Category: Review

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Grand Tea’s Organic Dragon Well

Organic Dragon Well by Grand Tea
Green Tea / Straight
$45.00HKD for 25g

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Grand Tea has provided me with Organic Dragon Well for the purposes of providing an honest review. I received this product at no charge to me and received no other compensation.

First Impressions

This is Organic Dragon Well from Grand Tea, a tea company from Hong Kong. I was really excited to receive this sample because I like green teas. This is a lightly roasted green tea, which smells amazing. There’s a light seaweed smell because there’s a salty smell to it, and there’s a vegetal aroma to the tea that reminds me a lot of tomatoes.

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From Grand Tea’s website, I learned that the tea is European certified organic and is free from chemicals and contamination. There were not ingredients listed, so I am writing on the assumption that this, like most other Dragon Well teas, is a straight green tea. Dragon Well (or Longjing Tea) is a pan-roasted tea that is quite well known, so I was excited to see this one in my package from Grand Tea.

Preparation

Grand Tea’s product page for Organic Dragon Well suggests steeping this tea gong-fu method or in a tall glass. I’m not quite as sophisciated, so I steeped mine in a tea pot with a stainless steel infuser. I steeped Organic Dragon Well in 80°C (175°F) water for an initial steep of 1 minute.

First Taste

Organic Dragon Well steeps to a very pale yellow-green colour when steeped for a minute. There’s a light vegetal taste that has a mild salty flavour that reminds me a lot of seaweed snacks. I noted a nutty flavour at the end of each sip, which goes well with the salty flavour because it reminds me of having roasted nuts as a snack. The tea has a nice warming feel to it, kind of like how ginger does (but without the ginger taste), as well as a good smoothness to the tea with zero noted bitterness – a trait I always appreciate in a tea.

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A Second Cup?

Organic Dragon Well resteeps fairly well. For the first resteep, it becomes darker in colour and has a slightly saltier notes that really adds to the total umami flavour of the tea. I steeped Organic Dragon Well for a total of five resteeps (so a total of six steeps with the same batch of tea leaves). The flavours were fairly good to the fourth resteep, but the fifth resteep was fairly lacking in flavour.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved Grand Tea’s Organic Dragon Well. I always do appreciate a cup of tea with a complex flavour profile, and Organic Dragon Well does not disappoint in that department. For those that do not like a little bit of salty flavour in their tea, they may be a bit turned off by Dragon Well, but I think it is enjoyable – then again, I grew eating seaweed snacks. If you’re a fan of seaweed snacks, I think you’ll like this Organic Dragon Well green tea. The saltiness works well with the roasted nutty flavours that come together in this pan-roasted green tea.

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Oollo Tea’s Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter

Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter by Oollo Tea
Oolong Tea / Straight
$15.00 for 25g

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Oollo Tea has provided me with Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter for the purposes of providing an honest review. I received this product at no charge to me and received no other compensation.

First Impressions

I was super excited when Jenny of Oollo Tea asked me if I wanted to try their new High Mountain tea. Of course, I said yes, she gave me samples of two of their new teas. This one is Oollo Tea’s Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter. It came in sample packaging, which is not representative of their retail packaging.

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The tea is a beautiful green colour, there’s this light fruity smell that also has some creamy notes to the fragrance of the tea. In the dry leaf, I also noted there’s a subtle nutty aroma to it, which may have resulted from the production process of the oolong. There isn’t a lot of information up yet about this tea on Oollo Tea’s website, I do know it’s a straight oolong tea and it was harvested from Alishan (which is a mountain range) at higher elevations.

Preparation

I steeped Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter in 91°C (195°F) water for 90 seconds for the first steep.

First Taste

Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter steeps to a beautiful pale yellow colour after just 90 seconds of steeping time. There’s a very subtle fruity smell that isn’t as obvious as the dry leaf. The first thing that I notice with the tea is that there’s a nice creamy texture to it, it’s smooth and has a light natural sweetness to it. The nutty flavour comes through near the end of each sip, it reminds me almost a little bit of cashews. The short steep time was a good choice, I feel, the tea is smooth and doesn’t have any signs of being over steeped or burnt.

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A Second Cup?

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Like I always do with oolongs, I resteeped Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter a few times. The first resteep, the tea got quite a bit darker in colour to a golden yellow. There’s a creamier taste with a buttery texture. The flavours became much richer for first resteep. I resteeped it a total of 7 times (so 8 steeps in total with the same set of tea leaves). I found that the flavour got richer up to the 4th resteep. After that, the flavours started to be less pronounced. I add 30 seconds for each steep, so steep 2 was 2 minutes, steep 3 was 2.5 minutes, and so on.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved Oollo Tea’s Alishan Wild Harvest High Mountain Oolong 2016 Winter. I thought the flavours were great, and found that it resteeped very well. The sample that I received was 6g and I had used half of that (3g) for my tea pot that I subsequently steeped eight times over. I think it’s great value for the price, due to it’s ability to be resteeped repeatedly. I love the nutty flavour with the creamy texture, it’s delicious. The light natural sweetness to it is a nice touch without being overpowering, I think it would be a great tea to have with either sweet or savoury snacks. It also makes for a great tea to have throughout the day to fully maximize the steeping potential.

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Modern Tea’s Black Tea

Black Tea by Modern Tea
Black Tea / Straight
$6.99 for 5g (10 packets)

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First Impressions

I first tried Modern Tea at the 2016 Vancouver Tea Festival, where one of the people in the booth was telling me about this solid tea. I bought a sampler packet with 5 different types of tea (2 packets per tea type), and I’m starting off the reviews of Modern Tea’s products with their Black Tea. Each tea packet contains 0.5g of tea, making it $0.70 per tea packet.

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When I open up the packet, it’s solid granules. It’s not very fragrant in its solid state as I can barely make out the smell of tea from the solid tea. The tiny packages make it not environmentally friendly as the packaging does not state that the packets can be composted or recycled. The ingredients in Black Tea are stated as being “pure black tea”, I’m unsure of the process used to create this solid tea but their website states that “all Modern Tea’s ingredients are pure tea, there is absolutely no additive, artificial color or flavor, or preservative in the entire production process.”

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Preparation

Modern Tea recommends mixing one 0.5g packet of tea per 350mL of hot or cold water. The tea is meant to be dissolved in either hot or cold water. I used my (review) Breville IQ Kettle‘s black tea setting (100°C/212°F) for this tea – the weather is still cold outside, I’m not in the mood for iced tea yet!

First Taste

Black Tea dissolves completely after the addition of hot water, which reminds me a lot of those instant coffee sleeves that you can buy. The nice thing about it is that there’s no tea leaves to deal with after for composting, but then I really enjoy the process of looking at how much tea leaves were able to open up when being steeped so I feel a bit cheated in my regular tea steeping process.

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The tea itself has a great malty smell to it, which transfers over in taste as well. There’s a mild astringency to the tea that isn’t off-putting. It lends itself to a slight mouth puckering, but there’s no bitterness to be noted. I find that the tea has a very strong taste to it, like a bold breakfast tea. The tea stands alone quite well by itself, because it’s so strong I think it would do well as a morning pick-me-up tea.

A Second Cup?

As the solid tea completely dissolves, there is nothing for me to resteep.

My Overall Impression

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I liked Modern Tea’s Black Tea. It has a good flavour, and would be good for someone on-the-go that doesn’t have anywhere to put their tea leaves or to discard of them. I think it could be more environmentally friendly (with perhaps some kind of recyclable packaging), and the cost per cup is quite steep at $0.70/cup. It wouldn’t be a tea that I would be looking to keep on hand on a regular basis due to cost.

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