Azerbaijan Azercay Green Tea

Sampler Sipdown September! This is a sampler I grabbed from the last Here’s Hoping Teabox, so thanks to tea-sipper for organizing and to all who contributed to it!

I only kept 1.5g, so I just steeped it western style in 300ml for a quick minute. The brew was a pretty pale yellow a smelled a bit like tobacco and mint; it reminded me of gunpowder green tea or yerba mate in aroma. The flavor of the tea had dominant dry grass and hay notes, followed by a light spearmint sort of taste (while completely lacking that cooling menthol sort of effect to the mouthfeel), with a slightly smoky finish. It gave me a strong deja vu to the one time I tried an unflavored yerba mate, though was completely lacking the astringency I got from the mate; this is a very smooth green tea.

It’s all right; it has a lot in common with gunpowder green, which is my least favorite green tea, mainly because the smoky notes just aren’t really my thing. The smoky notes are lighter in this, and I do like the grassy flavor and subtle minty notes, so it’s pleasant enough for a single cup. Not the sort of thing I’d care to keep around on my own, but I certainly am glad I got the experience to try it!

Here’s Hoping Teabox – Round Seven- Tea #43
A very grassy, hay green tea in both the scent and flavor. Tasty! But the name of this tea is more unique than the flavor.

Any green tea lover would be very satisfied with this. It has the smokiness of a Gunpowder Green, yet the vegetal green feel of a Dragonwell and the sweet salt-dripping essence of a Sencha’s ocean breeze. Really, this is the epitome of popular green teas. I partially preferred the Russian because it was sweeter and a lot more like a Sencha, but this one by no means comes from less quality. Both are excellent and I would highly recommend this to newer tea drinkers just because of its familiar character. I would say this is perfect for those of you who can’t decide between a Sencha, Dragonwell, or Gunpowder: this tea combines the best of them all.

This tea was a ‘HECK YEAH’
The vegetable sweetness was quite interesting to have a smokey finish, but what I like most about it is the region it came from. That alone was pretty cool. I got schooled about how to pronounce it at the What Cha event, but whatever :)
This is more like a Chinese tea in the way that it looks and brews, yet it has freshness that reminds me to new Japanese teas. All together this is just a unique tea that is fun to try though it isn’t the time for green teas for me so I may have to see about it come spring if they produced a first flush picking as those are my favorite greens!