Upton Tea Imports Silver Sprout Green tea

As noted before, when the great folks at Upton teas sent over a Ceylon for me to sample and review, they also included a "bonus" 0.5 oz. sample bag of another tea. But not just any tea - this is pretty high quality green tea - Silver Sprout Pre Chingming Chinese green tea.

Chingming (or Qingming) is...well, let's not pretend I know anything about traditional Chinese culture, let's just let Wikipedia do the talking:

The Qingming or Ching Ming festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English (sometimes also called Chinese Memorial Day or Ancestors' Day),^[2][3] is a traditional Chinese festival. It falls on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4 or 5 April in a given year.^[4][5][6] During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the grave sites, pray to their ancestors, and make ritual offerings. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes, and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper.

The Qingming Festival has been observed by the Chinese for over 2,500 years. It became a public holiday in mainland China in 2008...

Thanks, Wikipedia. So, a traditional spring festival, but more pertinent here, of some importance in the tea world. "Pre Qingming" teas are those green teas picked before this date, and are considered higher quality or prestige teas, commanding a higher price on the market. So, this stuff is a pretty nice free sample. I've always had pretty good luck with Chinese green (and white) tea. Brewing seems more forgiving than my few experience with Japanese greens, and the flavor profiles seem to have a wide and pleasing variety. This is full leaf stuff, that has the distinctive look of "almost a pine needle" that serves to remind tea is also in the evergreen family:

Brewing is very straightforward. 1 teaspoon of tea per 6 ounces of water, water at 180 deg F, steep for 3 minutes, with a pale yellow cup.

The flavor profile is bigger than I expected, starting with a taste of toasted grain that rounds out to some mild fruit flavors and natural sweetness. The aftertaste is of roasted green vegetables, and lingers pretty nicely.

Stands up reasonably well to a second infusion with a slightly longer steep time - toasted note increases, while sweetness and fruit decreases, but still a pleasant cup. I sometimes add citrus to greens depending on the type (lemon juice usually), but I didn't have any on hand, and I don't know that it would work well for this tea.

Overall, a great cup of tea, very pleasant, and with the toasted grain and vegetable notes, seems a great choice for late Fall and Winter time. I may try one last cup as iced, though I'm not sure if it will add anything.

Fuding White Treasure Organic

White teas range in flavor from delicate and flowery to surprisingly robust, and everywhere in between. Though greens and blacks have a huge range as well, white tea's variety never fails to surprise me. Fuding White Treasure, an Upton Teas purchase, is no exception. The big, gently dried leaves remind you that the tea plant is in fact an evergreen...these look an awful lot like large soft pine needles.

Steeped at 180 degrees for three minutes Fuding White Treasure brews up a cup that's both sturdy and still pretty delicate. It has a vegetal backbone and a kind of toasted note, yet also sweet flavors of honey and melon. The body of the tea is very smooth and clean...velvety, even. This is probably the thickest, smoothest tea I've had yet. I like to experiment with whites and greens by adding citrus, lemon or grapefruit juice, but I don't think the flavors will quite mesh here. The honey, melon, and roasted leaves all mingle into a long finish, with the honey lasting the longest of the flavors.

Overall, this is a really nice cup. It's got a bit more vegetation that I usually like in my whites, but the notes make for a really complex, mellow cup with a long finish. Score:  90 (A-)

Bird Pick Breakfast Tea

An article I was reading recently divided black tea into two camps:  Chinese black tea vs. so called "British Legacy Teas,"  teas from former British colonies such as India, Sri Lanka, or Kenya.  Although this is a bit of an oversimplification, it does roughly work.  Chinese black teas tend to be lighter in body and cleaner in texture, and as such, work well as afternoon teas.  The right blend of Chinese blacks can make a pretty good breakfast tea, though.  I've mentioned English Breakfast blended solely from Keemun variants in the past, and it's a good, sturdy breakfast cup, as is Harney and Son's Queen Catherine.  I speculated that this was a more traditional breakfast blend, since tea from China was introduced first in Britain.  It looks, however, like I was pretty wrong on that.  According to which origin you pick, English Breakfast tea was first blended in Edinburgh, Scotland, or New York City, around either 1850 or 1870, and was a blend of Assam and a lighter tea, probably a Ceylon.  So much for my theory...the lighter Keemun blends must have come later.  Oh well, I never claim to be an expert, pretty much for this reason...I'm really just learning as I go along.

