iTeaWorld – Green Teas Sampler
Approximately one billion years ago, iTeaWorld sent me a selection of green teas to try. It may have been slightly less than a billion years because I did review their black and oolong teas in 2023 and the green teas arrived later than that. But it’s certainly been a while since these teas arrived at my door.
It was incredibly kind and generous of iTeaWorld to ship six different tea blends over for me to review, so it’s damn shoddy behaviour on my part not to have held up my end of the bargain. If it makes iTeaWorld feel any better (and I don’t see why it should), I have felt super-guilty every time I looked at the fancy tea box on my shelf.
I don’t know why I’ve put it off for so long, to be honest. iTeaWorld produce proper fancy, high-end, single-source whole leaf teas that are a pleasure to drink. It’s not as though consuming them was some kind of ordeal.
As I mentioned, there are six different green teas in this iTeaWorld selection box: Jasmine Green Tea, Huangshan Maofeng, Longjing, Biluchun, Enshi Jade Dew and Old Tree.
While it would make sense for me to review them all in one go so I can compare them to one another, six teas are a lot to tackle in one session. So, I have decided to split them into two groups. Based on the descriptions on the website, I’ve subdivided them into lighter and darker groups. It’s the lighter three teas, that I am going to review today.
Jasmine Green Tea
This is the palest of the bunch and also the most fragrant. The leaves are pale and slightly fluffy, like white tea. It is the colour of white wine and tastes absolutely heavenly. I don’t believe I have ever tasted jasmine in a context that wasn’t jasmine green tea. To me, the taste of jasmine is the taste of Chinese tea. I don’t know where one ends and the other begins. I feel inclined to go and chomp on a jasmine flower now just to get a better handle on the situation. This tea is like a cup of calm, meditative mindfulness. The rest of my life might be chaotic and ramshackle, but while I was sipping this tea, all was good with the universe.
Huangshan Maoteng
This was the next palest. Huangshan Maoteng has a slightly fruity smell to it, like weak orange squash. (But, you know, much nicer than that comparison suggests.) This tea is incredibly smooth. It seems odd to describe a tea as smooth. It’s not like the rest are crunchy, but if you’ve ever had a particularly smooth tea, you’ll know what I mean. It’s silky soft, like, I don’t know, barley water? Olive oil? My comparisons really aren’t doing this tea any favours. This is a beautiful, flavourful blend with happy notes of citrus and prunes. And it’s marvellously sweet. Anyone who thinks that green teas are bitter should be handed a cup of Huangshan Maoteng stat.
Longjing
Although the darkest of the light teas, this one was still very pale. Its colour was somewhere between a pinot grigio and a dry sherry. While Jasmine tea was flowery, and Huangshan Maoteng was fruity, Longjing has a flavour that is a bit harder to pin down. Maybe it has a Muscatel vibe? It’s more savoury than the other two, with a bit of an umami hit, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘vegetal’. Although, let’s face it, I have no idea what I’m talking about here. I’m just drinking some tea.
Longjing was my least favourite of the three. After the luxurious confectionary-like indulgence of the other two teas, this one felt almost coarse. But then, I had been utterly spoiled by this point. And they are all – let’s be clear about this – very nice teas.
I shall be tackling the darker of the teas next time. I’m not sure whether I prefer a light or a dark green tea. I tend to assume that because I prefer black tea to green (and a darker oolong to a lighter oolong), my green tea preferences would be towards the dark side. But given how much I enjoyed Jasmine Tea and Huangshan Maoteng, this mightn’t actually be the case.
Today’s tea book pairings are Chinese Tea Culture by Sam Karthik and China Root by David Hinton.
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