Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! I’m back today with another Stateside Steeps post and this time around I’m going to be reviewing Adagio Masters (2019) – Da Fo Long Jing. As I’m sure you all know well enough now I’ve had an amazing experience so far with the teas I have tried from the Adagio Masters tea collection, so going into this tasting session I was very excited to try another offering from them. I don’t even have to worry anymore that I’m not going to enjoy these teas because they have been so consistent in terms of quality that I know I’m in for a treat every time I get to try a new one. I love that they include so much information about their teas both on the packaging and their website because each time I try a new one I learn a little bit more about tea. I’m making it my goal through the next few years to become much more knowledgeable about tea so to have such an extensive amount of detail information about these teas has really helped me in reaching that goal so far during 2020.

Here’s just a little bit of the information that Masters Teas have on their website about this tea (I won’t include it all here as It will lead to a very lengthy post but please go to the website to read all the in depth information): ”Da Fo Long Jing or “Big Buddha Dragon Well”, is named after Da Fo Temple in Eastern Zhejiang. It is in this region where this particular style of Dragon Well is produced. Da Fo Long Jing is revered for its classic chestnut notes and light floral nuances. This early harvest offers young spring leaves, a light body with soft chestnut and a lovely floral undertone resulting in a complex experience.”

”Our Da Fo Long Jing is grown at an altitude of around 750 meters above sea level in Xin Chang, Zhejiang, China. Grown on 8-year-old tea bushes, specifically a cultivar called Long Jing No 43, the leaves were harvested in April of 2019. The 3-6 cm long leaves are hand plucked with one bud and one leaf picking standard. They are then fired, though the time and temperature depend solely on the tenderness of the leaf.”

Tea Tasting Notes

For this tasting session I tried this one way: on it’s own brewed to the parameters Adagio lists on their website ”Steep at 170° for 3 minutes.” I brewed this western style and managed to do three steeps in total with it adding on 30 seconds to the steeping time as I went on. I have no doubt that I could have steeped this many more times but I had another tasting sessions to do so I couldn’t spend more time re-steeping this. The first steeped was pale yellow in colour and aroma wise has both light vegetal notes and light floral notes just like the dry leaves. Upon tasting, both of those notes were the clear stand out of this tea, there was a slight chestnut note but it was very very subtle I deffinelty expected that note to stand out a little more given this description Masters Teas gave this tea but I’m glad it was still present even though it was subtle.

It’s smooth and very easy to drink with no sign of bitterness or astringency at all even in the subsequent steeps. The floral and grassy notes meld perfectly together both are light but overall that’s definitely the perfect word to describe this tea. There is a slight sweetness to this as that is the perfect bridge between the floral and grassy notes tying everything together perfectly. Like I said that chestnut note is there but very subtle and if you weren’t looking for it you probably wouldn’t be able to pick it out, but knowing that was supposed to be a characteristic of this tea, I definitely went into this looking to pick it out amidst everything else.

In the two substituent steeps I did with this the vegetal notes became a little more prominent while the floral notes seemed to stay pretty much at the same level throughout them all. The third steep was notably more yellow than the first and second. The sweetness I was able to pick out in the first cup was still present in the third cup I had and it did start to get a little more subtle, so I can imagine it would start to dissipate more if I were to have done more steeps with this. The chestnut note was still slightly present in the second cup but was nowhere to be found in the third which did sadden me a little bit. However it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of this tea and I’m really excited to carry on drinking this. It’s the perfect tea for the early afternoon in my opinion. It is quite a light tea in general but I love that it’s a nice breathe of fresh air to have such a light green tea for once.

It’s definitely one I would recommend trying if you’re a lover of green tea and I would also recommend it to people new to tea that are wanted to start getting into higher quality green teas, but aren’t quite ready for the stronger vegetal notes just yet and want to start off slowly. Something tells me this would be really nice cold brewed so I’m going to experiment with that tomorrow and I’ll post updates over on my Insta story. This is one I would love to try again in the future and I would be really intrigued to see the difference between harvests from different years.

Overall Teacup Rating: 5/5

If you want to find out more about the Adagio Masters Teas and purchase this tea for yourself (both 2019 and 2020 harvest are still available) you can do both here. As always if you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley

*The tea featured in this post was gifted to me for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own and have not been paid for*