So, as mentioned last time, Bird Pick is a company out of California that specializes mostly in pretty high quality Chinese and Taiwanese teas.  As might be expected, then, their breakfast teas are usually pretty similar to the fancy Keemun based English Breakfast blends:  a strong flavor, but a light body and clean texture.  Bird Pick Breakfast tea however, is sort of a best of both worlds tea, with a fair bit of Keemun, blended with a light Assam, for an interesting mix of flavors and a round, full flavor profile.  It's a bit smoother than say Harney and Son's "All-Keemun" English Breakfast, but also probably not as strong a cup.  The balance is quite a bit more to the Keemun side of things than any similar breakfast blends I've had, with nice earthy note and a strong hint of Keemun smokiness, and the Assam maltiness lingering in the background.  Bird Pick's website notes citrus flavors, though I don't personally find them here.  I sometimes wonder, is my palate that undeveloped, or do these tea sellers exaggerate just a bit?

Bird Pick's Chinese blacks tend to do well with a slightly shorter steep time, maybe two to three minutes, though the Assam base here provides a little leeway.  As a true breakfast tea should in my book, Bird Picks breakfast tea tastes just right with the addition of milk, though it's not bad on it's own.  Sugar might work too, though I haven't tried it.  All in all, a nice cup, but probably not quite a morning goto.  Still, I like this company, and will have to try more from them in the future.  Score:  85 (B)

Harney and Sons Queen Catherine black tea

Harney and Sons, a great tea company that I recently discovered is actually somewhat local, has been featured quite a bit recently.  Quite a bit is a relative turn of phrase, considering I find the free time to write about twice a month.  But regardless, I've found myself writing about Harney and Sons a lot lately mostly because I really like their teas.  Today's review is no exception:  Queen Catherine black tea is a blend of three (non-specified) Chinese black teas, and is one heck of a cup of tea.

Queen Catherine is named for one of England's queens, but which one?  At last count, I think England has had at least 91 queens named Catherine, and that's not counting off spellings like "Katherine."  (91 may be a little off, but we're busy people, far too busy for fact checking.)  What actually is fact is that Queen Catherine is named for Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II, who first introduced tea to England.  (Catherine, that is, not Charles II, who spent years in exile thanks to Cromwell beheading his father and later dissolved Parliament for dissenting with his opinion.)  A nice tribute to the lady responsible for bringing tea to the British Isles, and a fairly fitting blend, since all the early tea in Britain would have been Chinese.

I make this with the usual parameters for black tea:  a rounded teaspoon to a mug, water at a full boil, steeped for about four minutes.  As with other full bodied Chinese black teas, Queen Catherine is good with or without milk, and I expect might do well enough with sugar, though I barely use the stuff these days.

I'd love to actually know what the three teas to go into this blend were, as it would be a fun exercise to try them individually.  I suspect there's some Keemun in here, but as I've mentioned in the past, I'm woefully bad at picking out teas from a blend.  At any rate, this is an excellent blend, a strong cup with hints of earthy cocoa, pleasantly bitter coffee, and mild smoke.  Although it's not specifically a breakfast blend, and of course has no Assam like we often find in breakfast teas, this makes a solid morning tea.  The body is full, especially for a Chinese black, which I sometimes find thin, and the mouthfeel again reminds me slightly of coffee.  In fact, I think the full body, strong flavors, and hints of coffee make this a great cup for someone hoping to switch over to tea.

