Tie Guan Yin, Modern Green Style in album tea
In Albums: tea
Sep 6th, 2011, by Alex Zorach
This shows the dry leaf of a very inexpensive Tie Guan Yin oolong tea in the modern green style. You can also see a photo of the tea canister that this tea came in. Traditionally, Tie Guan Yin was produced with a darker roast, but in recent years, the greener styles (less roasted, less oxidized) have become more popular. Although in some respects this style is more like green tea in color and flavor, I find these teas are more like other oolongs than like green teas.
This particular batch was an inexpensive batch that one of my friends brought me back from China. This tea is certainly not the highest quality but I found it interesting to drink as it closely resembles what is widely consumed in China nowadays. The nickel for size comparison shows that these leaves are not particularly tightly rolled. Often, higher-quality oolongs are rolled more tightly.
I wrote about this tea on my blog post Tie Guan Yin modern green style: everyday tea.