I requested a sample of this with a recent order I placed with TeaVivre. I’ve been meaning to branch out and try some more greens (my stash primarily consists of black, oolong, and pu’er teas at the moment), and this seemed to be one of the basic green teas I haven’t tried until now.
One of the first things I’d heard about gunpowder was that it had a slightly smoky aroma, which gave rise to its name. I was a little sceptical of that (the etymology, not the taste), since lapsang souchong is probably known as the smoky tea, so it would make more sense to me if that was called gunpowder if the name was just based on flavour. So, I did a quick Wikipedia search, which yielded some unsatisfactory (read: uncited) results. Basically, other origins for the name could be from the appearance and how its unfurling sort of ‘explodes’ when brewed, or it could be from the Mandarin phrase for “freshly brewed”. The most reasonable etymology to me seems to be the one regarding its appearance, but I’ll have to continue looking into that.
Anyway, I wound up drinking the entire cup while looking up the etymology of gunpowder tea and so I don’t have any specific notes on it. Oops. I do remember thinking that it did have the slightest hint of smokiness in the background, along with a bit of astringency and a light vegetal sweetness.
I’m on my second steep now, and the smokiness is gone, as is the astringency. Very smooth cup. The sweetness seems to be more prominent. Might not be an everyday cup for me, but I’d definitely get some more sample sizes from different companies to see the variation in this type of tea, since it does seem like a nice tea. Thanks for the sample, TeaVivre!
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On a totally random note, I think this is the first tasting note in which I’ve used some sort of text formatting. Took me a while to figure out that Steepster uses Textile as a markup language.
test
test
test test?
test test?
→ test
test!
fyi, this might be helpful: http://steepster.com/discuss/1894-how-to-use-text-formatting-symbols-formatting-can-be-fun
Oooh, thanks! I’ll have to keep that bookmarked.
You’re welcome! :)
In Chinese, gunpowder tea is called zhū chá (珠茶). The tea is so named because its rolled, pellet-like appearance is similar to gunpowder. So it’s called gunpowder.
Howeveras the lapsang souchong tea, after de-enzyming, the fresh tea leaves of this tea will be smoked with pine wood, so it has a heavy flavor of smoked.
Cool, thanks for the clarification! :)
It’s my pleasure:)
On a totally random note, I think this is the first tasting note in which I’ve used some sort of text formatting. Took me a while to figure out that Steepster uses Textile as a markup language.
test
test
test test?
test test?
→ test
test!
fyi, this might be helpful: http://steepster.com/discuss/1894-how-to-use-text-formatting-symbols-formatting-can-be-fun
Oooh, thanks! I’ll have to keep that bookmarked.
You’re welcome! :)
In Chinese, gunpowder tea is called zhū chá (珠茶). The tea is so named because its rolled, pellet-like appearance is similar to gunpowder. So it’s called gunpowder.
Howeveras the lapsang souchong tea, after de-enzyming, the fresh tea leaves of this tea will be smoked with pine wood, so it has a heavy flavor of smoked.
Cool, thanks for the clarification! :)
It’s my pleasure:)