Golden Sail Brand Bai Hao Ying Zhen

Well, it's cold, wet and rainy over here, plus the internet tea stocks are a little low, so I've decided to go for a slightly different tea available from the local shops. It's a white tea called 'Bai Hao Ying Zhen' (also known as Bai Hao Silver Needle) from Golden Sail Brand. This 'premium grade' tea comes in a foil bag inside a silver cannister, so it is most certainly well sealed. Advertised as having a "mild and refreshing flavour" with "rich sweetness", this certainly looked worth a try.

Brewing Instructions: 1-2 teaspoons of tea per 180mL of 85 degree water for 1 to 2 minutes. I've used a little more tea than suggested to get a bit more flavour out.

Leaf Appearance: Grey/white whole leaves with lots of fuzzy white hairs.

Dry Aroma: The aroma is powerful, dominated by very sweet floral smells with some mandarin in there.

Brewed Aroma: Floral with mild apricot and peach notes. The brewed aroma is very weak, especially when compared to the dry aroma, or even that of the wet leaves.

The spent leaves smelt fantastic - mandarin, and a peachy
jammy flavour all featured. Pity it didn't taste as good as it
smelt.

Flavour: This is quite a change from the greens I've been having recently - the flavour is very mild, and reveals itself over a short period of time in the mouth. Initially, you get a clean but slightly plain sweetness with a hint of apricot. Some astringency coats the sides of the tongue. After swallowing, light peachy/citrus notes linger, potentially with a very mild bitterness at the end.

Rating: 3 out of 5 - this only just made the cutoff for the three, but only because of that lovely aroma. Why is this a 'barely three' tea? The aroma of the leaves suggests that there's so much potential there, but it never fully carries over to the tea itself. Yes, I do know this is intended to be a very mild tea with subtle flavours, but the initial astringency (which remained even after cooler brewing) disrupts what should be a clean, vaguely floral initial taste. If you want something different, this may be worth a one-off shot, but I wouldn't recommend this to those looking for a fine white tea.

Sencha Fukamushi Superior from Hibiki-an

It has taken me so long to work out how to get the best out of this tea. Two weeks, in fact. It seemed that only small differences in temperature resulted in a lack of flavour, or excessive bitterness. However, once I sorted out my brewing technique, the tea most definitely rewarded me with a flavour similar to, but distinctly different from the standard sencha.
Hibiki-an’s sencha fukamushi uses sencha leaves shaded “five to seven days” before harvest. Additionally, the leaves are ‘deep steamed’ (= fukamushi) for longer than the standard sencha tea. Plus for US$30 per 200g (7.05oz) and Hibiki-an’s quality and service, this offers value for money.

Brewing Instructions: 8 grams of tea (1.5 tablespoons) in 80 degree celsius water for 40 to 45 seconds. IMPORTANT: I brewed this more towards the lower end of 70 degrees for 40 seconds, and had far tastier results. Feel free to comment about what you’ve found best, or any recommendations you have!

Leaf Appearance: Dark green, very slight yellowing on the occasional leaf, leaves more broken up (I’m guessing the deeper steaming breaks the leaves down more than a light steam).

Dry Aroma: Distinctly sweet and seaweedy.

Brewed Aroma: Mild grassy notes – fairly typical of a Japanese Green.

Flavour: What we have here are flavours with similarities to both gyokuro and sencha, but far these are far more integrated than in the blended sencha (see earlier post). You get this mild, mellow savouriness accompanying the grassy notes of the sencha, with a very vague bitterness on the aftertaste (as expected of a good sencha). It’s smooth! You could almost say that there’s a hint of cocoa in the flavour. Almost. Also, the brew is cloudier than a sencha, but I’d put that down to the deep steam process. The second steep is notably milder, with most of that initial savouriness gone, leaving behind something quiet and mellow, with no bold notes in sight. The third infusion has only the slightest sweet and grassy flavour, but otherwise tastes of boiled water.

Rating: 3 out of 5 – while the first steep is an example of well integrated flavour, this isn’t the most complex of teas, and I found that anything after the first steep becomes something to quaff rather than linger on. So if you want a well made, good quality Japanese green tea that’s more mellow in flavour than a sencha, but less savory than a gyokuro, this is it. Plus if you’re in a rush, you’ll only have time to drink the best bit!

