Review topics: ["taste","tea","steeps","balance","mouthfeel","umami","cups","clay","soup","leaves","display","style","brew"].
Reviews
Mostly Flavorless
"I bought this tea (2025 Harvest) around a month ago, but almost nothing I do to it can bring out any flavor. To get some, I have to brew it grandpa style (yet without adding any more water as I drink), and even then it’s just light astringency with a hint of grocery store green tea. Sadly I will not be drinking the rest of the bag."
— Heath C. (2/5)
Very Pleased
"I have been very happy with the tea, and the service, that I have received from you. I found you online, and placed an order, but didn't notice until it arrived that you are based in San Marcos. As it happens, I live near Canyon Lake, just down the road. If you were a bricks and mortar store, I would probably drop by."
— David H. (5/5)
Delivery takes more time than
"Delivery takes more time than I expected, but the tea itself is top shelf. I ordered several varieties of green and black tea, and every one of them is excellent."
— Don F. (5/5)
Great every day tea
"Very nice tea for every day. Almost impossible to brew improperly, so newbies can easily enjoy it as well."
— Igor (5/5)
Pine needle Mao Feng green tea
"Grassy and creamy. I love this green tea and would purchase again."
— Kris S. (5/5)
Gorgeous brew, bright flavor.
"Gorgeous brew, bright flavor."
— Timothy D. (5/5)
Grassy green
"For me the taste is a bit lacking in characteristics, I prefer a tea with more umami and s little sweetness. I guess it is fairly grassy with a slight sour mango smell."
— Daniel H. (3/5)
the goldilocks of green tea
"Green tea that is balanced and restrained is difficult to find, and usually a lot more expensive than this. Maybe it's just my opinion, but I find that green tea with a stronger mouthfeel and flavor profile is much easier to achieve. The real epitome of green tea is to be found in drinking something that is cleaner than pure water, something so ineffably subtle-yet-complex that even Buddha would say "whoa" and want to just sit with a cup of it. This is that tea. It is very complex and has a lot going on, but it's all more subtle than it is apparent. The most overtly impressive feature of this tea is the amount of hairs shed in the cup - what a beautiful visual display, along with the bright green-yellow color. I drink a lot of dan cong, and through Yunnan Sourcing have been able to explore some of the very best that other categories of tea (especially pu'erh, thanks to Scott's passion for what he does) have to offer. I can get pretty deep with the flavor profiles and I'd like to think I know how to brew a good cup of anything worth brewing. I must say, this green tea is incredibly balanced. It's the kind of green tea you arrive at after 10+ years of exploring all the wonderful green teas out there in the world. I use high-fired, unglazed Tokoname clay for this tea. 5 to 7 grams of leaf, depending on if I want 2 or 3 steeps. This tea is versatile, so you should definitely experiment with brewing parameters to get what you want out of it ... and make sure to find the right clay, it makes a big difference. Personally, I like to brew Western-style, but the water to leaf ratio is still important. The first steep is 6oz of 183 to 185*F for 30 to 45 seconds. Second steep is 10oz of 165 to 169*F for 3 to 4 minutes. Third steep, if I'm using 7 grams and sticking to the shorter steeping times, is 8oz of 141*F for another 3 minutes. However, the cha qi really comes out when I brew around 191 to 193*F for 15 to 30 seconds as the second steep (rather than decreasing in temperature), then going down to 155*F for 3 minutes as the last cup. The flavor profile is sweet and clean with a good mouthfeel to it and lots of nuances to explore. I don't get much astringency, just a pinch to keep things interesting between sips and additional cups, but even that maintains a balance between a dry and wet sensation on the palate. As Adrianne noted in his review, the aroma of mango on the wet leaf is apparent, and it comes out for me in the cup as this tea cools down to 105*F ish."
— NN (5/5)
Pretty good
"This tea is pretty good once you figure out the exact way of brewing it for your own taste. This reminds me of some of the fresh, barely aged raw puerhs that I have tried. Pretty mellow with a slight fresh bight."
— Anonymous O. (4/5)
This tea is okay for
"This tea is okay for me only because what i was looking for in a green tea i did not find it as much in this selection. It is more on the complex side to brew. When done right it's not bad. Taste is not the bright geen experience you would expect from a pine needle green. More on the astringent side, followed by sottle tea notes. Sometimes the key to enjoying certain teas is in the fine tuning of the brewing process. I think this tea is one of them."
— Kofi R. (3/5)
