Over the weekend, we opened up a sample of Organic Wyuan Ruikong China Green Tea (Upton item #ZG33). First, my husband made some iced tea with it. For one batch, we used 4 teaspoons of tea with 18 ounces of water; for the second, we used 3 teaspoons of tea with the same amount of water. The first batch was ok, but required a bit of sweetener and some diluting to be palatable. The second batch was quite good — it had an earthy quality, with some grassy overtones. It’s currently our second favorite iced green tea (after the Organic Gunpowder).

I also made one mug of this hot, using 2 teaspoons of tea with 12 ounces of nearly boiling water. I brewed it for 3 minutes. The first mug had a heavy grassy-veering-toward-fishy taste — I did not enjoy it much. But each subsequent infusion lost that harsh flavor, and some surprising sweet tones came out. I reinfused the leaves four times, increasing both the temperature and the time each time, and drying the leaves out between the 2nd and 3rd infusion. I like this tea, a lot. It was quite refreshing in the afternoon.