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!

To get this clear right from the beginning: this is not the same as What-Cha's mystery tea's. I know the owner's pretty well and on occasion we exchange teas that we really like. This was one of two teas that they gifted me that you cannot get out of China. They told me the names but I forgot them almost immediately. This one is amazing! The other is as well. They are probably some of the best WuYi I've ever had the chance of tasting.

Dry leaf

I only had 2.3g of this tea left, so I put it in my 60ml gaiwan. I used 100C water, rinsed once, first brewing 5 seconds +5 seconds for each additional brewing. Because of the low leaf to water ratio the liquor won't be even half as potent as it would otherwise. It will be delicious all the same!

Brewings

The scent is a little smokey and vaguely reminds me of Lapsang. It has a dark chocolate scent to it paired with the classical WuYi minerality.

The aroma of the brewed leaf was like dark chocolate mingled with dates and honey. The liquor was incredibly silky and smooth. For this cup there was primarily the classical WuYi minerality in the taste. In the aftertaste jasmine and honey mingled with hints of oak.

The aroma of the second cup smelt very much like the first. The taste of the second cup was also much like the first except there was more minerality and something sweet I couldn't quite put my finger on.

The aroma of the third cup was like dates mingled with cream and mineral. The liquor in this brew was much gentler than the last. There were subtle hints of elderberry, raspberry, and melon mingled in with the minerality and slight woodiness.

The aroma of the fourth cup smelled like honey mingled with cream. The liquor reflected this with a touch of melon and raspberry. The melon, honey, and raspberry were very present in the aftertaste.

The fifth cup was more or less the same as the fourth cup but with a much stronger honey tasted mingled with cream and vanilla.

The sixth cup was rather weak in taste but big in aftertaste. An explosion of jasmine, honey, and elderberry danced across my tongue. Despite this, the tea was coming to it's last legs. Since I should ideally be using at least 3g instead of 2.3g that would be why the tea is dying off so early.

The seventh was a weaker version of the sixth, but with more elderberry, so I decided to stop here. I really wish I had more leaf to make this a proper ratio. A .7g gram difference is huge.

For some reason Blogger doesn't like the wet leaf picture. I tried several and it made all of them somewhat blurry like the above regardless of size.

Rating

Overall I give this tea an 8.5. It was very complex, yet not too complex, and sweet even in a low leaf to water ratio. When I had 5g/120ml the first time I had it the taste of this tea was tenfold. The sweetness lingers on your tongue for hours afterward. As I'm sure you've figured out at this point, aftertaste is a crucial part of what I consider to be a good or a bad tea. The longer it sits around on your tongue, the better (if it tastes good). I ate some food and had a sweet drink after the first time I drink this. After the initial taste of the food and drink had disappeared, this still lingered on my tongue. It hung around for eight hours, even after brushing my teeth!

Leaf samples

That is a hella strong and and amazing aftertaste. It's just the kind I crave. The leaves were somewhat unwilling to unroll, but it did not take away from the flavor and complexity. A lot of times leaves that don't like to unroll will.

This tea is complex but not too complex, savory, sweet, fruity, and spicy. It hits almost every main flavor category. The liquor is silky smooth without a hint of astringency. What more could one ask?

To have more of this tea! I wish it was available for y'all to buy because it really is a beautiful example of what WuYi has to offer.