Chado Tea

The supplies of Japanese teas are running a bit low at the moment, so to fill the gap in between now and the big Chinese tea order (see previous post), I've put in a small order to Chado teas (http://www.chadoteahouse.com/) for some premium sencha and a Guricha (which accounts for only 5% of Japanese tea production - more later). I won't do a write-up of the website/ordering process until I receive the tea, but so far it's looking pretty good!

Golden Teahouse Tea Order

So the final Chinese tea order was sent off four days ago (to Golden Teahouse). On the list of things to sample are:

• Premium Huang Shan Mao Feng
• Tie Guan Yin
• Guan Yin Wang
• A rather special Long Jing
• Jun Mountain Silver Needles
• Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe)
• Premium Yunnan Black
• Qi Lan
• First grade Loose-Leaf Pu-erh

Very keen to get the tea, although their quoted international shipping time is long (14 to 21 days). Hopefully my order will finish 'processing' soon. Hopefully.

Iced Houjicha

I'm writing this at my desk with a rather tasty cup of iced houjicha tea, made in a recently acquired large (840mL) kyusu. I must confess that there was some cheating with the brewing, due to a bit of impatience - I used about 100mL of boiling water on the tea leaves to help liberate the flavour more quickly, then filled up the rest of the teapot with pre-cooled water, and left it for 5 minutes or so. The result was a little bit mild, but just what I felt like.

In other news, Hibiki-an (http://www.hibiki-an.com/) set a new land speed record for their express postage. I put an order in late on Sunday night (the 20th), and confirmation of shipping was received in the morning of the 21st, less than 12 hours after the order was put in. The package arrived early in the morning of Thursday the 24th. Wow.

Super Premium Blended Sencha

One of the last from the Hibiki-an package! Although I'm not going to review this one, because while I've enjoyed drinking it, come review time, I think it's had a bit too much air (despite keeping it as unexposed as possible) to be able to give it a fully scored review. Having said that, I will make a few comments on the tea!

Like our other Japanese greens, the leaf colour has been excellent, no stems were present, the tea has brewed to a true grassy green, and the aroma and taste was absolutely fine. Being a blended sencha (read: added gyokuro to create a more mellow taste) both the expected flavour sets featured - the sweet, umami flavour of the gyokuro and the crisper, mild bitterness of the sencha. However, I don't think the blend allowed either tea type to shine, as the flavours seemed to 'cancel each other out' a little. On the other hand, this is potentially where the effects of my slightly too-aired sample came in. The different brewing temperatures of each tea (60 degrees for the gyokuro, 80 for the sencha) may have hindered the full flavour of each type being revealed.

On the plus side, the third infusion had mandarin-blossom floral notes that extensively linger! I was actually a little surprised by this - while ruminating over the tea and this review, I had a moment of: "why is there a mandarin flavour in my mouth?". I'd say this, along with the fact that the fourth infusion was also passable, proves that there is something more to the higher grades of Hibiki-an's teas, albeit not the greatest of differences.

So while the 'base flavours' were certainly fine, a true judgement of this tea will have to wait for another day.

New Tea Order Soon

In other news, I'm doing a new tea order shortly! I'd say that Hibiki-an has provided a good selection of Japanese teas for the moment, so I'm moving on to the Chinese tea. The variety available is staggering, and to be honest, every time I write a list of what to get, it's quite different. The website chosen is "The Golden Teahouse" (http://www.goldenteahouse.com/) because they have a large selection of teas at a range of grades, they offer 50 gram tea packets, they ship internationally, and there are very few reviews out there for them (that I can find, anyway). However, they are expensive, but hopefully the quality will match the price.

The 'definite' teas I'll get are:

• One of the many grades of Long Jing (can't ignore that one)
• First grade loose leaf pu-erh
• A Tie Guan Yin and Guan Yin Wang
• A premium yunnan black or yunnan emperor gold
• Jun mountain silver needles

Plus another oolong and green tea. Feel free to post suggestions before the 27th! Also, if you want me to put up the review for the Hibiki-an Sencha Fukamushi, let me know.

Gyokuro Accident

So I've been making a lot of sencha tea recently, but one sleepy morning I pulled out the gyokuro instead, and brewed it as you would for a sencha (80 degrees celsius, 1 minute). The result was not pleasant. All the subtle sweetness and tasty flavours were obliterated completely, with only an overpowering bitterness remaining. Even the second infusion, made properly (60 degrees) was gross, and the third infusion, while drinkable, was very average. Needless to say, I'd cooked the leaves thoroughly.

