I enjoyed the Jasmine tea and the white tea, which tasted like incense smells. The green tea tasted like spinach and the oolong didnt taste like much. The fermented tea tasted like cut grass. The Cardamom Ceylon black tea didnt have a strong flavor at first but with sweetener, the cardamom really pops. I had hoped that I would like tea unsweetened so that I would have a healthy beverage but it is either no strong enough, bitter, or tastes like plant. To be fair, only the cheap store brand tea has been bitter. Any suggestions for teas to try that are more on the fruity, nutty, floral, or spice side?
White is one of my favorites as well. I’d recommend trying different greens as they aren’t all vegetal. Cheap tea and over brewing tea will make it bitter. If you have a local tea shop I’d go and tell them what you just said and see what they recommend.
I have tried one chinese green tea and one japanese green tea and while not bitter or bad, they just kind of tasted like spinach. Ill give some other green teas a try and maybe adding some spices to my current green tea will… Spice things up.
Asparagus is the flavor I most often tasted!
Try gunpowder or long jing (dragon well) tea.
What I really liked were
Premium Grade Dragon Well Tea from Zhejiang Long Jing Tea from YunnanSourcing
Gunpowder from my local tea shop (+ self grown mint for a sort of Moroccan mint tea)
I like Thai red teas, but I also like good fermented black teas so maybe you’re just not getting good varieties?
Red tea as in rooibos? Or the chinese name for black tea? Yeah I only tried one fermented, could be it just so happened to taste grassy.
It’s not just China that calls it red tea considering I picked it up in northern Thailand, but yeah. Black tea is fermented/aged tea like Pu’erh.
shrug I only just got into to tea and most of my information is from gong fu instructional videos. And the translations can be inconsistent. Black meaning fermented makes sense but unfortunately English names for tea arent complete or consistent.
Yeah, I get you. English just called everything black or green. I agree with the other posters to try and grab a dragon well type tea, and then aim for other loose leaf teas. Also make sure you’re using the correct steep times and water temperature for the type of tea leaf you’re using otherwise it will mess with the flavor. I have a precise temperature kettle for tea but many teas are fine at standard boiling temperature.
I follow the brand’s instructions and use a digital thermometer. I saw people suggesting gunpowder tea which looks to be ball rolled leaves but isnt a specific sinensis variety or region. Is dragonwell a region or variety?
Dragon well is a variety of green tea from a specific region in mainland China (Longjing village, kinda like bourbon and champagne are regional products but not sure if the plant variety is actually different), usually lighter flavor, and a bit of smoke/nuts.
Oh! So dragon well is the literal translation. Long is dragon so Jing is probably well. Pretty epic name.