Score:  95 (A)

Republic of Tea Silver Rain white tea

It's hard to believe this is my first review of a true, unflavored, loose leaf white tea, one of my favorite types of tea.  While Darjeeling is commonly referred to as the "Champagne of teas," I've always felt quality white tea should really be granted that status...it's smoother, cleaner, and simply more elegant than Darjeeling.  White tea is almost exclusively Chinese, and is the least processed of any type of tea.  For example, black teas are picked, bruised to expose the essential oils, then allowed to oxidize (a process that is frequently and incorrectly called "fermentation."  Actual fermented tea is called Pu-erh, and is a story for another day.)  Green tea is picked, allowed to wilt, and then usually heated to halt any further oxidation.  White tea is picked and allowed to wilt, then dried to halt oxidation, sometimes in steam, but in the highest quality teas, in nothing more than direct sunlight.  The resulting leaves are minimally processed, and brew up a liquor that is fresh and clean, often with lots of natural sweetness and floral notes.  Perhaps not surprisingly, white tea is often the priciest of teas, due to a limited harvesting window and non-mechanized processing.  Though the price is a stumbling block, I still think everyone should try a quality white tea.  The taste and texture are similar in some ways to many green teas, but without the strong vegetal and mineral notes that often show up in greens, and with more natural sweetness and fruit or floral elements.

So, then, on a recent trip to Mrs. Bridges, the mood for a white struck, and I decided to try the Silver Rain from The Republic of Tea.  I'll admit, I tried the tea on name alone; one of the best teas I've ever had is a famous Chinese white called Silver Needle...it's absolutely amazing, and rather outrageously priced.  So, I thought, Silver Rain is close to Silver Needle, but won't break the wallet.  And it was close.  Silver Rain is a high quality tea, and while I won't put it on the same level as Silver Needle, it's almost there.  It brews up a fresh and clean cup, with natural sweetness and plenty of hints of fruit.  I find Silver Needle to have more floral notes and a more complex profile, while Silver Rain has more straightforward sweetness and fruit.

While I didn't brew this cup myself experience has taught me that brewing white tea is every bit as tricky as green.  It requires a lower steeping temperature and careful attention to steeping times, and usually requires more loose tea...one variant I tried in the past called for two full "soup spoons" per cup!  As for temperature, it will vary from tea to tea, but briskly steaming (not bubbling) water is a good rule of thumb.  Most white should only steep for a minute or two.  However, all this attention to detail (as well as the steep price) is at least somewhat offset by the fact that most white teas respond very well to multiple infusions.  All that is required is a slightly longer brew for each new infusion.  Though I didn't try it with the Silver Rain, the Silver Needle was usually good for four infusions per cup.  The tea may cost an arm and a leg, but that's still a bargain you won 't find with black tea!

Score:  90 (A-)  I think I talked as much about Silver Needle as I did Silver Rain, which is perhaps unfair; Silver Rain is a decent, quality tea in it's own right, and at least somewhat cheaper than Silver Needle.  Also worth noting, white teas are naturally low in caffeine, usually as low as 5 - 20 mg per cup.

Harney and Sons English Breakfast

I've encountered teas from Harney and Sons from time to time, and always thought to myself, "What a nice, proper English tea company."  Harney and Sons it turns out is based just over the border in New York, and is about as English as, well, apple pie.  They are however, a great company, with a lot of blends, both traditional and rather innovative, by the looks of it.  I've only had a few of their blends thus far:  the Queen Catherine, and the subject of today's review, their English Breakfast.  Now, a while back, in a discussion of breakfast teas, I noted that while today most English Breakfast teas heavily feature Assam, there are some "fancy" blends that are composed solely of Keemun, a Chinese black tea, often known for a wine or fruit taste.  As it turns out, English Breakfast  blended from Keemun teas is in fact much more traditional, and probably dates from before Indian teas were featured so heavily in Britain.  Harney and Sons English Breakfast is just such a blend, giving me the opportunity to try something both traditional and new to me.

