From a swap in 2016 with DelighfulKiwi –
Sipdown. I used the whole amount sent. 5g
I’m far past the best time for this tea as the leaves are more grey than green.
190F, 1min – green, small lingering sweetness, muted hint of nut, but unfortunately most of the flavor is gone due to age.
no rating

For a spring project, I decided to compare three Mingqian teas: Bi Luo Chun, Longjing, and Anji Bai Cha. In total, I bought 340 g of green tea, which in hindsight is a lot of green tea. I seriously overestimated how much green tea I would be able and willing to drink, which is why this little experiment is still ongoing. For Part 2 of this three-part extravaganza, I bought four Longjings from Teavivre, Treasure Green, and Seven Cups.

Tea bush: C. sinensis cv. Jiukeng
Location: Qiandao Lake, Chun’an County, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang
Harvest date: March 30, 2024
Price/g: US$0.56

I included this Longjing, which is affordable for a Ming Qian offering, because I’ve enjoyed it in the past. For the comparison session, I steeped 2.4 g of all four teas in 120 ml of 185F water, starting at 4 minutes. This produced very potent, not to say bitter, steeps! I later did a more typical session, steeping 3 g of leaf in 250 ml of 185F water starting at 4 minutes, refilling the cup as needed.

The dry aroma is of green beans, orchids, spring flowers, chestnuts, roast, and butter. The first few rounds are very floral and vegetal, with Chestnuts, orchid, magnolia, green beans, and asparagus. The tea is predictably bitter, with some mouth-puckering effects around my gums. Subsequent steeps feature green beans, chestnut, kale, orchid, spring florals, and other veggies, with the finish being grassy and vegetal.

The bowl steeped tea is a lot more palatable. The first couple steeps have notes of green beans, spinach, asparagus, chestnut, butter, very mild roast, orchids, and grass. The tea has a pronounced but not unpleasant vegetal character and some bitterness. The middle steeps are a bit more nutty, though with plenty of green beans and other veggies and persistent though subtle florality. The final steeps have notes of lettuce, beans, grass, butter, and faint roast.

This is the least roasted and most beany of the four Longjings. Like the Shifeng Longjing from Seven Cups, it’s also quite floral, with nice orchid and spring flower notes. To me, this is the most springlike of the dragonwells, though it’s perhaps not that representative of what a “benchmark” longjing should be.

Another sample I have yet to write a note for, so keep in mind this is not the freshest tea from Teavivre but it’s still the 2017 harvest. It’s a crime not to write a note while it’s fresh though! I think I received if from another one of their lucky draws but I think it was in spring? Or else they waited to ship the spring teas until I ordered. I may have used too many leaves on accident but it definitely didn’t harm the flavor! There was only a slight hint of tanginess with the DELICIOUS green tea flavor. This flavor just says “high quality”. The dry leaves: they had a very sweet fragrance and look like short flat blades of grass. Definitely not as long as some of the green teas that Teavivre carries. The flavor is so very good. You can tell it is of the highest quality, whatever the heck makes it so different from other green tea. Such a sweet leaf with very nutty flavors. It is divine. The lingering aftertaste is even amazing. So the 2/3 of a sample packet didn’t ruin the cup but I definitely don’t want to waste these amazing leaves. Complex flavor, tasty and refreshing! Thanks Teavivre, for allowing me to try this one. I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.
Steep #1 // 2/3 sample packet (too much!) for a full mug// 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #3 // 30 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Harvest: Spring 2017

hmm, I can’t remember if I tasted ming qian or she qian longjing. Thank you to Teavivre for the free sample! Backlog from last month. 2 tsp (half the package, about 3g I think?), medium temperature water, multiple steeps using smaller amounts of water, but brewed western style in a teapot.

These are the notes I took compiled from three of us doing a group tasting:
Fruity – reminds us of apricot or peach
Vegetal, but not grassy
Nutty, but no specific nuts
Very delicate, aromatic, quite flavourful
Slight sweetness like that of fruits
A good green for those who don’t enjoy greens. Two of us don’t like greens very much, but all three of us enjoyed this one.

Silly me finally adding this to my inventory when I only have a few grams left! I ordered this separately from the she qian so I could get that one asap, and this—harvested days later—came not too long after.

Another excellent long jing in my opinion, though definitely distinct from the superior she qian. The initial aroma of this one is nutty, roasty and beany, preparing the palate for the flavors to come. The initial steep is a very light clear yellow, and is smooth with a sweet, roasted chestnut body with almost sugary highlights and subtle florals rounding it out. I love the aroma that fills my space, which is—again—like taking in the aroma of a nice, savory broth. The flavor develops and strengthens in steep two, and even when steeped longer than intended doesn’t become astringent. After subsequent steeps, the florals move more into the forefront of the flavor profile.

While the she qian is, indeed, superior, this is still an excellent long jing and definitely a solid, more budget-friendly choice!

Sipdown! Thanks to Teavivre for the sample. My notes on this tea are chaotically scribbled all over the package but I’ll do my best to organize them into something coherent. I got 7 gong fu steeps out of this leaf. I used 180-185f temp for all of them, starting with a 20-second steep and ending with a 50-second steep. I overdid the third steep at about 60 seconds and it came out undrinkably bitter. Other than that, the flavor profile ranged from brothy seaweed to sweet water chestnut. Not bad!

It’s no secret that I drink an obscene amount of tea, most of which is some form of green tea, but I don’t tend to purchase Dragon Well as often as others. I’m a big baby when it comes to astringency, I just don’t care for it (although it’s something many other tea drinkers truly desire.) Dragon Well often has more of an astringent bite than other green teas—especially those picked later in the Spring. What really sets this tea apart from others of its type is the incredibly smooth flavor and lack of astringency. It’s without a doubt the most enjoyable Dragon Well I’ve had the pleasure of sampling, but it’s also one of the most expensive teas TeaVivre has to offer (50 grams will set you back about $34.) You can certainly find many less expensive options if you enjoy Dragon Well, but comparing a She Qian Dragon Well to anything else is like comparing apples to oranges. She Qian teas are picked much earlier in the year (near the Spring equinox on March 20th) and are highly sought after because of the vastly different flavor profile they offer. They’re only produced in limited amounts, but if you’re a fan of Dragon Well you’ll definitely want to put this on your wish list.

You can read the rest of the review on my blog:
http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2016/9/13/tuesday-tea-organic-nonpareil-she-qian-dragon-well-long-jing-green-tea-teavivre