Tea and Zen

I've seen this tea sold elsewhere as Fo Mei most commonly, among a few other names. Basically, this tea here is your most commonly drunk, easily accessible, popular tea to drink in China. It is inexpensive, fairly tasty, and easy to find.

Dry leaf

This particular tea is from Zhejiang Province, best known for Longjing. The tea master is Hu Zhao Yu.

If you've ever had young Hyson it is a lot like that except it doesn't have that dirty taste to it that lingers in your mouth. It's also a little sweeter. I used up the last of my tea in this. It's a little old, but it still brewed up some very good cups. If you are looking for a green tea that is affordable and has a long shelf life (in comparison to most green teas short life) this tea is a good choice. You can find it in a lot of places and it is more or less the same.

I used 4g/235ml, 85C water, first brewing was 60 seconds +10 seconds per each additional brewing.

On the back of the package:

Eyebrow tea is the most popular style of green tea in China. Tea masters knead the leaves to twist them before baking them in the oven, which gives the tea its characteristic eyebrow shape. Our Buddha's Eyebrow is grown in the mountains of Eastern China, where monks in the local temple drink it every day. The teas rich, robust taste is never bitter. Its affordable price help makes it a perfect "drink everyday" tea.

Brewings

Ever had Twinings Jasmine Loose Green tea? If so, imagine the aroma of that tea and this is more or less the same aroma except that tea was never scented with jasmine. It also has a deep, earthy green scent beneath the jasmine. It vaguely reminds me of peat.

You get a somewhat cloudy yellow liquor. It smells exactly like the dry leaf. The liquor is very smooth, a little heavy, and has absolutely no astringency. It tastes like peat, ever so slightly of honey, and a greenness that reminds me of a cheap sencha. Not complex at all, but good. It's well balanced.

The second cup is much more earthy. You are initially met with the peat-like earthyness followed by a light green bean flavor. There are very subtle hints of honey and jasmine. The liquor now has a slight astringency and an almost bitter earthyness to it different than the peat.

The third cup was even more robust and earthy in both taste and smell. All of the sweetness from the previous cups was gone in both the taste and what little aftertaste there was to begin with. That being said, there was no aftertaste in this cup, period. The liquor was a little cloudier than the first two brewings. While still smooth, the liquor had developed a slight roughness to it. The astringency was at the same level as the second cup.

I decided to stop on the fourth cup. Just like the third, it was very earthy and robust. That was about it. There was a little more astringency but it still wasn't abrasive. Based off the amount of flavor that was left in this cup I could've brewed at least another two. perhaps more with a progressively decreasing robustness. For the low leaf quality you're able to get a lot of tea out of the leaf. Even more importantly it is tasty. As already said, if you're looking for an inexpensive, tasty everyday cup, this tea is for you. It doesn't have the bitter or dirty aftertaste like a lot of similar teas in this grade.

Rating

Considering what this tea is, I give it an eight. It's reasonable for an everyday tea. Tasty, robust, and inexpensive. It never goes bitter which is a nice plus. I would imagine that this tea would be reasonable iced as well. I'd try it that way in the future but I typically don't like green tea iced. It has nothing on hot green tea!

As you can see in the wet leaves picture under the "brewings" section, the leaf is mostly broken. That is why I'm not providing a leaf sample here. There would just be lots of partial leaf particles to pick off of each other even though they're all of reasonable size.

If you're interested you can purchase this tea message them on facebook as it is not listed on their Facebook or website (like many of their teas). Tell them Ian sent you!