Superior Grade Sencha from Hibiki-an

Here is a tea that I've been enjoying more and more recently, especially after refining the brewing a little (I make it with water that's very slightly cooler than suggested, but more on that later). Anyway, sencha is the most commonly consumed tea in Japan, and probably the first Japanese green tea that people come into contact with. That isn't always a good thing however - with a sencha, there will almost always be some degree of bitterness present (this is a key part of the flavour profile), and brewing it too long or too hot (as many newcomers would) leads to something nearly undrinkable. The first sencha I had was like this, and I avioded it for many years afterwards.
Hibiki-an's offering quickly fixed this! Additionally, the instructions on the packet are always helpful to the newcomer. I'd also recommend you complete three infusions of this tea - it's absolutely worth it, as you'll read later on. It costs US$32 per 200g, which is definitely good value for the quality you get.

Brewing Instructions: 8 grams of tea (1.5 tablespoons) in 80 degree celsius water for 1 minute.

Leaf Appearance: Emerald, mostly intact, with no stems in sight.

Dry Aroma: A milder seaweed/grass smell is present.
 

Brewed Aroma: A mild cut grass.

Flavour: The mild grass and seaweed flavours carry over from the aroma nicely. The first infusion has a clean flavour with the typical mild sencha bitterness on the edges of your tongue. The second infusion is slightly milder (as expected) and cleaner, with a savouryness and the beginnings of floral notes. The third infusion is incredibly clean, with the dominant seaweed/grass notes gone, leaving a mild floral taste and no bitterness. I strongly, strongly recommend the third infusion.

Overall Score: 4 out of 5 - the way this tea evolves over multiple infusions makes it worthy of more than a score of 3.5, due to the demonstration of higher complexity which is indicative of a higher quality tea. Even if you don't like the vague hint of bitterness present, it would still be worth your while to get this tea, brew it slightly cooler (say around 70 degrees), and acclimitise to the flavour before taking it back up to that 80 degree temperature. While there may be better 4/5 teas around, this is certainly an excellent example of Japanese Sencha.

Hibiki-an Gyokuro Superior

Next up in the package from Hibiki-an is their superior grade gyokuro. Gyokuro is a green tea produced by shading the leaves before picking, resulting in reduced astringency and bitterness with increased sweetness (when compared to a sencha). I purchased this as part of a tasting set (yay for economising), but it can be purchased on its own for US$35 per 200g (7.05oz). The 100g from the tasting set has lasted me almost a month, so you certainly get a lot of tea. I should also mention that some reviews on the Hibiki-an website noted that there was little difference between 'superior' and 'premium' grades. Looking elsewhere, other reviewers usually gave the premium tea between 0.5 and 1 points more (on a ten point scale) than the superior grade. Hopefully at a later stage, I'll test to see whether the difference is real or imagined.

Brewing Instructions: Use 8 grams of tea in water at 65 degrees celsius for 1.5 to 2 minutes.

Leaf Appearance: Deep green with a touch of emerald; there is a mixture of larger and broken-up leaves. I think I only found one small stem in the packet, but otherwise it's all leaves.

Dry Aroma: A rich grassy, seaweed smell immediately emmanates from the packet as soon as you open it. Yum.

The lighting doesn't do the colour justice -
it's a light, fairly clear grass-green.

Brewed Aroma: Again, mild seaweed and grass notes dominated.

Flavour: Smooth, savoury and semi-sweet (not like a sugary, obvious sweetness - it's much milder), with those seaweed-umami flavours lingering extensively. Depending on whether you've brewed it a little longer or not, you may have vague hints of bitterness on the edges of your tongue, which add to the complexity. 

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 - this is a flavoursome tea with some complexity to it, and is certainly one to have in the collection. If this is your first 'proper' green tea, it will be a revelation and I strongly recommend it; if not, then you'll definitely enjoy it all the same.

A note on multiple steepings: Both the first and second steeps are excellent, with the third being somewhat milder but still pleasant. The flavour really drops off after the third steep however, so it seems to be best to stop there.

