Tag: Wild Orchard Green Tea

Late Spring by Wild Orchard Green Tea
Green Tea / Straight
$12.00 for 35g

First Impressions

Late Spring is a green tea from Wild Orchard Green Tea that I picked up during the 2020 Vancouver Tea Festival. This green tea wasn’t available for sampling in steeped for, but I did have the opportunity to smell it and it was just intriguing. The tea comes inside of a tin (with a little clear circle sticker over the opening. Inside is a sealed silver pouch.

The leaves themselves are gorgeous. Wiry, varying shades of green, with a lovely vegetal aroma to it. It has notes that remind me of asparagus and hints of floral notes. Late Spring is harvested between May and June, basically right before summer begins. This organic green tea is from South Korea – just check out those shades of green!

Preparation

Wild Orchard Green Tea recommends steeping Late Spring in 176°F (80°C) water for 1 minute. I opted to do an initial steep at 175°F (79°C) for 1 minute, because that’s the lowest temperature setting available on my variable temperature kettle (Breville IQ Kettle review).

First Taste

Late Spring steeps to a golden yellow after just the short one minute steep. There’s a nice aroma to it – it reminds me a lot of the dry leaf aroma (asparagus, grassy, vegetal notes). There’s a slight hint of floral in the background. The flavour of Late Spring is interesting. I found it to be sweet, floral, strong vegetal notes (that still remind me of asparagus!), and there’s a mild astringency at the tail end of each sip that is coupled with some nice umami notes with a slight saline quality to it. Just fascinatingly contrasting flavours that somehow all work together because it’s not a bad cup of tea.

A Second Cup?

Wild Orchard Green Tea suggests that Late Spring can be steeped 2-3 times, which means up to 2 resteeps. This obviously means that I had to push it and attempt four total steeps (three resteeps). I added an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent resteep, and found that the flavour remained fairly similar to the initial steep. The umami notes lessened while the astringency stayed the same. I found that the flavour got more vegetal and continued to remind me of asparagus, while the floral notes just faded away. It did well with being resteeped and I found even the third resteep was still quite tasty.

My Overall Impression

I loved Wild Orchard Green Tea’s Late Spring. I found the flavour of this green tea to just be fascinating because it has so many nuances to it, that it’s difficulty to simply describe yet somehow it all just works together. While I didn’t particularly like the astringency, it balanced well against the umami quality and the interesting vegetal and floral flavours. I just found it to be a nice experience, because a lot of the time when you do get a spring harvest, you don’t know when in the harvest season that the leaves were harvested/plucked. I find that early spring (or first flush) harvested teas are quite sweet because of how tender the leaves are, so it’s nice to experience the leaves that have been allowed to mature a bit before being harvested and processed.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.

Twig Tea by Wild Orchard Green Tea
Green Tea / Straight
$10.00 for 55g

First Impressions

Twig Tea was a 2020 Vancouver Tea Festival purchase from the Seasonglass Green Tea booth – the same organization that was behind the Belcarra Seasonglass Green Tea Festival that I attended last year. While Twig Tea was described to me as being roasted green tea made with stems of the tea plant, I asked how it differed from hojicha as some types of hojicha are made using the stems of the tea leaves as well. I was told that the flavour was different, but it wasn’t available to taste test at the time. But for $10, where could I go wrong?

Teas from Wild Orchard Green Tea are washed following harvest, and before the tea leaves are processed. Not surprisingly, Twig Tea appears to be a bunch of little twigs or stems, all brown in colour. There’s a delightful nutty aroma to it, and it does remind me a bit of hojicha. Twig Tea consists of organic green tea stems from South Korea.

Preparation

Wild Orchard Green Tea recommends steeping Twig Tea at 85°C (185°F) for 1 minute. I followed the steeping instructions. They also say that the leaves can be steeped up to 2-3 times… but more on that later.

First Taste

Twig Tea steeps to a lovely light golden orange. I did steep this in a tea pot that has a stainless steel infuser basket – as you can see some little bits of the tea got out (so if this bugs you…. use a filter bag? If not, just carry on as usual). Twig Tea has a delightfully smooth mouthfeel to it, very pleasant and smooth. There’s a slight thickness to it that almost makes it feel savoury. There is zero bitterness or astringency, Twig Tea has a nice roasted and nutty flavour to it, I quite like it. It reminds me of a milder version of hojicha, which is not necessarily a bad thing (since I know some people don’t like an over-the-top roasted flavour).

A Second Cup?

So the packaging suggests steeping 2-3 times, which means 1-2 resteeps. I opted to try 3 resteeps (so 4 steeps total), adding an additional 30 seconds for each subsequent steep. I found that the flavour was best at the first resteep (best = strongest). The second resteep was a bit weaker than the initial steep, while the third resteep was a bit weaker than that. Still drinkable with plenty of flavour and colour though, so definitely push those limits and get as much tea as you can out of your leaves!

My Overall Impression

I loved Wild Orchard Green Tea’s Twig Tea. While it doesn’t pack quite as big of a punch as hojicha does for me, Twig Tea does exhibit a lot of the qualities that I enjoy in hojicha in a milder, well-mannered format. A lovely drink with ‘leaves’ that resteep quite well with a good amount of flavour, so I really haven’t anything negative to say. It’s definitely a green tea that I would drink again (and again) because it’s smooth and could be a great tea to have while studying or doing a task – tasty, but doesn’t make me stop and think about what I’m drinking.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.