The tea itself is high quality loose leaf tea.  I'm always impressed with Chinese black teas, and this is no exception.  Though they tend to be a bit less forgiving than Indian teas, I find Chinese black teas to have some really unique and clean flavors.  I made a single cup of this over the weekend, using the old tea ball:  a rounded teaspoon's worth of English Breakfast in the tea ball, freshly boiling water, steep for about 4 minutes, add a splash of milk, and ready to go.  As a breakfast blend, I suspect this would play well enough with sugar, but I don't find it necessary myself.

As I've noted somewhere before, the Keemun I've had had a strong, unique taste, reminiscent of a dry red wine or roasted fruit.  What then, would a breakfast tea made up solely of Keemun taste like?  Surprisingly, a lot like most other English Breakfast blends I've had, with a sort of crisp, biscuit-like note to the flavor, suggestive maybe of buttered toast.  I will say this has a far cleaner, more refined flavor profile than cheaper blends that I've had in the past.  There's no muddiness here, just a clean, fairly bright mouthfeel, with the faintest hint of smoke that lingers through a moderate and pleasant finish.  There's only some mild astringency, but nothing to pucker the mouth or dry out the tongue.  I don't know that I'd make this a goto for my morning mug anytime soon, but it's definitely a great tea, worthy of the occasional cup.  It also goes to show, I have an awful lot to discover about Keemun...reviews to come someday.  Score:  90 (A-)

Lapsang Souchong

I first discovered Lapsang Souchong courtesy of Russian Caravan, one of my favorite teas.  I picked up a sample of the Russian Caravan from Special Teas a few years ago, and was both taken aback and intrigued by the smoke...who had ever heard of smoky tea?  Some minimal research identified the active ingredient, so to speak, as the unique Lapsang Souchong...a black tea from China that is dried over a pine fire, which is both really cool, and a relief, as I'd first assumed artificial smoke flavoring, an evil food additive.  Smoke should be come by honestly!

For a long time, I much preferred Russian Caravan to the straight up smoke of Lapsang Souchong.  Russian Caravan is Lapsang blended with Keemun and other Chinese black teas, which gives it a balanced, all around profile...sort of the way I preferred the smoky but balanced flavor of a Talisker or Springbank to an Islay single malt.  But an odd thing happened this winter...I started to really enjoy smoke!  I found myself really enjoying Islay Scotches, and going to the Russian Caravan more often.  In my first real post here, I made a lot of comparisons between the smoke of Lapsang and that of Scotch whisky, and though there are similarities, it's not really the same kind of smoke... the tea is more reminiscent of burning pine logs in a fireplace or campfire, while an Islay smells and tastes more of a damp peat fire.

So, Friday found the wife and I at Mrs. Bridge's, our local teahouse, and I thought, I've been digging smoke, it's been a good while since I've tried straight Lapsang.  The pot came out, smelling like a campfire, perfect for a chilly March afternoon.  Like all things smoky, Lapsang Souchong is an October through March proposition; I don't crave anything smoky in the summer, but it fits so well in the Fall through early Spring.  The tea was absolutely wonderful:  huge smoke in the nose, with a good body and a surprisingly mellow flavor profile.  I think in my mind, I always picture Lapsang as this big, heavy tea, but behind the phenols, it's actually fairly light; the body is sturdy, but without the full, thick feel of an Assam, and there is really no astringency at all.  Lapsang stands on its own well enough, but I prefer it with the addition of milk and sugar.  The milk thickens the body, while the sweetener provides a really nice balance to the smoke.  I'm not sure what changed in my taste buds over this winter, but Lapsang Souchong has moved up from an occasional cup to a cupboard staple.  Score:  95 (A)

Taiping Houkui Chinese Green

Taiping Houkui is a pleasant, mild green tea from Anhui Province in China.  It's apparently sometimes listed as one of ten notable China Famous Teas, and it's name in Mandarin means "Monkey King," though nowhere in my research did I come across the origin of such an interesting name.  The tea looks and smells wonderful right out of the pouch.  The leaves look like a cross between pine needles and freshly cut grass, and the aroma is crisp, mildly sweet, and refreshing.  The smell and appearance remind me a bit of Silver Needle white, a fantastic white tea, and one of my favorites (that will have to be an upcoming review).

