Showing posts with label Discover Vietnam. Show all posts

What-Cha - Discover Vietnam Part 2

So I decided to continue with What-cha’s Discover Vietnam Sampler. I wasn’t too impressed with the Red Buffalo in the last post, but I felt the Flowery Oolong made up for that.

Vietnam Fish Hook Green Tea
Origin: Tan Cuong, Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam
Elevation: 250m


Dry Leaves: They kind of remind me of Korean greens, but they are surprisingly hard. Normally small twisted leaves like these are a little more pliable, but I was surprised by how little it takes for these two snap.

Temperature: 167oF
Brewing Time: Two Minutes
Aroma: Grassy and Ash
Flavor: Ash, Vegetal and Grassy
Tasting Notes: This is a very ashy tea; I almost wanted to say smoky, but the other two teas that are in this post are more what I’d describe as smoky then this. It is a little overwhelming, I hated it using the suggested brewing times, I also had this problem in the other two teas in this post. Luckily I had enough leaves to brew again and only steep for half as long, which produced a much better cup. While it was still ashy was nowhere near as overwhelming.


I may or may not buy this tea again, my problem with these three teas is that the suggested brewing times is way too long, but as long as you don’t brew as long as the suggested time or perhaps at such a high temperature. I am not really fond of brewing teas below 160oF, but these might be the only teas that I’d consider brewing at such a low temperature. Going back to whether or not I’d buy this tea again, the price isn’t bad $8.00 for 50g (at the time of writing this), but I’d have to choose between this and the other two teas in this post. The three have a very similar flavor profile, although there is some differences between the three.



Vietnam Wild Five Penny Green Tea
Origin: Suoi Giang, Yen Bai Province, Vietnam
Elevation: 1200m+

Dry Leaves: Again the leaves remind me of Korean teas, although this time they also look a little like curved long Jings. Other than that, they are a lovely shade of grayish-green. There is a slight burning wood smell. I am surprised in the uniformity in the tea leaves since this is a wild grown tea.

Temperature: 176oF
Brewing Time: Two Minutes
Aroma: Smoky, Apricot and Muscatel
Flavor: Smoky and Fruity
Tasting Notes: I brewed this again according to the suggested time, immediately afterwards I started over with new leaves and cut the time in half. The original was too smoky for me and the second was much more pleasant. Although even after cutting the time in half the smoky taste still lingered for quite a long time.


At $8 for 50g (at the time of writing this) it is certainly a good deal, as for whether I’d buy it again, maybe. I don’t have a lot of smoky and fruity teas, I am more of a grassy tea guy, but this might be the easiest of the three teas in the post to drink. Not quite a daily drinker, but it is quite nice if you like a little smoke in your greens. I am comfortable saying this is my favorite of the three, because the fruit tastes was a nice contrast to the smoke and the other two felt very similar to me, although this still feels quite similar to the others, perhaps not as much.



Vietnam Wild Tiger Monkey Green Tea
Origin: Lung Phin, Ha Giang Province, Vietnam
Elevation: 1500m

Dry Leaves:  Another wild growing tea, this time it doesn’t remind me so much of Korean greens; they look a little more Chinese-y then the Five Penny, but I can’t think of any particular style that they remind me of. They had a very nutty and smoky scent.  

Temperature: 176oF
Brewing Time: Two Minutes
Aroma: Smoke, Nutty and Wood
Flavor: Smoke, Nutty, Wood, and Vegetal
Tasting Notes: Again I started out brewing following the suggested times, and then started over with new leaves and cut the brewing time in half. This had a very pleasant wood taste, but it was slightly smokier although the nutty and smoke tastes did linger, but the nutty lingered a little longer.


For $8 for 50g, it isn’t a bad deal I generally like nutty teas, and this is no exception, my only problem with recommending this tea or any of the others is that I don’t know a lot of green tea drinkers who like smoky teas. Although like the other two teas it starts to lose it smoky edge in later infusions.


These three remind me a little of Sheng Puerhs, if they were made in Japan out of sencha. I felt like I should have rinsed the teas beforehand if I was going to follow the suggested brewing times again, just so it isn’t as harsh. If I buy any of these teas again I’ll have to play around with temperature, these are the first teas I had from What-Cha that I felt the suggested brewing times were absolutely wrong. While the Five Penny might be my favorite of the three teas I tried, the Flowery Oolong is still my favorite.


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What-Cha - Discover Vietnam Part 1

I’ve been sitting on these samples for a while and finally decided to try them. I bought the Discover VietnamSampler from What-cha and while I am not that interested in the Wild Black or Wild Dark teas, I am not sure if I’ll include my thoughts on those in the second part.



