Brandon Tea Club

Whew, long title today.

Anyways, yes, today I got the Liu An Gua Pian from Dragon Tea house, which I had to sign for for some reason (it couldn’t have just gone in my mailbox?). Here’s a fun picture:

This is almost toooooo fun

Notice how big the tea packet is as compared to the box it came in.

Here’s the back of the packet:

Baby got back...of packet...sorry

You will notice that the nutritional information states that this tea has absolutely nothing in it whatsoever, which sort of makes you question why it needs nutritional information at all. It does contain “anti-oxidants”, which is a seriously devalued buzzword nowadays, and anti-oxidants are kind of a nebulous category already. Well, if they’re in there, might as well brag about it.

I’m also somewhat confused as to why they specified that the tea is made from “natural leaves”, as opposed to any other kinds of leaves. Is cheap tea in China often made from the leaves of those fake houseplants you buy because you are too lazy to dump water on something once a week?

Snarking aside, the tea itself is in pretty good shape:

Not "Jack LaLanne" in shape, but pretty good

There were quite a few broken leaves, which wasn’t a great sign, and neither was the lack of aroma.

I brewed the tea with water slightly hotter than recommended, but the tea wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t much of anything, honestly.

The back of packet makes claims for “fresh, crisp, sweet, vegetal”, and while I wouldn’t disagree with any of those adjectives, they aren’t very present. It was just a quick flash of generic green tea flavour that didn’t leave anything behind.

I suppose I’m disappointed, and considering this tea is $18, I should be. If it was more like $10 this would have been a good buy, but this tea is quite a bit less than “Supreme” and you should probably just avoid it. Whether or not this applies to ALL teas from Dragon Tea House is up to you to find out, but as for myself, I’ll be sticking to their so-far excellent teawares.

Compared and contrasted with Gingko’s Meng Shan Cloud Mist, the Dragon House Gua Pian comes off as even worse. The Cloud Mist is about the same cost as the Gua Pian, even considering Dragon House’s free shipping, and it is much, much better.

I finally brewed the Meng Shan properly today (more leaf, hotter water), and boy did it pay me back. The rich tomato soup of the aroma became the rich tomato soup of the liquor, but not in a weird overpowering way. It just made sense that it should taste like that.

I really should buy a full pack of the Meng Shan, it’s really impressed me from my initial brew of it. As for the Gua Pian…well, I’ll find something to do with it.

The hunt for good Liu An Gua Pian continues…any leads would be helpful.

-Happy G