Organic Nonpareil She Qian Dragon Well Long Jing Green Tea

It’s with great pleasure that I write my 400th note on Steepster, and an even greater pleasure to do so with this tea! Hooray!

I first tried Dragon Well teas a few months ago when I made my very first order from Teavivre and chose their basic Dragon Well tea as a sample. I remember not being impressed with it then, though I don’t know if that was because it was their basic (non-premium) kind of tea, and thus lower-down on the ladder when compared to their premium varieties, or whether it was because I hadn’t tried as many other Chinese greens.

Suffice it to say that in contrast, this She Qian Dragon Well is a delight. The dry leaves are a beautiful shade of apple/olive green, and they smell like heavily buttered vegetables – so salty and savory. The resulting liquor was just as delightful.

I steeped it twice, the first time for about 3:45 and the second for about 5 minutes, and both times the tea was really savoury. For a long time, I thought that Dragon Well teas weren’t my bag, but this tea may have just made me a convert. I can’t wait to brew the remaining leaf with a gaiwan.

Many thanks to Lala for placing this in the GCTTB3!

I haven’t logged a tea here in a long time but I had to with this one. It is nothing short of amazing. Intensely aromatic and complex, I could not get enough of it. Compared to their other offerings it’s on the expensive side but it is seriously amaze-balls.

Stephanie was so generous to send me her other sample packet. The experience of this tea is very far from disappointing. The yellow-green dry leaf looks alive – as if they were never snipped from the stem – and its aroma is so full and fresh and vegetal. I can’t count how many times I stuck my nose in the packet before I finally took some leaves out to make some tea!

I brewed this using both Western and dragonwell style, and I very much prefer the latter (partially because dragonwell seems to taste better). The liquor is full-bodied, bright, clean, and refreshing. The flavors are typical (listed below) but – with this dragonwell in particular – are magnified, in that they taste fresher and stronger.

Backlog:

LOVE!

Some time ago, in the forums, I commented on the thread that asked what Dragonwell people were going to get this spring. This is one that I recommended. It’s an OUTSTANDING dragonwell.

Then again, you can’t really go wrong with Teavivre.

This is a very fresh Dragon Well, and it’s a freshness that can be tasted. Sweet, mild, fresh, pure, clean, nutty and buttery are all words that come to mind when I sipped this tea. It’s an invigorating and refreshing green tea.

A delightful chestnut flavor with a hint of steamed veggies. As I continued to sip, I could pick up on some apple-like flavors. Savory notes toward mid-sip: a little salty. A really, really good Dragonwell!

here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/04/21/organic-nonpareil-qian-dragon-well-long-jing-green-tea-teavivre/

Thank you so much for being so generous Teavivre! Wow. I always appreciate it so much! It really makes my day (or week) to receive a package of teas all the way from China. A sample package just in time for triple review points! I promised I’d try this one as soon as I got it because I insisted they wait to send it with the other teas they wanted to send. As fresh as possible. Hopefully it didn’t affect the teas too much sitting in the 95 degree mailbox for an hour before I rescued them (and probably warmer because it is a brown mailbox).
The dry leaves are a lovely jade green, flat yet wide. I love the look of these leaves – it reminds me of how much I love tea. The fragrance is surprisingly strong! Very sweet.

Steep #1 // 32 minutes after boiling // 1 1/2 min steep
I used two teaspoons of leaves. I didn’t exactly use the right parameters for this steep since the 17 ounces of water suggestion always confuses me. The color of the cup is a mellow yellow. The flavor somehow reminds me of the flavor of a Mao Feng – creamed or breaded corn. I love that sort of flavor, it’s very good but I don’t think that is what the flavor was supposed to be. Maybe a longer steep time and hotter temperature WOULD have been better. But I can’t imagine the black teas should be steeped for one minute and the green should be steeped for four minutes.

Steep #2 // 30 min after boiling // 2 min steep
Now it has turned into a tea I’ve never tasted before. Such a garden of flavors this one has turned into: what was once corn is now cucumber and melon. Very interesting. This cup also seems like it should have more flavor, especially with such a strong scent to the dry leaves. Maybe I should have used more of them. There is no astringency at all.

Steep #3 // 28 min after boiling // 2 min
Maybe it was because the leaves sat overnight, but this cup didn’t have too much flavor. It’s interesting that this tea didn’t acquire a strawberry-like flavor, since these types of teas sometimes do. I will definitely try again with Teavivre’s parameters next time. They sent me plenty to sample. I guess I should just consider 17 ounces is double what my mug holds, so just halve all the parameters? I don’t know. This tea is very unique (haven’t had something like this before and I’ve tried a few other dragonwell teas before). Very nice.

Hmmmm. I just made some of this in my gaiwan, but it didn’t come out like I expected. I did switch to a smaller gaiwan than I have been using for the other greens mostly because it seemed like a little less leaf in this pack, and besides it was the Teavivre gaiwan that they sent me, so I figured I should try one out in the smaller volume.

The reason for the hmmm is that I actually prefer this one steeped western style. Maybe it was the small gaiwan, or some other factor, but mostly this cup was just kind of boring and lackluster. I got lovely flavors from the western steep, so something clearly went wrong here. Too bad! It wasn’t a bad cup of tea, it just wasn’t very interesting. Thanks again to Teavivre for the sample!

tasty and nice :) although the dragon well tea from uptons is better and stronger :)

It’s funny maybe more ironic I guess. We were in Florida at the beginning of the month visiting my wife’s Aunt in Tampa and there was a tea place that I wanted to visit last year when we there. We got a chance to go to Hookers which is a good place but this time around we went to Ming Ming tea. We went in the owner was talking about how he had the spring 2014 crop in stock. I thought to myself….2014 is already on it’s way :) So the shipment came about a week later and basically it was like Christmas again. Especially since my duties have changed at work and it’s a little more hectic. I have to tell you that I was never a green tea fan until I have tried selections from Teavivre. The dry leaves resemble blades of grass. There is an pleasant grassy flavor with this one as well as a hint of roasty flavor, spinach too. Kinda like fresh mowed grass. Which was what I was doing when the blade on my mower came off. So tea time it is! This is another great offering from Teavivre.

I have been trying to post this since Friday. But steepster was not behaving. So I emailed Jason to get it fixed. So thanks Jason for fixing the bug, and also thank you Angel at Teavivre for this awesome sample!!!

The dry tea looks perfect. Beautiful dark green leaves. They are all uniform, minimal breakage or tea dust. The smell is so delicious and fresh, I just want to eat the dry leaves. Smells strongly of fresh green cabbage.

The brewed tea brews up very light straw colour. There is a string sweet spinach and cabbage smell. The taste is sweet spinach, green leafy vegetables. It is smooth and creamy. Definitely tastes very fresh.

My taste buds are vey happy I had a chance to try this one. I have liked all of Teavivre’s long jings that I have tried. But this one is definitely the best. The freshness of the harvest makes a huge difference in taste.

Thanks so much Angel (you are my Tea-Angel)!

First off…thank you Angel for your incredible generosity!

of course i’m now working again and my review is going down the tubes. however let me say that i don’t much enjoy green teas. They’re never on my list of top things to drink. I can buy a green tea and let it sit until it’s no longer fresh and it will take me forever to drink it..

All that aside.. i REALLY enjoyed this one. It was my “i’m going to spoil myself” tea tonight. It’s tasty and you can really get a sense of how fresh this one is in terms of when it was picked. It’s crisp and juicy and full of “life!” I have shared the other samples with my friends hoping that they will enjoy it as much as i did and pick some up from Angel because even a non green loving tea fiend…can get behind this one! thanks so much angel!