Vietnam Red Buffalo Oolong
Origin: Moc Chau, Son La Province, Vietnam
Elevation: 1000m+


Dry Leaves: This was the tea that was the most interesting, for some reason it reminds me of a dark roast TGY. It has a lot more red and browns then the picture suggests, although the leaves are predominantly black.

Temperature: 194oF
Brewing Time: One Minute (adding thirty seconds each subsequent infusion)
Aroma: Charcoal and Oak
Flavor: Charcoal, Smoke, Floral, Honey, Cinnamon and Malty
Tasting Notes:  I didn’t like this at first, it felt too much like a dark TGY. While I am not a big fan of darker oolongs, but with each sip it grew on me. The initial charcoal taste was a little off-putting, at first I couldn’t taste anything else, but I started to taste a smoky honey taste. It is a little reminiscent of a purple tea; it has a nice smoky edge that gets stronger with each subsequent steeping while the charcoal taste grows weaker. This has a nice staying power; I got seven infusions out of this before I started to notice a considerable loss of flavor.



This was the tea that I was the most excited for, even though I prefer greener oolongs, and while it is not my favorite it is quite nice. It did take me a couple steepings to appreciate this tea, but at $9.60 for 50g it is definitely worth it. I may or may not buy this again, I don’t like having a lot of dark teas, but I could see myself buying this again if I don’t care for the new Indonesian TGY has sourced. 


Vietnam Flowery Oolong
Origin: Moc Chau, Son La Province, Vietnam
Elevation: 1000m

Dry Leaves: The leaves looked fairly typical of floral oolongs although there was quite a bit of stems showing which was nice. In my experience the floral oolongs with stems tend to be of a higher quality than the floral oolongs that are just leaves (think Beautiful Taiwan Tea’s DaYuLing). Although the pellets were really small.

Temperature: 194oF
Brewing Time: One Minute (adding one minute each subsequent infusion)
Aroma: Floral
Flavor: Floral, Honey and Raw Sugar Cane
Tasting Notes: This is definitely a filler tea. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it is a very non-offensive tea that I could easily see this blended in with a Taiwanese High Mountain Oolong. I’ve been hearing for years that Taiwanese farmers mix their oolongs with cheaper teas of equal quality from Vietnam and Thailand, and never really believed it until now.



While this is a very good flowery oolong, I am not sure if I would buy it again even though it is easily worth the $9.60 (as of writing this), but it has a lot of tough competition in this price range. I know Alistair has sourced some High Mountain Oolongs recently and I am curious how this compares to them. I can easily say that this is my favorite of these three regardless while I like more complex teas, this was quite nice. I said before that this is filler tea and I was considering trying to be more diplomatic about it, but I decided against doing so. While the leaves may have been rolled way too pass as a Taiwanese Oolong, it is the perfect tea to blend with more expensive teas without changing the taste. In fact I used my leftover leaves and mixed equal parts with Beautiful Taiwan Teas DaYuLing and a nonpareil DaYuLing that I got from Teavivre and I honestly could not tell the What-Cha/BTT Flowery DaYuLing & What-Cha/Teavivre Nonparel-Flowery-DaYuLing from the unblended DaYuLings.


Vietnam Wild Mountain Mist Silver Needle White Tea
Origin: Soui Giang, Yen Bai Province, Vietnam
Elevation:  1200m+

Dry Leaves: The leaves are fairly typical of Silver Needle teas, although they were surprisingly crisp most Silver Needles that I have had has been very pliable and soft. Besides that for the most part these leaves are fairly uniform, I did notice the occasional fuzzy leaf, but for the most part the leaves are lightly twisted and have a pleasant pine needle smell.

Temperature: 176oF
Brewing Time: One Minute (adding one minute each subsequent infusion)
Aroma: Pine and Citrus
Flavor: Melon, Smoke and Vanilla
Tasting Notes: Wow. This is quite a strange tea, even though the packaging clearly sells it has a gentle smoke taste, I was not really expecting it; like the Red Buffalo, this taste like a purple tea.




I could see myself buying this again even though for 50g at $16 (at the time of writing) it is a little expensive; I have not encountered any smoky silver needles before. Normally I am not a fan of unscented silver needles, but those smoky notes make this tea really interesting. At first I wanted to say that this was my favorite of the three teas I looked at today, but I don’t often drink white teas and I always feel Oolongs have an unfair advantage over all teas since it has an incredible range of tastes; although the pricing isn’t that unusual, Teavivre has two silver Needles for $17.90 for 50g (at the time of writing this) of a comparable quality.


Overall I was very impressed although, foolishly, I was expecting to fall in love with the Red Buffalo, but I am not too disappointed. Perhaps I was being too optimistic about the Red Buffalo when I have a history of preferring green and floral oolongs over roasted ones. Regardless I am excited to try the three greens next and a little anxious of the Dark and Black tea that was included in this sampler.
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