One day, I'll buy a cheap thermometer just for making green tea.  It's critical to get the temperature right for green and white teas, and it's not always so easy.  My rule of thumb is grab the water while it's briskly steaming, but before small bubbles appear.  Small bubbles mean boiling, boiling means scorched, bitter green tea.  A thermometer would make this a bit easier, but I guess take some of the skill out of the process.  Anyway, this time I got it right; briskly steaming water hits the leaves in my warmed pot, and they brew for about two minutes.  Some sites I scanned about Taiping Houkui say as little as a minute and a half...your mileage may vary, but the one thing they all agree on is that this tea is one of those lucky ones that does well with multiple infusions.  Simply lengthen the steeping time with each pot (or cup if you're brewing individually), and watch the flavors develop and change across each brewing.  My review is based off of just the one infusion, but perhaps another time, I'll do several and note what changes with each new brewing.

This is a mild, pleasant green tea.  The first sip confirms the initial aroma: very clean, crisp, and refreshing.  The notes are mild; I find hints of vegetation and copper, and a very muted sweetness.  Nothing stands out too much; this isn't a bold tea.  But there are several unique and pleasant flavors mingling around behind a crisp texture and mouthfeel, and absolutely none of the astringency that sometimes appears in a green.  Taiping Houkui leaves a pleasant, lingering aftertaste with faint floral notes, again reminding me just a little bit of Silver Needle.  At the end of a cup, my mouth feels clean and refreshed.

Something I've found of mild greens and whites is that they play well with citrus.  A splash of lemon or orange juice often mingles well with the soft floral flavors.  Yes, it's sort of a waste of a fine tea, but it's also a great mix of flavors.  In this case, 100% grapefruit juice met Taiping Houkui, for a sweet and refreshing mixture.

Score:  80 (B-) Nothing bold in this tea, but a nice, clean, refreshing cup that mostly reminds me, I should get more Silver Needle white.

Organic Gunpowder Green

Gunpowder tea is an unusual tea that supposedly gets its name from the rolled shape of the leaves.  Apparently, to someone somewhere, they resembled gunpowder pellets enough that the name stuck.  The leaves get their shape from hand rolling, a process that must be incredibly laborious and tedious.  The painstakingly rolled leaves unfurl as the tea brews, and you can see they're actually quite long, making the labor process that much more impressive.

Gunpowder green is a fairly famous Chinese tea, and in my experience, largely deserving of its reputation.  This particular tea is another loose leaf purchase from Special Teas, and is 100% organic tea from China.  I made this in my stopgap teapot, 1 flat teaspoon to the cup (or about 1 rounded teaspoon to the 10 oz. mug), and brewed in steaming but not boiling water for about 2 1/2 minutes.  The water temp is important; green tea in full on boiling water is flat, bitter, and astringent...in short, nasty.  I either a) boil the water until it's steaming briskly but not bubbling, or b) bring it to a full boil, take it off the heat, and let it sit for a full minute.  As with all greens and whites, sweetener (or God forbid milk) would annihilate the delicate flavors.

The taste is excellent, with just a hint of natural sweetness and vegetation...a very balanced flavor profile.  The feel on the mouth is quite smooth, and leaves a mild and short aftertaste.  There's nothing really unique here, no grassy or earthy notes that I've found in some greens, just an elegant slightly sweet flavor, and not a hint of the harsh astringency that comes across in cheap green tea.  This is a great relaxation tea...even this morning, with a million things going on, it made me stop for a few minutes and enjoy.

Score:  B+ (nothing unique, but a high quality, ubiquitous green.  Very relaxing!)