Ti Kuan Yin from Orange Tea Co.
A line from Little Yellow Teapot’s review of Chicago Tea Garden’s Golden Bi Luo has stuck with me this week:
The sign of a great tea is when the leaves look great before and after steeping.
How true.
Unfortunately, it’s a sentiment that doesn’t favour Orange Tea Co.’s ti kuan yin, which comes out of a steeping looking rather worse for the wear. The dry leaves are attractive enough, with a nice consistency of darker green rolled leaves; but after steeping this once, I can see that many of the leaves are broken. There are a few full sized leaves, but there are also quite a few broken bits. Granted, I was at the bottom of a sample, so you are always going to end up with some smaller leaf particles; but there was too much of it here for my liking.
Appearance aside, this is still a pleasant tea. It reminds me a little of those plums that straddle the line between sweet and sour. I picked up a hint of pepper, both in the nose and the mouth, which struck me as interesting — neither of the previous ti kuan yins I have reviewed had that. The tea wasn’t as fragrant as either the Serenity Teahouse ti kuan yin or the Tea Trekker ti kuan yin; but I suspect that both of those teas were much more fragrant than your average ti kuan yin.
Iron Goddess is available from Orange Tea Co.