TTN: BIO Ambootia FF FTGFOP1, Li Zi Xiang

BIO Ambootia FF FTGFOP1 is a first flush Darjeeling (India). Like all FFs it has a lovely freshness and is very aromatic - lovers of green tea will probably like this also. The palate has the tannic bite of black tea, but again the acidic freshness of green tea. This tea was first class, perfectly balanced.

Li Zi Xiang is one of Chinas greatest green teas. It comes from Guangdong. With all the typical green tea aromas there is a curious scent of savoury sweetness: a paradoxical scent certainly but one which brings a very memorable twist to the tea. The palate is also perfectly balanced with a hint of the exotic sweetness of the nose noticable. Lovely stuff!

-Otto-

[Jenise]

a curious scent of savoury sweetness

Otto, I wonder if this tea was similar to one poured me at a tea tasting room in Vancouver recently. I noted something similar in one of the teas poured me, one they called "Emporer's tea", and upon my remarking about it I was told that some added ginseng was responsible. I asked if the emporer was Chin, who was obsessed with immortality and whose intake of mercury in pursuit of that is instead what killed him. She didn't know, she just gave a rather amusing explanation of "many people like" that made me think she had found the sweetness of particular appeal to non-Chinese. She was in fact rather amazed that my friends preferred a smoky, ged Pu-Erh while I went gaga for a high mountain green tea that smelled of gardenias. [/quote]