The dry leaf is thin and wiry, golden in color, and without much aroma.

Upon brewing, the cup produces a dark cup with a wonderful, rich aroma, like one of the darker, richer Chinese pan-fired green teas, but with a vegetal quality usually only found in Darjeeling green and oolongs. The aroma is grassy and fruity, with a hint of skunky qualities. The fruity quality is almost wine-like, and I find the juxtaposition of wine-like qualities with the toast, grassy qualities to make this tea unique.

Flavor is surprisingly muted and clean, with little bitterness. Ironically, although many tea drinkers seem to prefer the smoother green teas, I find myself craving a bit more of the bitterness, but I would not up the temperature more than 180F, looking for more bitterness, because, for this tea, like Darjeeling green teas, this "cooked vegetable" quality can become unpleasant if the brewing temperature is too high. I wish I could somehow figure out how to brew this tea so as to extract more bite without extracting more of the vegetal qualities.

The finish is slightly metallic, and has some of the dusty qualities of aged Pu-erh, with lingering tones of asparagus. I'm not crazy about the asparagus quality.

Relative to the Royal Tajiri Tea, this one was a bit of a let-down. I thought this tea was solidly good, but it doesn't really fit my personal tastes as well as the other teas I've tried from this company. People who like vegetal, dark green teas with very little bitternss may really like this one though.

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