von Abdalla Gasmelseed
August 2016
[EN] To say the least, THIS IS THE BEST TIE GUAN YIN TEA I HAVE EVER HAD. AMAZING GOLOUR AND AROMA.
I tried many other seller even even from China, but never taste the same.
Please keep the same Quality :)
von Ig: Faustian_Luminary
April 2019
[EN] I tried very hard to like this tea, and despite ordering over 500g of various teas from Tealyra, this tea is still available in my cupboard, simply because I don't want to drink it very much.
Now, i dont want to be too critical. It has a very mellow, floral taste, and i could see how that would be appealing to a fan of modern TGY.
Pros: clean, floral, mellow and mild. Slight peppery vegetal taste that I would expect from any "very green", low oxidized oolongs or green teas. Some creaminess is apparent with heavier portions. The soapy taste seems to be dialed down in cold infusions, but ramped up with hot infusions. I promise, that soap taste is not from my teaware. Pleasant to look at, though. Very nice green liquor.
Cons: the first flavour note that hits my mouth is a slight soap taste. A friend described it as the "taste of stale, plastic water-bottle water" and I agree. It's like a detergent that is flower scented, but not like any particular flower. The taste is pretty flat, as well. Once you get past the initial taste, you get a light vegetal flavour and a sort of pepper taste, like that of Arugala. There is little to say about sweetness, astringency, bitterness, or minerality. I have tried hot infusions in western and gongfu style, cold infusions, and I've tried using standard portions and heavy portions - I don't find anything changes beyond the intensity of the vegetal taste.
I will not be buying this particular tea again, but I will certainly be experimenting with other TGY teas!
If anyone can reccomend to me a particular TGY worth trying, please contact me via Instagram direct message :)
[EN] Have to say I after 5 or 6 separate brewing sessions am very disappointed in this organic Anxi TGY bought in Feb,2019. I first got their cheaper TGY from amazon about a month ago which was quite good so was hoping this would be even better.It's not as good IMHO. In a small gaiwan, gong fu style, using enough leaf : 3.6g for about 80g water each infusion. There is a very big difference in the fully unfolded leaves. This tea has a great many tiny broken pieces of leaf, and some stems. The cheaper has nice full size leaves in comparison. Today after a rinse and 4 short infusions of 5 to 20 sec's, I pulled out about 20 pieces of this and laid them out: a couple were full leaves and the rest were small parts of broken leaves, most were less than 1/4 the size of a full leaf, and there was 2 bare stems. Taste wise this has a slight off woody taste, and does not stay in the mouth nearly as long after swallowing like the cheaper. I get many more short infusions (7-10) from the cheaper and even up to an hour later can still taste those, but I get only a few which need much longer times from this and much shorter aftertaste. I first discovered TGY about 20 years ago. I use good water, control the brew temp, preheat the gaiwan, and brew gong fu style. I will buy the cheaper again, but not this tea.
