Yunnan Green Spring Snail Bi Luo Chun Green tea * Spring 2018

Summer Vacation! I received this from derk, thanks so much! I have to get up early tomorrow (on a day off too, uuuuugh…) so I made a very small cup of this so I won’t get too wired tonight. Since I didn’t use much leaf since I was making such a small cup, I decided to set the rest to cold steep overnight as an iced tea, as I remember thinking when I tried a different Bi Luo Chun sampler that I might like it iced, so now I’ll have a chance to try that.

This got steeped a bit longer than my last cup — not by intention, but because I was doing some stuff in my kitchen and wasn’t being precise about it. It was definitely a much stronger flavor and had just a little of a vegetal bite, but I think I got back to it before any true astringency damage could be done.

This is a much more savory flavor than the other Bi Luo Chun I tried, very vegetal with notes of grass, lemon, water chestnuts, and a hint of spice (particularly pepper and anise) toward the end of the sip. Still just as relaxing, though.

Finishing up my bag of this.

Gone western. 1tsp, 8oz, 175F, 60/90/120s all combined into one big glass. Don’t oversteep! It can get really astringent.

Who doesn’t love snails?

I bought this tea right after it became available in the spring. I can’t recall what the dry leaf smelled like when it was really fresh but at the moment I can’t pick up on anything definable. It’s just soft. Plop these downy snails on the top of some hot water. Watch them unfurl. The brewing liquor smells much like bacon-wrapped sweet scallops. Very umami!

This tea is still nice, light and refreshing 6 months after harvest. Very affordable.

I am not into green teas but still diligently buying them and trying to develop a liking. The greens are supposedly really dependent on being fresh so here it comes a new harvest, right off the fields, Spring Snail Bi Luo Chun.

It is a very good looking, fragrant tea. it is rolled into nice little heavy snails, making it easy to put too much into a teapot if you go by volume vs. weight. Both dry and wet leaves smell of umami, grass and spices.

The taste is the same. I started with 15 secs (5g/100g) and it was to short, resulting in the taste being mostly umami a-la sencha. Then I increased the time to 25-so seconds and hit the right spot, bringing in the complexity. The tea gave off 4 solid steeps.

This is the tea that is hard to grade: the taste was good but not great, while the aroma and appearance are top notch.