A potent large-leafed green tea with a strong flavor, thick body, and a bold, slightly alien aroma.

This was the first Assam green tea I have ever tried. Thank you TEAORB for generously shipping me a huge assortment of Assam green teas. This one reminds me of Yunnan green teas more than anything else, a little like Ceylon green teas, and a little like raw Pu-erh.

Dry leaf looks very dark, as dark as many black teas, and has a pungent, toasty aroma, heavy, and vegetal, almost slightly burned. Fascinatingly, the leaf turns visibly green upon steeping.

Produces a thick-bodied cup with a rich texture and mouthfeel; quite astringent and the astringency is a lot like Assam black teas. There is a metallic taste, but it's not unpleasant. Aroma deeply vegetal and smoky. Not quite as smoky as some gunpowder, but on the smokier side for a green tea. TEAORB describes this as nutty and I see this, it smells a bit like mixed, roasted nuts, but it's not the word that jumps out first.

I went with TEAORB's brewing recommendations, but I thought they perhaps recommended using a bit more leaf than I would. This is a very potent tea, and although the loosely-packed leaf requires adding a couple teaspoons to get a typical weight that I'd use to brew a single cup, it's packed with flavor and I needed less than I expected to brew a cup to my satisfaction.

The second time I steeped this I used a lot less leaf, steeped only for two minutes, and it came out much softer and I enjoyed it much more this way. This minimized the astringency to a more pleasant level, and brought out the nutty qualities in the aroma. I experimented a bit with brewing temperature and it didn't seem to affect the flavor much; even with lower temperature water, it's always strong, and when I upped the temperature, it didn't seem to get any more astringent nor did it develop any off qualities.

This tea seemed quite low in caffeine; I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine and notice it, and I didn't notice much effect from drinking this. I was limited by the strength of the flavor and the astringency, in how much I wanted to drink, not by caffeine as I normally am.

Always resteeps well, and the second cup was just as strong as the first. You could probably make three cups with ease. This tea was interesting to drink, but it was not among my favorite large-leaf green teas, and I can't see wanting to drink it more than occasionally. It's a little pricey and if I were spending in this price range I'd be more inclined to get an Assam black tea than this one. I'm excited to try more though in the recent batch from TEAORB.

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