Hibiki-an Houjicha (Bancha)

I thought I should make the first review of the blog something a little bit different: a tea called Houjicha (also known as Bancha). This tea is made by roasting sencha leaves over a high heat. The roasting reduces the caffeine content significantly - one American study found it to have about 10% of the caffeine compared to other loose leaf green teas. So if you're like me and caffeine keeps you up, that's a plus.
Hibiki-an stock this at US$22 per 200g (7.05oz), and advertise it as being an affordable tea with a smooth, nutty aroma. Interestingly, the recommended brewing time is 10 to 15 seconds with boiling water. I was foolish enough to ignore this time limit on the first attempt, and the result was not pleasant. Repeating with fresh leaves was certainly required.

Leaf Appearance: Predominantly brown with a dash of green. The tea is a mix of stems, leaves and thin twigs. This gives it a very large volume, and as such Hibiki-an sent two large 100g packages rather than compressing the tea into one.

Dry Aroma: Earthy chocolate, roasted rice and nuts all feature - quite lovely altoghther.

Houjicha brews to a nice medium brown
colour.

Brewed Aroma: Roasted rice with a touch of smoke and nuts

Flavour: After following the correct instructions, you get a smooth tea. There isn't any astringency or bitterness, and there's a slight nutty taste, with notes of roasted rice. This lingers on the palate slightly after swallowing. Other than these flavours however, there isn't much else to it.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 - it's simple, smooth and tasty, perfect for before bed, but falls short of being anything other than a pleasant tea to quaff.

Teapot!

The glories of a proper teapot! This one came in the Hibiki-an order (see previous post), and at US$47 was an excellent buy (especially compared to the prices here in Australia). It's made in Japan, and is advertised as being lead free, which is always good if you're using it daily. At 360mL, it's a good size if you have a person or two to share the tea with.

Note the grill on the inside - this goes all the
way round, and lets the leaves unfurl
properly, unlike a mesh net

 
If I had more money...

My teapot: http://www.hibiki-an.com/product_info.php/cPath/23/products_id/440
Next up: http://www.hibiki-an.com/product_info.php/cPath/23/products_id/536

Hibiki-an Green Tea

So I recently made an order for tea from Hibiki-an Japanese green tea (website link below). They are a grower based in Uji, Kyoto, and advertise their tea as being of a high quality with a reasonable price (due to them distributing directly). They have a large range of different teas at different levels of quality, almost all of them being green.
The website, while looking a little dated, is easy to use and equally easy to create an account on. I put an order in that was large enough to qualify for international express shipping. And despite the order being put in near Christmas, the package was sent out extremely fast. The people at Hibiki-an must be amazingly organised! It was incredibly pleasing to get the tea so quickly, and looking through other reviews on their site, it seems that other people got equally fast service.
Another pleasant surprise were the little extras included in the package! A postcard from Uji, some colourful japanese wrapping paper and two guides on how to correctly brew each type of tea (in English) were present. Additionally, each foil-wrapped tea package has the brewing instructions included.
Overall, Hibiki-an Tea has a very functional website, ordering from them was fast and simple, and the little extras made the experience more worthwhile.
Oh, and pardon the picture quality (was in a rush). Tea reviews coming soon!

Their website: http://www.hibiki-an.com/

The Review System

Teas will be scored on a scale from 0 to 5 - scores using 100 are far too large to be practical, and at the Internet Tea Review, we want to give a score that actually means something.

The Scores:
0     - absolutely undrinkable
1     - not pleasant to drink
2     - quaffable, not pleasant if savoured (or minimal flavour)
3     - tasty, but not overly complex
4     - a flavorsome, complex tea
5     - a truly amazing tea

A score with a half added to it means that it rates somewhere between the two (e.g. a score of 3.5 means the tea is definitely tasty with moderate complexity).

Welcome

Welcome to The Internet Tea Review! After finding a lack of reviews for certain sites (especially those that send tea to Australia) or dubious on-site reviews (think: "BEST TEA EVER OMG"), it seemed that a new resource was required. Hopefully, this blog will fill some of the gaps and provide honest, straight-forward reviews of a number of different teas.
I don't claim to be an expert on tea (although I have drunk many types over a number of years),  but I do absolutely love it, so this is going to be somewhat of an exploration. Additionally, there's a lot to work out on blogger (yay for technology!).
Otherwise, welcome, and enjoy the journey!