Dechunxian ® China Top Ten Famous Teas- West Lake Dragon Well Tea- Green Tea- 100% Natural Organic - Loose Leaf (Xihu Longjing)

I'm usually pretty lazy when it comes to teas - prepackaged (I know - yech.) Recently I've been trying others - a friend is kind of a tea snob (not being insulting) and kept goading me into trying "real" tea. So I've slowly been doing so. Not spending crazy amounts on "proper" tea brewing equipment or specialty teas, but trying different ones. Fruity, spiced, green, black. I thought I'd give the "West Lake Dragon Well" a try because of it's benefits and description. Taste wise, I had no idea what to expect.It's a mild tea with a weak aroma and mild taste that's also low on caffeine. This makes it a great evening tea or a tea to relax with on a cold evening. It has a short steeping time - steeping too long will increase bitterness.I cold brew my coffee - I'm going to look into cold brewing this tea!Update: I also tried the Iron Mercy Goddess tea. This tea resembles little pellets before hitting the water, that expand to whole leafs when steeped - almost 2.5" long. It's an Oolong, with a mild taste and slightly earthy aroma. This tea has a mild yellow coloring with almost no sediment - what there was I'll blame on my lousy strainer. I'm a fan of Oolong teas and will definitely get this one again.

I leave my original review below but have now have had a longer run at brewing this correctly and have changed the review from 2 to 4 stars. I realize that is actually a subtle tasting tea and when looked through that lens it does a nice job. I wash the leaves through once, as recommended, and then let the water cool down in the mug and then I get a good taste that I want to drink more of. For how much tea to use - less is definitely more in this case.-----------Very disappointed with this tea. It arrived on time and is very nicely packed with a sealed foil bag inside the canister and a clip to close the bag once opened. However, the tea itself is nothing special. I have brewed it multiple times varying temperature and quantity and just can't get to anything I like. As a quality loose leaf tea I expected it to be even better than  Foojoy Lungching Green Tea 100 Tea Bags  tea-bags that I buy, but no I will take them over this tea any day.

Dragon Well tea is the best green tea available from China. Like Pu-erh tea, some brands sell for a lot of money. The tea is meticulously prepared using traditional methods, from fresh young tea leaves. When you open the foil bag inside the tea tin, you find a beautifully fragrant tea that smells of a cherry orchard. The tea leaves are flat, and shaped like a sparrow's tongue. I brewed a mug of tea, and fell in love with the pale jade green color. The taste was mild, semi-sweet, and incredibly smooth. You know how cheap green tea is bitter? This is NOT like bitter cheap tea at all. Not at all. The taste was fresh, complex yet delicate. This tea is famous with the Taoist monks, and poets of old China. In Solala Towler's book CHA DOA, (The Way of Tea) she relates that her favorite tea in all of China, is Dragon Well. After I tasted a cup, I have to agree. Its the best green tea I ever drank. If you love tea, tea culture, or Chinese culture, you owe it to yourself to try this tea. The price is very reasonable, for the Champaign of tea.I received a tin of tea to try as a promotion, in exchange for an honest review.

Opening the package, I had a nice waft of lovely aroma from the leaves. Not musty or moldy smelling, this tea smells amazing and tastes even better than I imagined (Golden Eyebrow? sounds a little odd, but hey why not). I absolutely adore this tea, I am definitely putting it on re-order. The tin is nice and closes precisely and seems air-tight. The tea leaves themselves are vacuum packed in a bag to preserve freshness.I prepared the leaves in the following way:1. Placed about 1tblspn tea leaves in a mesh ball infuser2. Heated water in an electric kettle until boiling. Poured small amount of water over the tea leaves in the mesh ball (over sink) to prep them for bloom (pretty much just got them wet)3.Waited 2 minutes after boiling water to pour into teacup with mesh ball. Added 1/2 tspn Stevia.4. Let steep for 5 minutes and then enjoyed!

AnXi Iron Mercy Goddess Oolong.I think this tea leans heavily toward the green side of the scale. It's a good green tea but misses the mark for an oolong.Pros:- Primarily whole leaves.- Nose is very pleasant, with strong notes of an evening midwestern hay field after a rain and fresh cut grass.- Second steeping is about the same strength as the first.Cons:- Very little oxidization- Flavor is generally mild and plain, with hints of grassy-ness- Color is thin...accurately represented by the manufacturer's pictures.If you're looking for a tea oxidized just slightly to the right of a basic green tea, this is a good option. If you're looking for an oolong with a bit darker color and a bit more flavor, look elsewhere. I have  The Tao of Tea, Wuyi Oolong Tea  and I think it's a very nice oolong.

Not the highest quality I've ever seen but it's OK. Flavor is OK but gets bitter quick and it has way too many stems. I mean a ton of stems.I need to go and find the first Dragon Well tea I got as the leaves were perfect and no stems in the entire package. I also bought some tea in China and it also was very good quality Dragon Well Green Tea compared to this one. The others also had a nutty and more refined flavor than this one.

I was introduced to LongJing tea during a visit to China. This instantly became my favorite tea with its mild, lingering flavor and hints of sweetness.This particular product is nothing like the Longjing tea I had in China. It's quite bland. I've tried steeping it at different temperatures and for different lengths of time, but nothing has brought out much flavor. I also tried letting it sit overnight in a container of room temperature water (something that works well with other teas)... but this also has produced much flavor.