With the completion of this review, the backlog will contain fewer than five reviews for the first time in what feels like a long time. I totally did not manage to get everything posted by today, but at least I should have a pretty good shot at being caught up within the next two or three days. This is the primary tea I have been working on for the past three days. Since I should finish the remainder of it by tomorrow morning, I am at a point where I can confidently offer a review. This is Yunnan Sourcing’s basic, introductory Yunnan Bi Luo Chun green tea, and not surprisingly, it ended up being a very tasty, satisfying tea. Honestly, 50g for $5.00 is kind of a steal.
I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea in 4 ounces of 176 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 9 seconds, 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.
Prior to the rinse, the dry tea pellets emitted aromas of corn husk, hay, grass, and smoke. After the rinse, I found a stronger corn husk scent and an emerging scent of straw. The first infusion then introduced hints of malt and squash blossom on the nose. In the mouth, the liquor offered notes of corn husk, grilled sweet corn, grass, hay, malt, straw, and smoke. There were hints of pungent squash blossom flavor on the swallow. The following infusions brought out new impressions of umami, minerals, chestnut, butter, zucchini, summer squash, sugarcane, lettuce, and seaweed. The last infusions mostly offered vague notes of minerals, malt, lettuce, and grilled sweeted corn with some underlying butter and grass impressions.
A rock solid and ridiculously affordable Yunnan Bi Luo Chun green tea, I could not find a whole lot to complain about with regard to this one. Aside from a little bit of pronounced astringency that was occasionally unwelcome and the fact that this tea started to soften and fade a little sooner than I would have liked, there just was not a whole lot to fault here. Yunnan Sourcing offers some better, higher quality Bi Luo Chun green teas, but I would still not recommend that anyone skip this one.
Flavors: Butter, Chestnut, Corn Husk, Grass, Hay, Lettuce, Malt, Mineral, Seaweed, Smoke, Squash Blossom, Straw, Sugarcane, Umami, Vegetal, Zucchini
